The Downward Spiral Continues at "Mormon Interpreter"

[_Fence Sitter]

Hi guys -- thanks for the interesting analysis! I think this may be the first time a Mormon apologist has written an article in a peer-reviewed journal about how "raunchy and lacking intellectual content" my blog is -- and without someone pointing me to this thread, I might never have noticed!

I just wrote a post for MSP about it here. It includes a link to the full text of my article from FI.

Thanks for the link and I enjoyed reading your response. I just have one question.
Which "peer-reviewed" journal picked up and published the Midgley article from "Mormon Interpreter"?

[_chanson]

Thanks for the link and I enjoyed reading your response. I just have one question.
Which "peer-reviewed" journal picked up and published the Midgley article from "Mormon Interpreter"?

Drifting, above, quoted an LDS magazine as claiming that the "Mormon Interpreter" is peer-reviewed. I don't know if it really is or not.

[_Drifting]

Thanks for the link and I enjoyed reading your response. I just have one question.
Which "peer-reviewed" journal picked up and published the Midgley article from "Mormon Interpreter"?

Drifting, above, quoted an LDS magazine as claiming that the "Mormon Interpreter" is peer-reviewed. I don't know if it really is or not.

It was DCP who was claiming this in the article.

[_Fence Sitter]

Drifting, above, quoted an LDS magazine as claiming that the "Mormon Interpreter" is peer-reviewed. I don't know if it really is or not.

It was DCP who was claiming this in the article.

I was under the impressing the peer review meant something else like this:

Peer review utilizes the independence, and in some cases the anonymity, of the reviewers in order to discourage cronyism (i.e., favoritism shown to relatives and friends) and obtain an unbiased evaluation. Typically, the reviewers are not selected from among the close colleagues, relatives or friends of the creator or performer of the work, and potential reviewers are required to disclose of any conflicts of interest.

You can't really trust any thing that Drifting guy says, even when he is quoting someone else!

[_Doctor Scratch]

Thanks for the link and I enjoyed reading your response. I just have one question.
Which "peer-reviewed" journal picked up and published the Midgley article from "Mormon Interpreter"?

Drifting, above, quoted an LDS magazine as claiming that the "Mormon Interpreter" is peer-reviewed. I don't know if it really is or not.

It depends on what you mean by "peer reviewed." If you mean that they passed it around one afternoon and had a few laughs over the parts they thought were funny, then yes: it was "peer reviewed." If, instead, you meant, "the rigorous examination of a work of academic writing to determine whether or not it meets the standards of the field in question," then the answer is, "No."

By the way, I especially liked this portion of your response:

That sentence has a footnote:

For example, it really is ludicrous for Hanson to describe her teenage efforts to seduce boys or to describe what she claims to have managed in the library at BYU. See http://lfab-uvm.blogspot.com/2006/07/my ... point.html, including the comments for one of many similar examples of childish rubbish.

I mentioned — but didn’t actually describe — my teenage efforts to seduce boys (and my BYU library story), but I could have described them. My personal blog is intended to be about my life, including lots of memoirs.

As Doctor Scratch of Mormon Discussions pointed out, it’s perhaps a little pervy of this guy to have tracked down sex-in-the-BYU-library story (which — at the time the Mormon Interpreter article was first written — was only told in the comments section of some really old posts deep in the archives of my blog).

However, I suspect the BYU library reference was less a question of perviness and more a question of the fact that painting a woman as a slut is a way to discredit her, especially to a Mormon audience.

I thought it would be worthwhile to consider all of this in light of your comment re: "peer review." The thing is, Louis "Woody" Midgley didn't write this in a vacuum. It was undoubtedly shown to other people who looked it over before it was "published." In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Midgley himself didn't do the "digging"--it very well could have been Bryce Haymond, or Greg Smith, or Trevor Holyoak, or someone like that. (Holyoak was allegedly the one who was "cyber-stalking" John Dehlin on Facebook in order to hunt for things to discredit him.)

for what it's worth, this is the MI Board of Editors:

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/board/

You can probably rest assured that Peterson and Hamblin read the "raunchy" bits and approved of Midgley's remarks. Haymond probably looked it over, too, before posting it online (though why he failed to correct the obvious indention error is beyond me.) It looks like Ralph "The Doink" Hancock is a part of this thing, too, which is--to say the least--rather interesting.

Actually,the whole page is extremely interesting. You would think that people like Brant Gardner and Ben McGuire would have sense enough to steer clear of a venture like this. Then again, McGuire has really been sucking up to Bill "Barney Rubble" Hamblin a lot lately, so maybe this isn't really that much of a surprise.

Finally, it seems that Stephen Smoot is continuing his ascent, as he's noted here as an "Editorial Consultant." What a pity that they failed to take advantage of his services prior to sending Midgley's heap of refuse to "print."