How important is peer review? How reliable?

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_EAllusion
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Re: How important is peer review? How reliable?

Post by _EAllusion »

That reminds me. I forgot one tactic. They claim that books published by university presses constitute peer review. For those that don't know, this is misleading because the review process for university press published books is not nearly as rigorous and decisions to publish are based on factors besides merit, such as profitability. Micheal Behe was absolutely eviscerated at Dover when he tried to argue that Darwin's Black Box was a peer reviewed work. In fact, he argued that it received even more thorough peer review than a scholarly article in a refereed journal. If anyone is interested, I can post some links, because there was an epic breakdown of how misleading Behe's use of "peer review" was, such as named reviewers thinking his work was trash. It was one of the better moments of the trial.
_Daniel Peterson
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Re: How important is peer review? How reliable?

Post by _Daniel Peterson »

Deeply, deeply misleading.

A book published by Oxford University Press usually counts for considerably more in the typical academic rank advancement process than does an article in, say, the Journal of Wisconsin History -- and for good and sufficient reason.

For that matter, a book published by the University of Wisconsin Press would typically count for considerably more than such an article.
_EAllusion
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Re: How important is peer review? How reliable?

Post by _EAllusion »

Daniel Peterson wrote:Deeply, deeply misleading.

A book published by Oxford University Press usually counts for considerably more in the typical academic rank advancement process than does an article in, say, the Journal of Wisconsin History -- and for good and sufficient reason.


If we were talking about academic rank advancement, you might have a point. Having a book published by an academic press is a nice merit badge on an academic sash. But that's a different discussion than how to consider such works in the context of the peer review system. One is a an easier method to get shoddy, poorly reviewed work published than the other. Deeply misleading indeed.
_Daniel Peterson
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Re: How important is peer review? How reliable?

Post by _Daniel Peterson »

I couldn't disagree more strongly.

A book published by a solid university press is typically a much more significant academic achievement, all other things being equal, than an article published in a good journal.

Things may conceivably be different in the physical and biological sciences, but in the humanities (among which I include history and, to an extent, archaeology) that is simply the way things work.
_Mister Scratch
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Re: How important is peer review? How reliable?

Post by _Mister Scratch »

Daniel Peterson wrote:
Mister Scratch wrote:Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Katunob defunct?

It may be. I haven't checked.

But what difference would that make?

It's irrelevant.

Journals come and journals go. That doesn't somehow make them magically non-peer-reviewed during their period of publication.


Nor does it magically mean that an obviously Mormon article made it through the peer review process. Again: are you going to supply text the fits the criteria I mentioned? Hmmmm???
_Mister Scratch
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Re: How important is peer review? How reliable?

Post by _Mister Scratch »

JustMe wrote:Scratch
What critics are asking for is that the more audacious claims of Mormonism (Book of Mormon historicity; Book of Abraham; Lamanite DNA) meet the demands of rigorous, academic peer review. So far, it hasn't, and indeed none of the TBMs have even supplied evidence or anecdote that LDS have ever even *tried* to publish this stuff in reputable journals.


So the Lundquist piece in a legitimate book on a legitimate subject that directly reflects on the Book of Mormon doesn't count, on your take. Why am I not surprised? It certainly doesn't take away from the significant fact that in an obviously peer reviewed BOOK (much more in depth than a scholarly journal article would be) the Book of Mormon and its themes are published.


Again, JustMe: Is the Lundquist piece posited in an empirical, evidenced-based way? Or, is it included amongst "theories" about pre-Columbian oceanic voyages? It would be nice if you supplied a bit of text.
_EAllusion
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Re: How important is peer review? How reliable?

Post by _EAllusion »

I'd rather be the lead author in a major paper published in Nature than have a succesful novel published by the Oxford University press. I'm not disputing that having a book published by a decent academic publishing house adds to one's prestige. It's an accomplishment. It's an accomplishment that has impact on one's status in the field. What I'm saying is that the publishing standards and nature of review are different in the refereed journal system than they are in academic publishing houses and to conflate the two is misleading. Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene was published by the Oxford University Press. On the whole it is a nice work, but think about the material on memetics and how that would have been met in the refereed literature. The claim getting published in the Cambridge University Press is tantamount to peer reviewed scholarship is simply wrong.
_harmony
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Re: How important is peer review? How reliable?

Post by _harmony »

Daniel Peterson wrote:And do you really imagine that John Gee became editor of the Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities because his academic peers think him a laughable mediocrity, or that he's permitted to waive normal peer review procedures for his own writing?


I think he got the job of editor just like anyone else gets a job: he applied, no one else who was higher qualified wanted the job, so he got it.

I just thought that from among your huge collection of articles, or the articles of people you know, you could come up with one current journal.

My bad, obviously.
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
_JustMe
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Re: How important is peer review? How reliable?

Post by _JustMe »

Scratch
Again, JustMe: Is the Lundquist piece posited in an empirical, evidenced-based way? Or, is it included amongst "theories" about pre-Columbian oceanic voyages? It would be nice if you supplied a bit of text.


It would be even nicer if you would bother to actually read the text. Again, Raphael Patai, The Children of Noah, Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times, Princeton University Press, 1998 (227 pp). Here is a non-Mormon scholar writing a non-Mormon book published by what I consider to be one of the most prestigous and rigorous university academic presses on the planet, inviting an LDS scholar to specifically discuss the theme of ancient seafaring using the Book of Mormon text and themes. But here is the wrapup, and notice, it was published.

"Apart from the details of seafaring contained within the text of the Book of Mormon, and the study of this subject in the light of our knowledge of seafaring in the ancient Middle East, this study falls under the much broader theme of transoceanic contacts between the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas in pre-Columbian times. On this subject, a vast amount of literature has been published, much of it in recent years. This literature has been brought together in a recent bibliiography, and fills two very substantial tomes. It is sufficient to state that there cannot any longer be any doubt regarding the extensive contacts made via the sea routes between Asia and the Americas in pre-Columbian times. We are only now beginning to understand properly and apreciate the extent of these contacts, and their influence upon the inhabitants of the Americas. The pioneering journeys taken by Thor Heyerdahl long ago proved the possibility of sea journeys in antiquity across both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Numerous other scholars, among htem such luminaries as Robert von Heine-Geldern (from the Asiatic side) and Cyrus H. Gordon (from the Middle Eastern side), have demonstrated the extent and kinds of cultural influence brought to the Americas from Asia and the Middle East in antiquity." (p. 175)
_Mister Scratch
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Re: How important is peer review? How reliable?

Post by _Mister Scratch »

JustMe wrote:Scratch
Again, JustMe: Is the Lundquist piece posited in an empirical, evidenced-based way? Or, is it included amongst "theories" about pre-Columbian oceanic voyages? It would be nice if you supplied a bit of text.


It would be even nicer if you would bother to actually read the text. Again, Raphael Patai, The Children of Noah, Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times, Princeton University Press, 1998 (227 pp). Here is a non-Mormon scholar writing a non-Mormon book published by what I consider to be one of the most prestigous and rigorous university academic presses on the planet, inviting an LDS scholar to specifically discuss the theme of ancient seafaring using the Book of Mormon text and themes. But here is the wrapup, and notice, it was published.

"Apart from the details of seafaring contained within the text of the Book of Mormon, and the study of this subject in the light of our knowledge of seafaring in the ancient Middle East, this study falls under the much broader theme of transoceanic contacts between the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas in pre-Columbian times. On this subject, a vast amount of literature has been published, much of it in recent years. This literature has been brought together in a recent bibliiography, and fills two very substantial tomes. It is sufficient to state that there cannot any longer be any doubt regarding the extensive contacts made via the sea routes between Asia and the Americas in pre-Columbian times. We are only now beginning to understand properly and apreciate the extent of these contacts, and their influence upon the inhabitants of the Americas. The pioneering journeys taken by Thor Heyerdahl long ago proved the possibility of sea journeys in antiquity across both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Numerous other scholars, among htem such luminaries as Robert von Heine-Geldern (from the Asiatic side) and Cyrus H. Gordon (from the Middle Eastern side), have demonstrated the extent and kinds of cultural influence brought to the Americas from Asia and the Middle East in antiquity." (p. 175)


Thank you very much for citing the text, JustMe. I appreciate your candor and your willingness to discuss this very important issue.

And, it is just as I expected: there is nothing in this text which even remotely comes close to making claims about Mormonism's most audacious propositions. Instead, this passage is wholly theoretical in nature. Nowhere does it say, "The Nephites sailed to the new world and established an extremely complex society in Latin America," or anything like that. The big, audacious claims of Mormonism are totally absent from this text. It is one thing to talk about trans-oceanic journeys in a very general and theoretical way, as this text is doing; it is quite another to openly assert controversial Mormon claims in an academic setting. So, while I'm grateful to you for taking the time to transcribe this text, I'd really be interested in seeing something that is more open and direct.

While you might be able to say that *TBMs* would see the LDS implications of the above, I doubt very much that the typical academic would read that passage and think, "Yes. This definitely authenticates the historicity of the Book of Mormon." In fact, I would be very interested in seeing the academic reaction to the Book of Mormon descriptions of the Jaredites' seafaring expeditions.
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