Thank you. Since I can't be trusted to give the real answer for myself, it's very helpful for you to step in and offer it on my behalf.
I actually don't completely agree with you, but I grant your superior right to speak for me, and will remain modestly silent on the point.
I see. So you do not believe that beliefs based on spiritual witnesses are more valid than beliefs based on other methods?
(edit on: I see from your clarification that you do not so believe. In my experience, that makes you a bit different from most members.)
And, as Thomas Kuhn has famously pointed out, nobody else thinks this way, and there are no paradigms….
As anybody versed in the history of science knows, anomalies are never put on the shelf, and theories are never adopted until they've been proven.
If scholars choose to ignore widely accepted theories regarding their areas of expertise in order to explore a new option, then same scholars, if responsible, will alert their audience that they are doing just that. But this is not how the examples I provided were worded. There was nothing in either example to alert the audience that the scholar was forming a generalization that required ignoring accepted data and theories about the item in question. Both Dr. Clark and Dr. Miller stated the information as if it reflected accepted knowledge about the point in question.
Although, like all believing Mormons, Dr. Miller and I are Siamese twins, we were separated at birth and, to the best of my knowledge, haven't actually met each other since that time. So I feel just a tad reluctant to speak for him on this or any other issue.
My question was rhetorical in nature, and meant to demonstrate the point I was making. Dr. Miller, like Dr. Clark, already “know” the Book of Mormon is an ancient Mesoamerican document, so they feel justified ignoring accepted knowledge about the region.
Although, of course, you would be very reluctant to wonder such a thing, and would only do so as a last resort.
I actually do try and reserve for a last resort. Sometimes the examples are so egregious that it does seem the only reasonable conclusion. I classify Dr. Miller’s statement as one such example. He had to know that his statement was going to mislead his audience into believing something that the vast majority of scholars in his field reject.