Is rcrocket a coward?

[_LifeOnaPlate]

I swear I am not making this up. When working at a call center for Unisys I got a call every week from a worker named Richard Weiner. I am not kidding.

[_asbestosman]

I swear I am not making this up. When working at a call center for Unisys I got a call every week from a worker named Richard Weiner. I am not kidding.

So did people ever refer to him by his nickname?

[_dartagnan]

An old buddy of mine had a kid who liked Beavis and Butthead. He was watching an episode where the two were looking up funny names in the phone book, so he decided to do the same for kicks.

I kid you not, there were guys named Harry Sach and Phenis Head.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

I swear I am not making this up. When working at a call center for Unisys I got a call every week from a worker named Richard Weiner. I am not kidding.

So did people ever refer to him by his nickname?

I called him Richard. ;)

[_Runtu]

I swear I am not making this up. When working at a call center for Unisys I got a call every week from a worker named Richard Weiner. I am not kidding.

So did people ever refer to him by his nickname?

I called him Richard. ;)

You just gave me a flashback to my high school days in So. Cal. Church youth would often say, "You are such a Richard!"

[_Gadianton]

I think there are a couple of considerations here. I don't think an "academic" is necessarily a coward for not wanting to debate someone without credentials, even if it's for that very reason. The explanation is simply that there is little incentive for the one with the credentials and a lot of incentive for the underdog. Let me relate the situation to online gaming. High rated players, very high rated players, don't usually like to take on low rated players. There is almost nothing to gain from a win, and there is a lot at stake for a lose.

But it's difficult to apply this without qualifications to apologetics since there is no respectable established scholarly institution that sets the standards for Book of Mormon studies. There is no IEEE or PE guild equivelant in Mormon apologetics. You have academics with reputations in other fields who donate time to their Mormon hobby. Across millions of Mormons, of course you're going to get some very bright ones who are willing to ape their field of study into something that supports the church. And that's because, the heavenly rewards Trump any other attainments. But the converse isn't true, there is very little incentive for non-LDS academics to devote their time to criticizing Mormonism or apologetic arguments. What does a credentialed archeologist or even a Jesuit have to gain by taking up discussions within an intellectual arena that doesn't correspond to any established scholarly field?

The fact that archeologists aren't lining up in droves to concern themselves with Book of Mormon claims is no more surprising than the fact that psychiatrists generally don't make career moves out of criticising Dianetics. So, the opposition to these fringe efforts (being generous here by calling them fringe) are generally going to be hobbyists and lay researchers. That doesn't mean the quality of argumentation is less, it can actually be quite good. I mean, Brent's abilities are almost scarry.

So while I understand "real academics" not wanting to waste their time with lay persons, they don't have much choice when their field of interest isn't actually a real field.

[_guy sajer]

crocket sez:

As I have said before, your writing style (obtuse and inflammatory) leaves a lot to be desired as well as your civility. There is no way you can go toe to toe with a true academician, or be influential.

Uh, obtuse and inflammatory writing is rampant in academia. Especially on scholarly e-lists and message boards, but its also thriving quite nicely in the realm of published work, as well. As Chap and myself pointed out elsewhere, academia is not some hallowed sanctum of superior and degreed brains free-floating in the ether of footnotes and bibliographies, buoyed up on billows of collegiality and mutual respect and jealously guarding the borders from, egad!, barbarian interlopers who wish to...criticize idiots!

In fact the very use of a term like "true academician" belies your lack of familiarity with the whole realm, Bob. Invoking some caricature like this will hardly impress any intellectual that Kevin's arguments are unsound.

Having spent a good time completely immersed in the academic world I can second what Blixa has written. Academics come in all shapes and sizes. Among them is a fair share of the petty and close-minded, the incompetent, the marginal, the dishonest, the sloppy, the careless, the ideological nutcases, the arrogant, the poor writers, those with slopping grammar and poor spelling (that's why we have editors), the jealous, the idiotic (it doesn't necessarily require temendous smarts to get a Ph.D.), the covetous, the mean-spirited, the pricks, the unmitigated assholes, those who steal or take credit for other people's work (I am a victim of this type of behavior), and so forth. Robert appears to appeal to some kind of Platonic ideal of the academic world.

Oh yeah, and here's a news flash. Academics are by and large no smarter or more capable of digesting evidence and facts or constructing sound arguments than other people drawn from the same socio-economic class. Having a Ph.D. does not endow automatic credibility on someone. Academics argue bitterly among themselves, sometimes over the most trivial issues (kind of like the priests in the Name of the Rose arguing over whether Jesus owned his robe). Academics tend to have very narrow specialties, and even within these specialties there exist disagreements and arguments, and once they wander outside these specialties, they are no more an expert than anyone else and their words do not carry any inherent extra weight.

Finally, where one gets a Ph.D. is only a very general signal as to their capabilities. Even people with Ph.D.'s from Yale can hold dumb ideas or make silly arguments. Lots of people with degrees from second tier universities are doing excellent work, while many of their counterparts from the top universities are stagnating or doing nothing of note.

The possession or lack of a Ph.D. says nothing ex ante about the quality of one's work or arguments. That someone chooses to teach high school instead of getting a Ph.D. says nothing, other than the person had different career ambitions. A high school teacher can construct as good or better an argument than a Yale Ph.D., particularly when the Yale Ph.D. wanders into topics in which he/she has no special expertise. And even in areas where he has an expertise, the Ph.D. may still hold marginal or truly whack ideas. If he can get them published in credible, mainstream journals, then the quality of his argument is probably pretty good, regardless of the controversy of the idea. If he never does, however, (and this probably applies to Gee with regard to his Book of Abraham apologetics), this is a pretty good indictor that his ideas/arguments don't hold much water to a non-apologetic expert audience.

[_guy sajer]

I suppose it is just a subjective matter, but you are obtuse and unfocused. Do you publish?

Not yet, but what does that matter?

You are not qualified.

With due respect, Robert, if this is your standard, then turnabout is fair play. I would be interested in seeing what the publication records of other FARMSistas is. We already know that DCP doesn't publish anything in academic journals, so I guess that means we can dismiss everything he says? What about the rest of them?

Also, do the publications have to be on the specific issue at hand? For example, Gee may or may not publish in academic journals, but has he published anything related to his apologetic arguments? Does it matter?

Must the publication be in an academic journal, or is, say, a trade publication acceptable? If academic journals are required, must it be an A or A- journal? (There is tremendous variability in the quality, or perceived quality, of academic journals. Some journals count very little or nothing toward promotion or tenure.)

I've published a good deal, but not on any of these subjects. Does that give me automatically more credibility than, say, a layperson who has studied certain issues a great deal more than I but who has not published in academic journals on them? (You'll note that I never comment on the technical details of these debates, as I've not studied them or even read much about them. This, however, doesn't preclude me from conclusing, via common sense and a summary of the evidence, that the Book of Abraham is a fraud, no more than my lack of study on the minutae of alien abductions precludes me from concluding that they're horse hockey.)

Frankly, Robert, your insistence that someone must be published to be considered at all credible is, IMHO, a red herring. It is one piece of information in assessing one's credibility, but only one piece, and not necessarily the most, or even an, important one.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

I'm a published writer, do I count?