DCP's "Humble Apologetics"

[_Daniel Peterson]

Daniel C. Peterson, "The Witchcraft Paradigm: On Claims to 'Second Sight' by People Who Say It Doesn't Exist," FARMS Review 18/2 (2006).

[_Mister Scratch]

You have never established that FARMS uses a legitimate peer review.

Yes I have.

Where? In "The Witchcraft Paradigm"? I already pointed out that you admitted in that article that the bulk of the reviewers are LDS who are loyal to the Brethren and to the polemical agenda of the FARMS Review. Or, would you like to name the reviewers, so that we can judge for ourselves whether or not they are selected on the basis of something other than ideological loyalty?

The standard I used, though, was "what would be persuasive to a reasonable reader," not "what would be persuasive to Master Scartch."

No, the standard you used was, "What will I be able to float over the critics who are too dumb to know better, and what minimum amount of reassurance do I need to proffer to LDS who will likely believe anything I say anyhow?"

You've failed to mention a non-FARMS historical publication which would establish credibility for Book of Mormon historicity arguments.

Moving the goal posts?

Since I don't consider FARMS to use legitimate peer review.... No.

Still waiting!

[_Daniel Peterson]

Or, would you like to name the reviewers, so that we can judge for ourselves whether or not they are selected on the basis of something other than ideological loyalty?

Since we follow the standard academic practice of anonymous peer review, no, I would not like to name the reviewers. Not even for the exalted purpose of helping you fill your creepy "dossiers."

Still waiting!

Life is tough. And then you die.

You're it.

[_antishock8]

Daniel C. Peterson, "The Witchcraft Paradigm: On Claims to 'Second Sight' by People Who Say It Doesn't Exist," FARMS Review 18/2 (2006).

Uh. No. But hey... At least someone thinks you're professional enough to employ. *rolling eyes*

[_Mister Scratch]

Or, would you like to name the reviewers, so that we can judge for ourselves whether or not they are selected on the basis of something other than ideological loyalty?

Since we follow the standard academic practice of anonymous peer review, no, I would not like to name the reviewers. Not even for the exalted purpose of helping you fill your creepy "dossiers."

C'mon, Prof. P. Who do you think you are fooling with this? The peer reviewers in normal academic publications are anonymous primarily in relation to the authors submitting work for publication. Stating the reviewers' names in a random way, without stating which articles they reviewed, would in no way affect the peer review process. Besides, one tends to usually have a pretty good idea of who one's peer reviewers were. Right?

So, once again we find you in the embarrassing situation of hiding something. It's clear that you want so desperately for FARMS to be taken seriously, and for it to be treated as a real, legitimate academic venue. And yet, you are unwilling to provide the evidence in favor of this.

What evidence we *do* have---including your own damning "The Witchcraft Paradigm" and the heavy amount of ad hominem attack---suggests that the "peer reviewers" are a bunch of MI/Church "yes men" who are more concerned with FARMS's polemical agenda than they are with scholarly and rhetorical quality.

Still waiting!

Life is tough. And then you die.
[/quote]

Yes---you die without ever having seen academic validation of the Book of Mormon's historicity. In otherwords: you die a laughingstock. On the other hand, at least you were able to fool some people with the bogus "scholary" patina of FARMS!

[_Daniel Peterson]

So, once again we find you in the embarrassing situation of hiding something.

No, you find yourself frustrated because I'm not helping you to satisfy your bizarre, obsessive curiosity.

It's clear that you want so desperately for FARMS to be taken seriously, and for it to be treated as a real, legitimate academic venue. And yet, you are unwilling to provide the evidence in favor of this.

The only way for anything to be taken seriously as an academic venue is to produce quality academic work.

Furnishing names for your creepy "dossiers" wouldn't produce a single good sentence.

Get a life, Scartch.

You're it.

[_antishock8]

They could just do an Open Peer Review since Peer Review is largely unstructured and mostly unaccountable in the first place. That way interested parties would know who reviewed the work, and then be able to judge the referees on their own merits. In FARMS' case, it would lose the illusion of academicity (heh) since its reviews are mostly contained to colleagues or people who are very pro-Mormon which, of course, results in a highly biased referee.

[_Mister Scratch]

So, once again we find you in the embarrassing situation of hiding something.

No, you find yourself frustrated because I'm not helping you to satisfy your bizarre, obsessive curiosity.

Oh, believe me: watching you squirm in an effort to save FARMS's credibility is not the least bit "frustrating" to me.

It's clear that you want so desperately for FARMS to be taken seriously, and for it to be treated as a real, legitimate academic venue. And yet, you are unwilling to provide the evidence in favor of this.

The only way for anything to be taken seriously as an academic venue is to produce quality academic work.

And therein lies the problem, of course. Does FARMS produce "quality [Mormon-related] academic work"? We cannot know, since, according to "The Witchcraft Paradigm," it apparently uses a "rigged" peer review process, and thus it is not subjected to the kind of rigorous scholarly analysis that would allow us to see it as scholarly and fair-minded. Further, not a single, frankly LDS article on Book of Mormon historicity has ever appeared outside of FARMS. Does this suggest something "fishy" about the quality of FARMS work? The answer is "yes." Once again, it suggests that the main function of FARMS is apologetic, rather than academic. Yeah, sure: the fact that you guys are doing "legit" academic work with Middle Eastern texts helps somewhat. But does this do anything in terms of helping the credibility of the purely Mormon work being done at FARMS? Methinks not.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Does FARMS produce "quality [Mormon-related] academic work"? We cannot know, since, according to "The Witchcraft Paradigm," it apparently uses a "rigged" peer review process, and thus it is not subjected to the kind of rigorous scholarly analysis that would allow us to see it as scholarly and fair-minded.

That's just one of the many things I find weird about your odd objections: The quality of academic work is and must be judged by examining its quality, not by asking who reviewed it prior to publication. Or even whether it was reviewed prior to publication.

Lots of important stuff (e.g., Newton, Gibbon, Descartes, W. James, Einstein) never underwent peer review at all, while (as any academic can tell you from sad experience) lots of trivial and poorly done stuff passes peer review.

You're it.

[_Mister Scratch]

They could just do an Open Peer Review since Peer Review is largely unstructured and mostly unaccountable in the first place. That way interested parties would know who reviewed the work, and then be able to judge the referees on their own merits. In FARMS' case, it would lose the illusion of academicity (heh) since its reviews are mostly contained to colleagues or people who are very pro-Mormon which, of course, results in a highly biased referee.

Yes. Blind and double-blind peer review exists mainly to protect the peer reviewers (and to a certain lesser extent, the authors). If someone is giving the "thumbs down" to an article, they need to be able to honestly express their honest, academic opinion on why the article isn't up to snuff, without fear of retaliation or retribution from some disgruntled author. The main goal of peer review is to ensure that the best-quality work makes it into the journal.

But FARMS seems to diverge from this in some interesting ways. For one thing, it is clear, based on the things that make it into the FARMS Review, that some very peculiar kinds of "reviewing" are taking place. Secondly, FROB is a book review journal, and it is highly unusual for book reviews to be peer reviewed. This makes me think that all of it is just a bunch of smog meant to reassure TBMs that legit academic review is taking place.

Let's face it: the real test of scholarly legitimacy of LDS ntions will come in the larger arena of ideas. Apologists know that most of their Mormon-related crap cannot cut the mustard in the larger world, which is one of the main reasons that FARMS exists.