(emphasis added)Some of us—not FARMS officially, I hasten to add—are considering the establishment of an award for "America's Funniest Anti-Mormons," although we certainly welcome international contributions, as well. (If there are enough submissions, perhaps we can open up a new category, like the annual "Foreign Film" Oscar at the Academy Awards.) We have settled on at least two prizes, to be known respectively as the "Korihor" and either the "Philastus" or the "Hurlbut." The latter titles come from the name of one of the very earliest anti-Mormons, "Doctor Philastus Hurlbut" who, in an eerily prescient move that has since been emulated by several countercult luminaries, carried the name of "Doctor" without ever earning a degree.
We know, from having read juliann and others, that degree status (preferably from an Ivy League institution) is a very important playing card for the Mopologists. So, I cannot help but wonder if this began to weigh on the SHIELDS apologists. Consider the following bios:
http://www.shields-research.org/Authors/SDB_Bio.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/199712240815 ... IH_Bio.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/199712240815 ... LJ_Bio.htm
The first is Barker's:
His college education includes accounting, computer programming and business management. He has been called upon by management of companies to write documentation outlining procedures for various business operations. He has served in management positions for several businesses. Mr. Barker is recognized as quite knowledgeable in things computer and is regularly called upon to help solve computer problems.
Do you notice anything missing from this list? The next bio is Humbert's:
Mr. Humbert served seven years in the United States Air Force, worked as a cook in a seafood restaurant, drove trucks, worked as a disc jockey, and, for the past twenty five years, worked for a local telephone carrier.
Mr. Humbert holds a first-class radiotelephone license and has been an active participant in the cyber revolution that has taken place during the last twenty years. He held a part-time job as the technical manager of a local computer store in the early '80's, has served as departmental computerist for his company, and for the past twelve years, has worked as a network analyst, specializing in things internet. Lately, Mr. Humbert has taken an intense interest in designing and developing web pages, both for his employer and for personal matters.
And, finally (and perhaps most candidly) Malin Jacobs's:
Professionally, Mr. Jacobs is an electrical engineer. He holds both Bachelor of Science and Master of Science Degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Denver campus of the University of Colorado. He was doing preparatory work for the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering when his oldest son graduated from high school and started college. Financially, it was not feasible for him to adequately support his wife and five children and at the same time pay graduate college expenses for himself and undergraduate expenses for his son. Since he deemed it less important that he complete a Ph.D. than that his son complete an undergraduate degree, he discontinued school. The fact that his three remaining at-home children will soon be of college age, makes it unlikely that Mr. Jacobs will complete a Ph.D., unless he debases himself and gets it the way some of the anti-Mormons got theirs (D. J. Nelson and Walter Martin come to mind) -- by buying it from some fly-by-night, send-your-money, little-or-no-study-required, maybe-write-some-kind-of-a-report-we'll-call-a-thesis, non-accredited diploma mill.
Notice this, too:
Malin regards himself as an all-around near-genius and one of the good guys. If he has a flaw, it is his low tolerance for stupidity, natural or educated.
Bearing all of this in mind, I think it's worth revisiting Stan Barker's nonsensical blog posting from March of this year:
As a missionary I tracted door to door virtually every day of my mission. We talked to many ignorant people and many very educated people. Only a handful joined the Church, but the others wouldn’t listen.
So, what does all this add up to? As per the title of this thread, I am curious as to why the Big League apologists seem to have abandoned---or distanced themselves---from SHIELDS. Based on these three bios, I do think that one could assume that Midgley et al. didn't like the fact that these guys did not have degrees to back them up. Recall, too, that only J. Tvedtnes (sans Ph.D.) has remained on-board with SHIELDS. While I suggested in the other thread that the DCP-led apologists were urged to "tone things down," and hence the withdrawal from SHIELDS, The Good Professor himself has said that he does not believe there has been any alteration whatsoever in the overall tone of apologetics, so I think it's safe to assume that these BYU apologist did---and still do---approve of SHIELDS's polemics-centered form of Mopologetics, and thus, their flight from SHIELDS has to have come about for some other reason.