Smart Ash - Do these idiots have no shame

[_lostindc]

I want to preface that I am not stating whether something is true or false in the below quotes. I am stating that you have obviously never worked for the federal gov't and have not been around many geographers if you think any of these statements carry any actual weight. I imagine, the Smithsonian has probably offered a retraction of their statement or at least some sort of back pedaling. These are the type of statements, ussually carried out by one person or a small group, that get gov't agencies into trouble. I imagine this would not happen in the current era.

Letter from 1988:

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20560

Your recent inquiry concerning the Smithsonian Institution's alleged use of the Book of Mormon as a scientific guide has been received in the Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology.

The Book of Mormon is a religious document and not a scientific guide. The Smithsonian Institution has never used it in archeological research and any information that you have received to the contrary is incorrect. Accurate information about the Smithsonian's position is contained in the enclosed "Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon," which was prepared to respond to the numerous inquiries that the Smithsonian receives on this topic.

Because the Smithsonian regards the unauthorized use of its name to disseminate inaccurate information as unlawful, we would appreciate your assistance in providing us with the names of any individuals who are misusing the Smithsonian's name. Please address any correspondence to:

Public Information Officer
Department of Anthropology
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560

PREPARED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

STATEMENT REGARDING THE Book of Mormon

1. The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide. Smithsonian archeologists see no direct connection between the archeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.

2. The physical type of the American Indian is basically Mongoloid, being most closely related to that of the peoples of eastern, central, and northeastern Asia. Archeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of the present Indians came into the New World--probably over a land bridge known to have existed in the Bering Strait region during the last Ice Age--in a continuing series of small migrations beginning from about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago.

3. Present evidence indicates that the first people to reach this continent from the East were the Norsemen who briefly visited the northeastern part of North America around A.D. 1000 and then settled in Greenland. There is nothing to show that they reached Mexico or Central America.

4. One of the main lines of evidence supporting the scientific finding that contacts with Old World civilizations, if indeed they occurred at all, were of very little significance for the development of American Indian civilizations, is the fact that none of the principal Old World domesticated food plants or animals (except the dog) occurred in the New World in pre-Columbian times. American Indians had no wheat, barley, oats, millet, rice, cattle, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, camels before 1492. (Camels and horses were in the Americas, along with the bison, mammoth, and mastodon, but all these animals became extinct around 10,000 B.C. at the time when the early big game hunters spread across the Americas.)

But Mormons like yourself, who seem blissfully unaware of the science, keep on asking so another statement was issued, this time by the National Geographic Society in 1996:

Thank you for contacting the National Geographic Society. Our position on the Book of Mormon has not changed, nor have we retracted any statements made previously.

The National Geographic Society has not examined the historical claims of the Book of Mormon. We know of no archaeological evidence that corroborates the ancient history of the Western Hemisphere as presented in the Book of Mormon, nor are we aware of empirical verification of the places named in the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon is clearly a work of great spiritual power; millions have read and revered its words, first published by Joseph Smith in 1830. Yet Smith's narration is not generally taken as a scientific source for the history of the Americas. Archaeologists and other scholars have long probed the hemisphere's past, and the Society does not know of anything found so far that has substantiated the Book of Mormon. In fact, students of prehistoric America by and large conclude that the New World's earliest inhabitants arrived from Asia via the Bering land bridge. (Lower sea levels during ice ages exposed the continental shelf beneath Bering Strait, allowing generations of ancient Siberians to migrate east.) National Geographic carried "The First Americans" in its September 1979 issue, perhaps on your library's shelf.

You have every right to talk about faith and unfounded belief because that is your job. You have no standing whatsoever to talk about science or scientific research. This should be self-evident from your lack of any scientific credentials, and it is certainly evident from your misguided statements regarding science and the scientific enterprise.

Sincerely,
DrW

[_Buffalo]

http://www.mormontimes.com/article/21010/Many-interconnected-pieces-of-evidence-support-the-Book-of-Mormon

WTF - this is absolute idiocy!!!!!!

That guy exudes and interesting blend of smugness and willful ignorance. He's the perfect apologist.

[_Phaedrus Ut]

"Many interconnected pieces of evidence" is code speak for the Rube Goldberg Machine approach to LDS apologetics. It involves creating a list supporting evidence as a collection of random theories that don't have to be plausible just theoretically possible and don't have to be internally consistent with each other. Hebraisms prove antiquity but anachronisms are from a "loose translation". NHM is a bullseye but the issues with flora, fauna, & technologies listed are merely using loan words.

It's one giant confirmation bias feed back loop.


Phaedrus

[_Buffalo]

"Many interconnected pieces of evidence" is code speak for the Rube Goldberg Machine approach to LDS apologetics. It involves creating a list supporting evidence as a collection of random theories that don't have to be plausible just theoretically possible and don't have to be internally consistent with each other. Hebraisms prove antiquity but anachronisms are from a "loose translation". NHM is a bullseye but the issues with flora, fauna, & technologies listed are merely using loan words.

It's one giant confirmation bias feed back loop.


Phaedrus

It's a familiar pattern.

[_DrW]

I want to preface that I am not stating whether something is true or false in the below quotes. I am stating that you have obviously never worked for the federal gov't and have not been around many geographers if you think any of these statements carry any actual weight. I imagine, the Smithsonian has probably offered a retraction of their statement or at least some sort of back pedaling. These are the type of statements, ussually carried out by one person or a small group, that get gov't agencies into trouble. I imagine this would not happen in the current era.

As a matter of fact, I have worked for the US Government. I served as a senior scientist and manager in the National Laboratory system and on overseas assignment for DOE and DOD for some 25 years. While in Government service as a contract employee at a National Lab, I authored more than 100 peer reviewed scientific papers, several books, and hold more than a dozen issued patents.

If, as you claim, these kinds of statement are not being issued "in the current era" it is because rational scientists and the staff that support them simply get tired of saying the same thing over and over again to groups of individuals who seem to be too lazy or too poorly educated to find and evaluate the data for themselves.

I understand that LDS are uncomfortable with the US Government in general. I understand that many of them are waiting for the day they believe is surely coming, when some kind of Mormon lead theocracy will be established in the US after its constitution "hangs by a thread".

In the meantime, I simply invite you to consider the advances in technology (the internet), medicine (all manner of MRI and other diagnostic tools), transportation, weaponry, and basic research that has been carried out or sponsored by the US Government.

Sometimes I have a fantasy that Mormons would just go ahead and lead Utah to secede from the union they distrust so much. I would love to see where they end up in 20 years after doing so.

Recognizing from your screen name that that you probably live in DC and are probably uncomfortable doing so, I would still suggest that folks who believe as you do need to get a grip.