Orthopraxy in Apologetics?

[_LifeOnaPlate]

I received comments from reviewers (plural). As with my Dialogue piece the peer reviewers were not identified but there were several.

Best,

BHodges

[_LifeOnaPlate]

I stand by my conclusions, which were based on LoaP's description of the process. He can post the materials if he wants to dispel my observations.

I can't post them because they contain secret information about the Packer faction, of course! (And whatever other ridiculous theories you want to invent from whole cloth to try and get me to post my notes). How long will you keep slandering me to goad me into posting, Scratch? Or are you just lying for the Lord? Or are you avoiding talking about my actual review in favor of some sort of ad hominem attack (a la FARMS?)?

Oh well, I think the sane folk on the board see through your nonsense enough for me to let it go now. Those who wish to read my review are free to do so. Contrary to Scratch's opinions, it's no "smear piece."


Oh, and Scratch, Bishop Allen rocks.

Best!

[_Doctor Scratch]

I stand by my conclusions, which were based on LoaP's description of the process. He can post the materials if he wants to dispel my observations.

I can't post them because they contain secret information about the Packer faction, of course! (And whatever other ridiculous theories you want to invent from whole cloth to try and get me to post my notes). How long will you keep slandering me to goad me into posting, Scratch? Or are you just lying for the Lord? Or are you avoiding talking about my actual review in favor of some sort of ad hominem attack (a la FARMS?)?

Oh well, I think the sane folk on the board see through your nonsense enough for me to let it go now. Those who wish to read my review are free to do so. Contrary to Scratch's opinions, it's no "smear piece."


Oh, and Scratch, Bishop Allen rocks.

Best!

Yes! Of Course! No reason to post, of course:

here come the black suburbans
1, 2, and 3
here come the black suburbans
looking after me
and I see myself reflected in their tinted windows
and I smile
I feel so safe when they're around me
I really hope they stay a while

they got the secret numbers
they got the skeleton key
they got a tap on my telephone line
finally someone listens to me
and every night I hear 'um
as they crawl around inside of my walls
I guess I must've been suspicious
or else a neighbor tipped 'um off

and if you're feeling lonely
like just another so and so
write a letter to anyone
they'll be looking through your mail, you know

here come the black suburbans
1, 2, and 3
here come the black suburbans
looking after me
and I see myself reflected in their tinted windows
and I smile
I feel so safe when they're around me
I really hope they stay a while

[_Nightlion]

The signs are there. "He was just a man" is a criticism or an apologetic -- it just depends, "Mormonism has no theology" is another example of many, many controversial lines of argumentation apologists explore in order to rescue the church in ways that many observers might think hurts the church more than it helps. Sure, from a Chapel Mormon perspective, it's easy to be outraged by the whole lot of apologetic intellectualism, but man, what if the Internet Mormons are largely just bluffing their way through their reverse engineering project and don't really know themselves what they're doing -- assuming the church as true and working backwards however they need to in order to keep it that way with no agreed upon rules? Well, then, one has to know who their friends are. The content of a paper is less important than its provenance -- who wrote it? Does that person have a testimony and how do we know? Does he have a calling? Does he speak highly of the senior apologists at the MI? Quite bluntly, can we account for this person as an apologist? Orthopraxy in apologetics becomes more important than orthodoxy. If the peer reviewers couldn't tell if Trevor's paper was an apologetic, and had to know his personal story in order to make a determination of its value, whoah, this is huge!

It would really interest me if there was anyone who would amp up the resonance to this part of the OP. Thanks

[_Dr. Shades]

It would really interest me if there was anyone who would amp up the resonance to this part of the OP. Thanks

Never ask others to do what you can do for yourself.

[_ttribe]

No, Tim. What you're proposing/arguing doesn't make any sense for a variety of reasons. At heart, you're just mad that LoaP has been asked to prove that FARMS does in fact use legit peer review. You can claim that this is "unfair" (or whatever) because you don't think that LoaP should be the one who's responsible for defending FARMS's practices, and that's fine.... But that's not really what you're trying to prove with your silly JAMA example. What you're trying to prove, instead, is that it's unreasonable to question peer review generally. But there's not really any basis for your position. It *is* okay to question peer review as a process. (Legit peer review exists, in a sense, to question itself. It exists to allow scholars to question one another's positions without personal issues getting in the way. "Personal issues" can still creep into individual comments and observations, but that is a separate concern.)

What you are saying, in effect, is: "Hey! You can't question peer review at FARMS! You'd never do that if it was JAMA we were talking about!" And all I can say is: Yes. You're right. I have no reason to question JAMA's peer review. JAMA, as far as I know, does not publish attack pieces on "crank" doctors. JAMA, as far as I know, doesn't pick apart the physiology of the red-nosed guy in the game Operation!. JAMA, as far as I know, publishes original research, rather than a lot of book reviews. JAMA, last I checked, was not claiming that a vast civilization, for which there is little to no physical evidence, existed in Meso America.

But there is a lot of reason to wonder what sort of peer review is happening at FARMS. Honestly, Tim---think about what you are arguing here. Can you honestly say that you believe that "Metcalfe is Butthead" is the sort of thing that would happen at JAMA, or The Lancet or Nature?

On the other hand, if one of these medical journals suddenly began publishing a series of articles which all seemed to support the findings of, say, GlaxoSmithKline---and that, in fact, except for very limp and occasional criticism, *all* of the articles seemed aimed at supporting this pharmaceutical company, and that, moreover, lots of very personal articles were being published with personally attacked scientists and researchers at other journals and pharmaceutical companies.... Then yes, I'd be more than happy to inquire into their peer review.

Nice deflection. Let me spell this out for you - you've set up a no-win situation. If the folks at MI were to comply with this request of yours, you'd twist every last note into evidence of "guiding" the conclusions and/or PROOF that the journal doesn't follow "normal" standards because other journals would never hand that information over to an anonymous Internet poster such as yourself. I'm curious, why is it you think that anyone would take your requests seriously?

But, as I've said, it's really not that big of a deal. If the powers that be at FARMS decide that they believe in transparency, and that they want to discuss their process in more detail, I'll be the first to applaud them for it. I mean, what do they have to hide? OOOhhh! Oh no! The critics might [i]notice something!

Ahh, so the anonymous Internet message board crank is interested in "transparency"? I asked you before, I'll ask you again - what features do you think should exist in the MI review process?

here come the black suburbans[snipped for brevity's sake]

I hope other readers are as amused as me at the irony of you being the one accusing others of harboring irrational conspiracy theories.

P.S. Why is it you feel compelled to use my first name in your posts?

[_ttribe]

I received comments from reviewers (plural). As with my Dialogue piece the peer reviewers were not identified but there were several.

Best,

BHodges

There you go Scratch. Is it obvious now that you completely misrepresented Blair's words?

[_mfbukowski]

It seems to me there may be a dimension of orthopraxy in apologetics that I'd never contemplated until recently. Now, fair warning here, this is going to be sort of a mind-bending discussion and quite speculative. I offer these thoughts as points for contemplation and discussion, please do not take them as an indication that I've rejected the Standard Model -- Internet/Chapel Mormonism.

Yeah, uh huh.

You guys crack me up. Shocking news! People listen to people who are on their own side in religious debates! Horrible news!

A quote from John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty:

Such considerations point to the conclusion that the ultimate ground of the quest for cognitive certainty is the need for security in the results of action. Men readily persuade themselves that they are devoted to intellectual certainty for its own sake. Actually they want it because of its bearing on safeguarding what they desire and esteem. The need for protection and prosperity in action created the need for warranting the validity of intellectual beliefs.

So I suppose you believe in the fiction of an "objective observer"- is that what you are saying?

Good luck with your fantasies. And I thought you guys were the ones who didn't believe in Santa Claus.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Nice deflection. Let me spell this out for you - you've set up a no-win situation. If the folks at MI were to comply with this request of yours, you'd twist every last note into evidence of "guiding" the conclusions and/or PROOF that the journal doesn't follow "normal" standards because other journals would never hand that information over to an anonymous Internet poster such as yourself.

This is precisely why I've characterized your and LoaP's dodging of the request as "paranoia." "Oh, no! You'll twist everything!" (Plus, you've extended your paranoia over to other, respectable journals, though I can tell you that colleagues have shared their peer reviewers' comments with me in the past.) Plus, you seem to think that I am the only one who would read the FARMS comments on LoaP's essay, even though others (such as Liz, and perhaps Beastie) have also said that they're curious about the process. So, in reality, LoaP is afraid to show them to *anyone*---and not just me.

I'm curious, why is it you think that anyone would take your requests seriously?

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I've always assumed that the Mopologists genuinely want to establish their legitimacy. Thus, I assume that they would want to do everything in their power to show just how careful they are being in their work.

Ahh, so the anonymous Internet message board crank is interested in "transparency"? I asked you before, I'll ask you again - what features do you think should exist in the MI review process?

The same features that exist in standard peer review---especially reviewers who are chosen principally for expertise rather than ideological fealty.

[_ttribe]

This is precisely why I've characterized your and LoaP's dodging of the request as "paranoia." "Oh, no! You'll twist everything!" (Plus, you've extended your paranoia over to other, respectable journals, though I can tell you that colleagues have shared their peer reviewers' comments with me in the past.) Plus, you seem to think that I am the only one who would read the FARMS comments on LoaP's essay, even though others (such as Liz, and perhaps Beastie) have also said that they're curious about the process. So, in reality, LoaP is afraid to show them to *anyone*---and not just me.

You don't have the foggiest idea whether LoaP has shown the notes to anyone else. You're speculating because he refuses to post the notes to an Internet message board. That's just incredible.

By the way, how exactly, can it be categorized as "paranoia" when you keep doing exactly what I said you would?

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I've always assumed that the Mopologists genuinely want to establish their legitimacy. Thus, I assume that they would want to do everything in their power to show just how careful they are being in their work.

I don't think it could be reasonably expected that such a desire would extend to addressing the requests of ax-grinding Internet cranks.

The same features that exist in standard peer review---especially reviewers who are chosen principally for expertise rather than ideological fealty.

And do you have some suggestions on who such individuals would be?


by the way, I notice you still haven't addressed the fact that you completely misrepresented LoaP's words in your first post in this thread. You seem to keep trying to bury that fact.