I will Believe the Book of Mormon as history when...

[_Daniel Peterson]

Have you ever even actually read most of what they've published? Have you, for example, read Sorenson's Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, or his Images of Ancient America?

I can honestly say that I have given it "AT LEAST" as much attention, review, commentary, time and investigation as the academic and professional peer group (non-LDS) of Clark, Sorenson and secular academic community has. Does that allow me enough background to comment?

No. It doesn't.

Which makes my point. Yet again.

This is one of the most ridiculous statements you have made yet, and you've had some really ridiculous ones. . . . Can you get any more looney??!![

I'm trying to remember. I don't believe that I've ever seen any sign from you that you're capable of respectful and civil conversation. Am I forgetting something?

You seem to presume that all those who make a career in academics are of equal caliber and have equal ability to think "rationally". Many, actually have had a career outside of Provo and bring some practical experience and rational thought to the table.

I realize that you intend to insult me, but your efforts are merely silly.

I've published with the University of Chicago Press, Oxford University Press, Eerdmans, Macmillan, E. J. Brill (The Netherlands), etc. I've lectured (in English, German, and Arabic) at universities across the United States, as well as in Canada, Turkey, Singapore, Australia, England, Jordan, Austria, Taiwan, New Zealand, Egypt, Syria, Malaysia, France, Indonesia, etc. Next year, the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science will host an international scholarly meeting in Kuwait City to honor the translation series that I founded, direct, and edit. And so forth.

Your determined attempt to portray me as a pathetic provincial with no life beyond Provo is, well, rather odd.

Because experts know what to pay attention to and what to ignore.

For several centuries, by law, the library at Cambridge University has been entitled to a copy of every book published in England. But Cambridge has the right to turn down books that it doesn't want, since it doesn't want to clutter its bookshelves with junk.

During the lifetimes of the authors, Cambridge never accepted any work by Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, or Jane Austen.

Why?

Because experts know what to pay attention to and what to ignore. The mere fact that such work continues to be ignored is about as obvious as it can get! Your attempts to defer the judgement of such work to an infinite future chasm of time is idiotic!

[_JustMe]

Daniel Peterson

I've published with the University of Chicago Press, Oxford University Press, Eerdmans, Macmillan, E. J. Brill (The Netherlands), etc. I've lectured (in English, German, and Arabic) at universities across the United States, as well as in Canada, Turkey, Singapore, Australia, England, Jordan, Austria, Taiwan, New Zealand, Egypt, Syria, Malaysia, France, Indonesia, etc. Next year, the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science will host an international scholarly meeting in Kuwait City to honor the translation series that I founded, direct, and edit. And so forth.

Oh we get it now. You really are just a wannabe hack pseudo-scholar ain't ya? Fess it up Peterson!

[_JustMe]

joey asks

Is Mormonism that isolated and insulated that all thought of individual creative think is as confined as the works of Clark and Sorenson on Book of Mormon historicity apparently are???

Sometimes it comes across stronger when answering a question with a question. Is joey that isolated and insulated that all thought of Mormonism is confined as what he reads about Mormonism from non-Mormons apparently are???

[_JustMe]

joey

Perhaps why your seemingly alliegence to the "gospel doctrine" teaching that; When the Peterson has spoken, the thinking has been done"!!!

Your depth of perception stuns even me.

[_beastie]

I know, I know! Ain't it fun, I mean ain't it FUN?!

It's actually pathetic. I have more to say about why it's pathetic, but that will have to wait until after work.

In the meantime, please share which of Coe's works you've read.

[_beastie]

I've published with the University of Chicago Press, Oxford University Press, Eerdmans, Macmillan, E. J. Brill (The Netherlands), etc. I've lectured (in English, German, and Arabic) at universities across the United States, as well as in Canada, Turkey, Singapore, Australia, England, Jordan, Austria, Taiwan, New Zealand, Egypt, Syria, Malaysia, France, Indonesia, etc. Next year, the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science will host an international scholarly meeting in Kuwait City to honor the translation series that I founded, direct, and edit. And so forth.

Even with that resume, you're still not able to answer a simple question:

And just how do you interpret Sorenson's and Clark's argument? Was the Nephite polity a powerful force that attracted the attention of Teotihuacan, or was it a minor polity that would not have attracted the attention of such a powerful polity?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Gregor Mendel (d. 1884), an Austrian Augustinian priest and scientist, is often called the father of genetics for his study of the inheritance of traits in pea plants.

Mendel read his paper, "Experiments on Plant Hybridization," at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia in 1865. In it, he demonstrated that the inheritance of traits follows particular laws. When the paper was published in 1866 in Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brünn, it had little impact. In fact, it seems that it was cited only three times over the next thirty-five years.

Why? "Because," as Pal Joey observes, "experts know what to pay attention to and what to ignore. The mere fact that such work continue[d] to be ignored is about as obvious as it can get! . . . [A]ttempts to defer the judgement of such work to an infinite future chasm of time is [sic] idiotic!" When a work is published, one can soon determine its quality by checking its sales figures.

In 1900 -- sixteen years after Mendel's death and thirty-five years after he read his papers to the Natural History Society of Brünn -- his work was rediscovered by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns. (Though Erich von Tschermak was originally also credited with the rediscovery, this is no longer accepted because he plainly misunderstood Mendel's laws -- which, yes, are now named after Gregor Mendel.) The rediscovery prompted the foundation of the discipline of genetics, and is fundamental to the neo-Darwinist synthesis.

[_JustMe]

beastie

Even with that resume, you're still not able to answer a simple question:

Your error is more than obvious. My impression is that Peterson can easily answer anything anyone here has ever thrown at him. The issue is not capability, rather, desireability. Surely a vast difference.

[_JustMe]

beastie

It's actually pathetic.

It's all in the perception and attitude...... I am rather having fun. I can more than understand why you think it is pathetic.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Alfred Wegener (d. 1930) was a German scientist who is most notable for the theory of continental drift (Kontinentalverschiebung) that he proposed in 1912. In that theory, he hypothesized that the continents were slowly drifting around the Earth. At the time, however, Wegener was unable to demonstrate a plausible mechanism for this movement, and that fact, combined with a lack of solid supporting evidence for his proposal, meant that the hypothesis of continental drift was not accepted until the 1950s – in other words, two to three decades after his tragic death in Greenland and roughly a half-century after he first proposed his hypothesis -- when numerous discoveries provided evidence of it.

Why was Wegener’s work ignored and rejected for half a century? "Because," as the historian of science Pal Joey has demonstrated, "experts know what to pay attention to and what to ignore. The mere fact that such work continue[d] to be ignored is about as obvious as it can get! . . . [A]ttempts to defer the judgement of such work to an infinite future chasm of time is [sic] idiotic!" When a work is published, one can soon (and easily) determine its merit by presuming that people who may or may not be familiar with it have rejected it.

The theory of plate tectonics, directly descended from the hypothesis of continental drift, is now fundamental to many areas of geology and geophysics, and Alfred Wegener is widely recognized as the founding father of one of the major scientific revolutions of the twentieth century.