Off Topic Comments from Book of Mormon Authorship Thread

[_Ray A]

I have an off-topic question for Byron Marchant. Are you the Byron Marchant (scroll down to the last entry). Or is this just your adopted screen-name?

This diversion will only require one reply, if the poster obliges.

[_ByronMarchant]

Ray asks:

"I have an off-topic question for Byron Marchant. Are you the Byron Marchant (scroll down to the last entry). Or is this just your adopted screen-name?"

Put your email address on your profile and I will discuss your question there.

Byron

[_Daniel Peterson]

If the study really only gave the result described by Lindsay, LoaP, and DCP, Oxford Journals would have a fair bit of egg on their faces for letting it through the peer review process.

I'm curious to know what I've said about the Criddle study. Could you direct me to the place or places where I've said it?

[_Daniel Peterson]

If the study really only gave the result described by Lindsay, LoaP, and DCP, Oxford Journals would have a fair bit of egg on their faces for letting it through the peer review process.

I'm genuinely curious.

[_Danna]

My little monkey of a #2 son has just created an artwork which I feel captures the essence of Lindsay's critique of Jockers et al.

Here it is:



*Sigh*

Time to get off the net and feed them I suppose.

[_Daniel Peterson]

If the study really only gave the result described by Lindsay, LoaP, and DCP, Oxford Journals would have a fair bit of egg on their faces for letting it through the peer review process.

I would really like to know what "result" I "described," and where I "described" it.

[_NorthboundZax]

If the study really only gave the result described by Lindsay, LoaP, and DCP, Oxford Journals would have a fair bit of egg on their faces for letting it through the peer review process.

I'm curious to know what I've said about the Criddle study. Could you direct me to the place or places where I've said it?

Danna had me wondering if there was anything specific you had said about the study as well, since I couldn't recall any direct criticisms coming from your direction - just oblique stuff like 'Roper doesn't like it'. If you don't recall any, I think you can just chalk this case up to 'DCP' as a euphemism for Mormonism's apologetic arm. It may be a somewhat unfair characterization to make, but an easy one...

That said, I think many of us already have a pretty good idea what FARMS will have to say about the study once it publishes a review in print. It would be nice to see a review that really touches on how the results inform a new understanding of the Book of Mormon, but I would wager 100:1 odds that any upcoming review will simply focus on how 'bad' the study was. You might save everyone a bunch of effort and simply put Jeff Lindsay's "rebuttal" and/or Steven Danderson's FAIR blog directly into the next review volume - despite being pretty shallow readings, they both have traction far beyond their worth with those looking for someone smart to say that there's no reason to pay attention to this new information.

[_Uncle Dale]

...many of us already have a pretty good idea what FARMS will have to say about the study once it publishes a review in print
...

Their best bet would be to simply report on what the study was
and say it is a controversial issue, which will never impact most
people of faith -- etc. etc.

Other than quibbling a bit over methods and conclusions, I think
it would be a bad mistake for the FARMSers to get too far ahead
of responses in the Stats literature.

Then again, it might be fun to see them drag out some old B. H.
Roberts' arguments, or cite Fawn Brodie, as evidence to the effect
that this authorship allegation stuff is all "much ado about nothing."

Folks like myself will be watching to spot any major blunders.

UD

[_Daniel Peterson]

I'm confident that "The FARMS Reply," when it comes, will be of high quality.

I admit that it has amused me to read some of the prophecies here concerning its inevitable inadequacies, weaknesses, offenses, and evasions.

Danna had me wondering if there was anything specific you had said about the study as well, since I couldn't recall any direct criticisms coming from your direction - just oblique stuff like 'Roper doesn't like it'. If you don't recall any, I think you can just chalk this case up to 'DCP' as a euphemism for Mormonism's apologetic arm. It may be a somewhat unfair characterization to make, but an easy one...

I expect you're right.

As J. Golden Kimball is alleged to have said once, "Seems they blame just about everything here on either me or Mae West."

A few years ago, Bill Russell published an item in Dialogue that, in passing, denounced FARMS for its brutal and unfair review of Dan Vogel's psychobiography of Joseph Smith -- a review that had not only not been printed yet, but, to that point, hadn't even been written. (In fact, I hadn't even signed up a reviewer.) I love things like that.

[_Danna]

If the study really only gave the result described by Lindsay, LoaP, and DCP, Oxford Journals would have a fair bit of egg on their faces for letting it through the peer review process.

I would really like to know what "result" I "described," and where I "described" it.

From MAaD

"of the 7 author set they studied"

Precisely.

Consider Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams, and C. S. Lewis. Which of them is the most likely author of The Hobbit?

You 'described' the study by making an analogy with a hypothetical test of which of Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams, and C. S. Lewis would be attributed with authorship of the hobbit.

To claim that this was something other than highlighting the relative judgement aspect of the study while ignoring probabilities and pattern analysis is disingenuous.