Do Apologists Want to Destroy Critics' Lives?

[_Doctor Scratch]

You are absolutely correct: not one dime. Actually, it's 200,000 dimes (check my math -- it should equal $20,000).

We've been over this a hundred times or so.

You assert it, I deny it.

Observers will make their judgments about this based on whether they consider me a liar or not, and on whether or not they think I'm likely to know more about my personal finances than you and the other Scratches do.

I see no reason to repeat this more than a few score times more.

So here goes: I deny your claim. It's flatly false.

Did the $20,000 you were paid as FARMS Chair come out of your BYU salary, as you have claimed in the past? Or, was it an additional payment made on top of your BYU salary?

[_Ray A]

Or perhaps it's because the non-Mormon scholars didn't know the area well enough to recognize the problems that many of his LDS colleagues found painfully obvious.

There were also Mormon scholars praising his work.

In a 1990 book review in Church History, Klaus J. Hansen calls the book a "magisterial study" and a "tour de force," and describes it as providing a "truly stunning mass of evidence" in favor of its position.

The same Hansen who later (1998) wrote Quinnspeak. By that time Quinn was cooked meat. I'm not saying that Hansen's review is faulty, but it was certainly more charitable and balanced than Hamblin's Magic Worldview review, and I tend to agree with the following quote from Quinn (provided by Hamblin in the review):

Hamblin and I [Quinn] obviously see faith and its defense in very different ways, both as historians and as be lievers. According to his published comments about me, Hamblin thinks that my commitment to historical analysis has subverted my LDS faith. Having read many of his writings, I think Hamblin's commitment as "a defender" has subverted his historical training. (p. 351 n. 98)

Hamblin:

In a very real sense Quinn's book is an academic version of the Hofmann forgeries.

With that extreme statement his credibility as a historian lies exactly where Quinn said it did: subverted by faith.

Are you really suggesting, incidentally, that the small cadre of Mormon scholars who criticized Quinn carried the day, so thoroughly convincing all of the many thousands of non-Mormon historians out there that his work was flawed that nobody was willing to hire him anywhere?

Wow. That's a pretty heady thought. We don't have very many such total triumphs under our belts.

I believe it was a broad combination of factors. It's difficult to say how much influence FARMS would have had, since the Review only got going in 1989. I think that by that time Quinn was already "dead meat".

Historians concentrating on Mormonism have gotten jobs outside of Mormon universities, at places like Durham (in the UK), Queen's University (in Canada), the divinity school at Vanderbilt University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and etc. It's not impossible. So it must have been me and Elder Packer who done him in.

See above.

Your claim is that you never received $20,000. I guess no one really knows if it's true or not.

I do.

I trust you recognised my parody.

[_harmony]

I'm sure there are hundreds of junior colleges throughout the country who would be delighted to have a professor of Quinn's caliber on their staff... should he actually want to work. A PhD in History is nothing to sneeze at, even if his publishing is mainly LDS history.

[_Trevor]

Hamblin:

In a very real sense Quinn's book is an academic version of the Hofmann forgeries.

With that extreme statement his credibility as a historian lies exactly where Quinn said it did: subverted by faith.

Yeah, that is way over the top. Very unprofessional. Of course, by this point in time, both Quinn and his critics were behaving unprofessionally, but that comment was beyond the pale. It is moments like that one and the Tvedtnes-Murphy incident that pretty much obviate the existence of Scratchoscopy. Hopefully incidents like that one are in the past for the Maxwell Institute. It is one thing to provide a vigorous defense of one's faith, and entirely another to engage in that kind of nonsense.

That comment is simply indefensible. A human error, but one that should be both avoided and called out for what it is. The implication that Quinn knowingly engaged in academic fraud is simply inexcusable.

[_Daniel Peterson]

As it stands, it is consistent with almost everything I have ever read or observed about Boyd K. Packer, and I do not believe he is a bad person.

I agree that Boyd K. Packer is not a bad person.

I don't think that Mike Quinn is a bad person, either.

Sorry, Ray. I think that's nonsense.

Mind reading, Dan?

?????

Reading what you wrote.

What makes you think it's "nonsense"?

My conviction that it's grossly false.

Did the $20,000 you were paid as FARMS Chair come out of your BYU salary, as you have claimed in the past? Or, was it an additional payment made on top of your BYU salary?

We've been over this a hundred and one times or so.

You're welcome to re-read my prior responses on the subject if you've really forgotten what I've said previously.

There were also Mormon scholars praising his work.

A dwindling tribe, as the years passed.

In a very real sense Quinn's book is an academic version of the Hofmann forgeries.

With that extreme statement his credibility as a historian lies exactly where Quinn said it did: subverted by faith.

One sentence (that you may or may not have understood in the sense it was intended -- I personally think it's strong, but not beyond the pale -- out of a 170-page-long review-essay.

Incidentally, for those who would like to view this horrifying document in its native habitat, it's on line at

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/? ... m=2&id=364

And here's another one, on the same topic:

posting.php?mode=quote&f=1&p=246673

I believe it was a broad combination of factors. It's difficult to say how much influence FARMS would have had, since the Review only got going in 1989. I think that by that time Quinn was already "dead meat".

Careful. Scratchite orthodoxy holds the FARMS Review responsible for Quinn's woes.

I'm sure there are hundreds of junior colleges throughout the country who would be delighted to have a professor of Quinn's caliber on their staff... should he actually want to work. A PhD in History is nothing to sneeze at, even if his publishing is mainly LDS history.

I would tend to agree. So the fact that Dr. Quinn has actually failed to get a teaching position in history strikes me as quite mysterious. I have no idea why it's so. But I'm reasonably confident that Elder Packer and I control the hiring decisions at no more than 40% of America's hundreds if not thousands of colleges and universities.

It is moments like that one and the Tvedtnes-Murphy incident that pretty much obviate the existence of Scratchoscopy. Hopefully incidents like that one are in the past for the Maxwell Institute.

In what way is the Maxwell Institute responsible for John Tvedtnes's action? Was it done on the orders or with the encouragement of the Maxwell Institute? You or Scratch may certainly be in a better position to know, but, so far as I'm aware, it was not.

[_Ray A]

A dwindling tribe, as the years passed.

So what you really want, Dan, is for "the orthodoxy" to prevail? I know you're no lover of Sunstone and Dialogue, and you'd prefer "dissidents" like David Wright to "keep quiet in Church".

So what does your statement imply? That you, essentially, agree with Packer?

[_Ray A]

Incidentally, I'm headed up right now to an appointment at the new Church History Library in Salt Lake City, which is one of the finest such facilities in the world, and a tangible monument to the falsity of what you just wrote.

Does this library have all of Quinn's works?

[_Daniel Peterson]

A dwindling tribe, as the years passed.

So what does your statement imply? That you, essentially, agree with Packer?

My statement implies that the number of Mormon historians who approved of Mike Quinn's writing dropped palpably as the years went by.

And I know for a fact that some who never published a word critical of him were, nonetheless, critical of his writing and disappointed by it. I know, because they told me. And this includes some who had defended him, befriended him, and etc.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Incidentally, I'm headed up right now to an appointment at the new Church History Library in Salt Lake City, which is one of the finest such facilities in the world, and a tangible monument to the falsity of what you just wrote.

Does this library have all of Quinn's works?

I'm sure it does.

[_harmony]

My statement implies that the number of Mormon historians who approved of Mike Quinn's writing dropped palpably as the years went by.

And I know for a fact that some who never published a word critical of him were, nonetheless, critical of his writing and disappointed by it. I know, because they told me. And this includes some who had defended him, befriended him, and etc.

How much of that feeling was because of the status of his membership and how much was a result of his scholarship? And how much was a result of the disapproval of BKP and the rest of the Brethren?