The Mormon Apologist's Modus Operandi

[_Daniel Peterson]

1.

Notice how Scratch, projecting through his sock puppet here, has both sought to personalize the debate (item #1 on his list) and to play the victim card (item #2): The nasssssssty apologists have threatened to murder poor Scratch and various of his disciples, etc., etc., etc.

2.

I have, of course, never "promised" to "never" post substance here, and have, in fact, done so many times. I've never seen anything much come of it, though.

[_Gadianton Plumber]

Sure. And I'm the Tooth Fairy.

Do you have any sort of reason the think he is a sock puppet? Any evidence or textual analysis? Is the idea of someone agreeing to be too ridiculous? Or are you perhaps deflecting a tad?

[_Doctor Scratch]

Those are pretty poor examples, Dr. Peterson. Just two issues, out of all the many years that the FARMS Review has been around?

They were simply two exceptionally obvious counterexamples.

Yes, I know. That's why you chose them. Frankly, I don't know what other issues you could have possible selected, mainly since other such issues do not exist.

Any issue of the FARMS Review will serve quite well, actually, to expose your caricature for what it is.

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/

Well, I'm convinced! Who would have thunk it: a very general link that takes the reader to nothing in particular. What a great point! I'm blown away by the force of your rhetoric, Dr. Peterson! I'm sure that any TBM who happens to be lurking is going to say to him or herself, "Well, DCP posted a link!!! Wow! It doesn't tell me anything specific, nor does it seem to make a clear or salient point, but, hey---I'll just believe him!"

Don't you think you would have been better off saying, "Well, I could develop this point in detail, but, unfortunately, I'm off to a screening of Kiarostami's A Taste of Cherry, and after that I'll be thumbing through scholarship on the Vulgate of St. Jerome"?

That doesn't stack up very well against the thousands of pages that *do* fit with Doctor CamNC4Me's post.

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/

A textbook illustration of point D) from Dr. C's list.

Further, his points relate to "debating all things Mormon." Can it really be said that the FARMS Review, with its rigged peer review process

A Scratchite dogma for which there is absolutely no evidence (unless repetition be counted as "evidence").

Now, this is odd. You seem to be saying that the process is *not* rigged. Then, R. Crockett insists that *all* peer review is rigged. Don't you think that the two of you need to get on the same page? And, in any case, you essentially admitted that you carefully select your peer reviewers to uphold Mopologetic dogma. This was in, If I recall correctly, "The Witchcraft Paradigm."

and its almost purely solicitation-only publication policy

A feature of the FARMS Review that is pretty much standard for scholarly book reviewing.

Of the many academic book reviews that I've done, all but one or two were solicited by the academic journal's book review editor.

You have said this many times before, and it's extraordinarily misleading. It's one thing to solicit scholarly book reviews for an academic journal; it's something entirely different to produce an entire journal that is devoted to "book reviews" that slander, smear, and attack the authors, sometimes over the course of hundreds of pages. I'll bet that the editors that solicited reviews from you did not ask you knowing that you'd engage in character assassination of the authors. Can the same really be said for the editor of the FARMS Review, who once knowingly allowed a "Metcalfe is Butthead" acrostic to be published in this "scholarly" "book review" "journal"?

To claim that the "reviews" in FARMS Review resemble academic book reviews in any substantive way is grossly misleading.

is engaged in anything resembling "debate"?

Yup. Absolutely. It's immersed right in the middle of a major debate.

Please. You are going to have an extremely hard time explaining how hit pieces on Mike Quinn, gossip about Signature Books, hokey attacks on Loftes Tryk, and gauche dismissals of FHE games all fit into some "major debate." (And where is the counter-response to this stuff, one wonders?) This has to be among the more laughable claims you've ever tried to make.

And Doctor Cam is a separate poster.

Sure. And I'm the Tooth Fairy.

If you feel comfortable, as a believing Latter-day Saint, making false accusations, then go right ahead.

[_Gadianton Plumber]

1.

Notice how Scratch, projecting through his sock puppet here, has both sought to personalize the debate (item #1 on his list) and to play the victim card (item #2): The nasssssssty apologists have threatened to murder poor Scratch and various of his disciples, etc., etc., etc.

Seriously, why the obsession with sock puppets?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hello,

I am surprised at the lack of Dr. Peterson's discernment. I thought that was a gift from the Holy Ghost? I am not, nor have I ever been, Dr. Scratch.

Very Respectfully,

Doctor CamNC4Me

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Harmony writes:

I don't have to be either, Ben. Do you really divide people up into just 2 camps?

Yes I do. People either belong to the group of people who divide people into two groups ... or they don't. I simply was using the two labels because the OP used the two labels. I wasn't trying to infer something by it (although I apparently did). My point is simply that participants of these kinds of forums frequently engage in these behaviors on all sides of any discussion. And I provided examples.

I do not believe that these behaviors are necessarily bad. If we always stuck exactly on topic for everything, we wouldn't have most of the meaningful discussions that occur in these forums. However to label these behaviors as being specifically characteristic of a particular group when you engage in them yourself seems to be a bit much, don't you think? It doesn't matter if we want to say that this person or that person may be particularly guilty of this tactic or that tactic - creating stereotypes as a way of dealing with an argument isn't a very good way to promote real discussion.

I think if you want to single out Dr. Peterson as a guilty party then perhaps we should have a different discussion. Otherwise, it is merely a distraction to the issue laid out in the OP. Do you think that making threats is somehow a trait that is peculiar to Mormon Apologists in these forums?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Frankly, I don't know what other issues you could have possible selected, mainly since other such issues do not exist.

We've published over twenty volumes of the FARMS Review, by far most of them with two issues each. Any one of them, if fairmindedly read, will refute your claims.

Any issue of the FARMS Review will serve quite well, actually, to expose your caricature for what it is.

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/

Well, I'm convinced! Who would have thunk it: a very general link that takes the reader to nothing in particular. What a great point! I'm blown away by the force of your rhetoric, Dr. Peterson! I'm sure that any TBM who happens to be lurking is going to say to him or herself, "Well, DCP posted a link!!! Wow! It doesn't tell me anything specific, nor does it seem to make a clear or salient point, but, hey---I'll just believe him!"

I provided a link that will take any interested person to every issue of the FARMS Review ever published. Such a person is welcome to choose any issue he or she wants, and to examine it to see whether your accusations and characterizations are justified. For any reasonable and fair-mined person, that will be the most comprehensive and complete refutation of you that can be conceived.

Now, this is odd. You seem to be saying that the process is *not* rigged. Then, R. Crockett insists that *all* peer review is rigged. Don't you think that the two of you need to get on the same page?

Not particularly. I'm not sure that we were using the term rigged in the same sense. In any event, I'm the editor of the FARMS Review, I've been the editor for two decades, I know the process intimately, and I stand by my statement.

(Whereas, just to be clear, you have no connection to the FARMS Review, you've never been involved in editing it, you have no actual access to the confidential editorial process, and, as you typically do, you're just making things up.)

And, in any case, you essentially admitted that you carefully select your peer reviewers to uphold Mopologetic dogma. This was in, If I recall correctly, "The Witchcraft Paradigm."

Anybody who is interested can read that essay and judge for him- or herself whether your accusation is true:

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/? ... m=2&id=621

You have said this many times before, and it's extraordinarily misleading. It's one thing to solicit scholarly book reviews for an academic journal; it's something entirely different to produce an entire journal that is devoted to "book reviews" that slander, smear, and attack the authors, sometimes over the course of hundreds of pages.

You seem to have deluded yourself into the assumption that everybody here -- including me! -- accepts this fundamental tenet of Scratchist demonology as if it were established fact.

Please. You are going to have an extremely hard time explaining how hit pieces on Mike Quinn, gossip about Signature Books, hokey attacks on Loftes Tryk, and gauche dismissals of FHE games all fit into some "major debate." (And where is the counter-response to this stuff, one wonders?)

The counter-response comes from people like Quinn, from places like Signature Books, etc. They publish something, we respond, they respond to us, we reply to them -- this is what's often called "debate."

This has to be among the more laughable claims you've ever tried to make.

Laugh all you want. It's true, nonetheless. And obviously so.

Of course, I've never seen the slightest indication of any interest on your part in substantive arguments, as opposed to slander and gossip and character assassination, so I'm not surprised that it's escaped your attention.

[_RockSlider]

I have, of course, never "promised" to "never" post substance here, and have, in fact, done so many times. I've never seen anything much come of it, though.

This was a serious inquiry
viewtopic.php?p=254461#p254461

[_Daniel Peterson]

This was a serious inquiry

I also never promised to follow every thread -- I'd never, until now, even opened that one -- let alone to read and respond to every post.

Sorry. This isn't my job.

[_RockSlider]

This was a serious inquiry

I also never promised to follow every thread -- I'd never, until now, even opened that one -- let alone to read and respond to every post.

Sorry. This isn't my job.

I assumed that was the case .. just trying to draw your attention to it ...

Sorry, will not bother you futher