Stylometry might give objective evidence that Ayers was Obama's ghost writer

[Grig]

Stylometry is the study of linguistic style. It is often used to attribute authorship to anonymous or disputed documents.

Modern stylometry relies on computers for statistical analysis of texts. By analyzing a text known of known authorship a comparison can be made with the analysis of a disputed or unknown text to determine if it was written by the same author. There is a freeware program called Signature (produced by Dr Peter Millican of Oxford University) that makes it possible for even for the non-expert to check the authorship of a text. It can be downloaded at http://www.philocomp.net/?pageref=humanities&page=signature

If Ayers actually wrote Obama's book(s), then this might provide objective, scientific evidence to support the accusation. In addition to the program we will need some or all of the text of one of Obama's books, and one of Ayers books. Anybody know if these are available online? If they aren't someone may need to scan them to text.

It would also be good to have something we know Obama did write himself (like say a thesis) to rule out his style being like Ayers style, but I don't know if there is any reliable source like that available. Speeches written for him wouldn't show his style.

[supercat]

What does it matter if Ayers wrote Obama’s book? No-one is going to care, if he did.

Obama stated unequivocally that he had little relationship with Ayers. If Ayers in fact wrote Obama's books, that would imply that either:

1. Obama's "autobiographies" were written by someone who had little relationship with him. That would imply that they were multi-million-dollar frauds perpetrated against the American public, and further, that any image of Obama that people got from the books was a total fabrication.

2. Obama flat out lied about his relationship with someone of dubious character. Flat out lied, in a manner that no amount of Liberal Mind Fog can conceal.

If Ayers' authorship could be proven in a way that could penetrate LMF, Obama would be toast.

[expatpat]

in a manner that no amount of Liberal Mind Fog can conceal.

Wanna bet?

[supercat]

in a manner that no amount of Liberal Mind Fog can conceal.

Wanna bet?

Getting through to someone the fact that Obama's "autobiographies" were written by Ayers would be difficult. I think that if they were actually persuaded of that, their view toward Obama would change. Unfortunately, liberals are very good at coming up with rationalizations as to how things can be other than what they are (e.g. one to whom I was walking four years ago claimed that Kilian had saved the memos to a computer file and later reprinted it).

[sceaf]

If anyone is comfortable with statistics and wants to run a comparison of Ayers/Obama with Signature, I have all of the books in text format.
sceaf@yahoo.com