FAIR: Wordprint analysis and the Book of Mormon | DesNews

[_Simon Belmont]

I love Utter Nonsense's comments.

Let's examine one:

How surprising! FAIR and FARMS come up with yet another "study" that shows the Book of Mormon and the church are true. Has any of their research EVER come up with a different answer?

This is a huge duh! comment. Why would UN expect an organization whose stated purpose is to defend and proclaim the truthfulness of the church to ever come up with a different answer?

Does UN expect professional basketball players to ever perform the duties of a physician?
Does UN expect a pencil to ever write in ink?
Does UN expect an anti-Mormon who demonizes the church to ever come up with a different answer?

Only in Utah would you find a newspaper printing sermons (because that's what that article is), and it's not even Sunday!

It is not a sermon.

[_Daniel Peterson]

You actually expect Fields to engage the paper? What rock have you been living under?

Oh my. The irony of this comment is so thick, and so horrifically painful, that I can't fail to reply.

As the Deseret News article mentioned, Fields and Roper and Schaalje have in fact engaged the paper, by publishing a response in the very same academic publication, the Journal of Literary and Linguistic Computing.

In his presentation at FAIR, Dr. Fields summarized that response -- which contains no "name calling" or "mudslinging" but is, rather, crammed to the gills with statistical reasoning and historical data. Among other things, it directly addresses the question of whether and why and how authenticated writings of Joseph Smith ought to have been incorporated into the Criddle study, and it does in fact incorporate authenticated writings of Joseph Smith into its own analysis.

It's richly humorous to see somebody lamenting Dr. Fields's supposed failure to engage the Criddle paper, when Dr. Fields has done precisely that while the person doing the lamenting plainly hasn't accurately engaged even a newspaper article.

[_jon]

Which version did they use for the analysis, the original one or the current one with all the changes and amendments and additional words?

[_3sheets2thewind]

You actually expect Fields to engage the paper? What rock have you been living under?

Oh my. The irony of this comment is so thick, and so horrifically painful, that I can't fail to reply.

As the Deseret News article mentioned, Fields and Roper and Schaalje have in fact engaged the paper, by publishing a response in the very same academic publication, the Journal of Literary and Linguistic Computing.

In his presentation at FAIR, Dr. Fields summarized that response -- which contains no "name calling" or "mudslinging" but is, rather, crammed to the gills with statistical reasoning and historical data. Among other things, it directly addresses the question of whether and why and how authenticated writings of Joseph Smith ought to have been incorporated into the Criddle study, and it does in fact incorporate authenticated writings of Joseph Smith into its own analysis.

the article mentions a response article, that DN article does not mention Fields own work that included Joseph Smith writings. The DN article only mentions attacks on methodology.

If Fields et al, had something of substance based on their own analysis one would think he would have mentioned it at a FAIR conference, but I tend to believe, as has been my experience with "LDS defenders" that truth and substance must be set aside for when the truth and substance do not support "the agenda".

If Fields has his own "wordprint" analysis, wherein he included Joseph Smith, then why would R.S.L have failed to included that information? Did fields not present those findings at the FIAR Conference? and if so, why didn't he.

here is something I found concerning the response article....

"In January 2011 Bruce Schaalje, Paul Fields, and Matthew Roper of BYU, along with Gregory Snow of Intermountain Health Care released a study outlining problems with the Jockers study in the same Oxford journal of Literary and Lingustic Computing. While acknowledging that NSC is a good method for wordprint studies, they detailed several problems with the Jockers study, noting a “naïve application of NSC methodology” led to “misleading results.” Jockers et al had used a closed set of 7 authors for their study. Schaalje’s study showed that an open set of candidate authors “produced dramatically different results from a closed-set NSC analysis.”"

so all they did was a methodology attack with no other substance to offer. And this is what I mean of typical par for the course "LDS defender" tactics, attack with out offering substance to refute or prove claims wrong.

[_Brackite]

I do Not believe in the The Spaulding-Rigdon theory for the Book of Mormon. I do not really know how the Book of Mormon came to be. I don't believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, mainly because of the DNA evidence that is against its historicity. Speaking of DNA evidence, are there any notes out yet from the speech that Ugo Perego gave last Friday???