Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

[_Roger]

Cowdery remained
silent and never divulged the secrets he knew. Mormon polygamy had
a safe cover-up, when it came to Cowdery's public statements.

Yes, that's what I thought. I couldn't remember ever reading any public statement by Cowdery that acknowledged Smith's polygamy. And yet we know he knew about it because of the existence of some of his private correspondence. But we're supposed to believe that he certainly would have acknowledged a Bible was used, if he'd only been asked.

[_Roger]

Glenn:

I have too much work to do today... can you briefly summarize how you think the article answers my question?

[Guest]

Dan’s response to my post on May 20, 9:42 a.m. Link:Dan-Fri May 20, 2011 10:02 pm

My first partial response to Dan’s May 20, 10:02 post, Link:
Marg -Sat May 21, 2011 8:38 am

My second partial response to Dan’s May 20, 10:02 post, Link: Marg-Sun May 22, 2011 4:06 pm

This will be my third partial response to Dan’s post on May 20 ..see link above. I'm responding to each point separately.

Example:
Yolanda: If you take four of these tablets of vitamin C every day, you will never get a cold.
Juanita: I tried that last year for several months, and still got a cold.
Yolanda: Did you take the tablets every day?
Juanita: Yes.
Yolanda: Well, I’ll bet you bought some bad tablets.

The burden of proof is definitely on Yolanda’s shoulders to prove that Juanita’s vitamin C tablets were probably “bad” — that is, not really vitamin C. If Yolanda can’t do so, her attempt to rescue her hypothesis (that vitamin C prevents colds) is simply a dogmatic refusal to face up to the possibility of being wrong.

That’s you, Marg! The key here is the assumption that your theory is right, which justifies the ad hoc explanation. It’s like saying—“My theory is right, so there has to be an explanation. Let’s see if I can make something up that is consistent with my assumption.” That’s why I sometimes call them question-begging ad hoc hypotheses. Note that it’s plausible, but not probable. The same applies to your trick-hat theory (although it would be hard to fool people every day for 90 days). I thought Glenn handled this well. However, notice that the ad hoc that the pills must have been bad is plausible, and that the counter-evidence is rests on the word of Juanita and is not “objectively verifiable”.

Ok Dan,
The key here is that Yolanda is attempting to rescue her absolute claim .'that anyone who takes those pills will NEVER get a cold' by responding to Juanita's personal experience to the contrary. In doing so Yolanda changes the background assumptions by suggesting that Juanita's personal objective experience is not what Juanita claims...because unbeknownst to her the pills must have been bad.

Juanita’s counter..that she took the pills as described... met the burden of proof to overturn Yolanda’s claim. It just takes one person, one time to get a cold when taking those pills to prove Yolanda’s claim is faulty.
Yolanda then rescued her claim by changing the background assumption and assuming just because Juanita thinks she took "good" pills there must have been something wrong with those pills. In this particular case, Juanita can't counter rationally..she can't provide those exact pills she took previously for examination. So for their discussion there is no counter claim with evidence to overturn Yolanda's new counter...other than to test again but of course Yolanda might rescue her claim with some other change to a back ground assumption.

So if I’m doing the same thing as Yolanda then you think I’m trying to rescue a claim or theory. So you think by my suggesting that for some scribes Smith used a hat trick of some sort..that I’m rescuing… what? What claim am I rescuing ..the S/R theory?

The S/R theory does not need to specify any hat trick Dan. I’m not rescuing any theory or claim. The S/R theory rejects the claims of the Book of Mormon witnesses to the translation process. As far as the S/R theory is concerned all or some of the Book of Mormon witnesses involved, can not be relied upon as being truthful..given their vested interest. So unlike Yolanda I'm not attempting to rescue the S/R theory by speculating on a possible occasional hat trick being employed by Smith.

Secondly and this is more important, your counter to my speculation is opinion not objective verifiable evidence. Your counter is the say so of the Book of Mormon witnesses, who are highly unreliable witnesses when they testify of things in their favor to maintain the claims of Smith. Unlike Juanita’s claim which is based upon her personal experience which she personally verified (and the discussion is between her and Yolanda) she has objective verifiable evidence which countered Yolanda’s absolute claim.

Your counter evidence Dan is extremely weak. It’s equivalent to posing questions to criminals and accepting at face value any denials to the crime they might make..without independent corroboration to back them up. It's actually even worse because the claims of the Book of Mormon witnesses are extraordinary.

So contrary to what you say Dan, my speculation of a possible hat trick for a few scribes as a possibility has nothing to do with the example between Yolanda and Juanita.

Reason # 1: I’m not trying to rescue a theory or claim by my speculative suggestion
Reason # 2: Your counter claim against my speculation has no verifiable evidence, is extremely weak at best and there is no objective means to judge your opinion that what the Book of Mormon witnesses claim should be accepted at face value.. is superior to my speculation that perhaps Smith employed some tricks on occasion.

However, notice that the ad hoc that the pills must have been bad is plausible, and that the counter-evidence is rests on the word of Juanita and is not “objectively verifiable.

This example is objectively verifiable..it is Juanita who is doing the judging, based on her personal experience which she verified. The discussion is between her and Yolanda. This situation applied to a drug manufacturer would differ. They wouldn’t make an absolute claim like Yolanda's. The hypothesis would be that pill X is effective in the treatment of disease C for most people with such and such a condition. Their testing would require a statistical success rate..but there would be a percentage in which the drug wouldn’t necessarily be effective. So there would be a lot more testing required and through inductive reasoning based upon based upon extensive testing it would be determined whether or not a drug was efffective for most people ..but they'd make no absolute claim.

But in the example given by the philosophy website, background assumptions were changed by Yolanda and the counter to Yolanda by Juanita was not merely Juanita’s opinion but rather her objective verified evidence she experienced which countered Yolanda’s absolute claim. And on that basis met the burden of proof for Juanita overturned Yolanda's claim.

[_GlennThigpen]

Glenn:

I have too much work to do today... can you briefly summarize how you think the article answers my question?

Roger, there are too many variables to summaarize briefly. But for starters, the therefore/wherefore shift depends on the hypothesis that Joseph Smith translated Mosiah and the rest of the Book of Mormon before he translated 1 and 2 Nephi. This hypothesis has not been established and Royal Skousen presents evidence that it is not the case, among other things.

Glenn

[_Uncle Dale]

...
that acknowledged Smith's polygamy.
...

There were Mormons who would have suffered and died under extreme torture, without
ever revealing what they knew of Joseph Smith's secrets. He was THAT good at
convincing his followers that his frauds were "celestial law." And even after some
members summoned up enough self respect and courage to break away from the
Mormons, in those days, they were terrified of blood atonement for "apostates."

Here is what Elder Ezra T. Benson's first wife told a correspondent of the New York World
in 1869:

"Polygamy was certainly practiced in Nauvoo, as I well know, for my own sister Adelaide was sealed to Mr. Benson by the Prophet Joseph. Other women were sealed to Brother Kimball, and to Hiram Smith, Joseph Smith's brother. Sister Vilate Kimball, myself, and two or three others were the only ones to whom the secret of its practice was at first communicated, and it was indeed a terrible secret for us. We were, what I term, the first wives in polygamy, for we were the very first whose husbands obeyed the Celestial law, and it was doubly hard for us to bear until we became accustomed to it. The matter had to be kept a profound secret, except from a few who could be trusted. Even Hiram, the prophet's brother, could not at first be safely informed of its existence. I recollect of an instance occurring in which Brother Kimball was concerned, which serves to illustrate how careful we had to be. Brother Kimball's second wife, in order to avoid suspicion, boarded at our house, and he came late in the evening, or early in the morning, to see her. While he was in the house, I kept watch upon the road, to see that no one should approach unexpectedly, and surprise him. One morning I saw a man approaching, and hastily warned Brother Kimball, who made his eseape by a rear window into a cornfield, where he would have remained until the man had gone, had he not turned out to be the Prophet Joseph. We called Brother Kimball in, and had a good laugh at him about it. We were often obliged to take our husband's second and third wives into our houses, passing them off as sisters or acquaintances who were visiting us. You may be sure that it cost us many a heartache and many a pang of sorrow, but we believed that God had spoken through his prophet, and we, as his dutiful servants, were bound to obey."

There are, of course, still faithful RLDS who will swear upon their mother's graves, that the
above confession is a Brighamite lie -- and that Joseph Smith, Jr. was far too innocent, pure
and holy, to have ever commanded his followers to do anything dishonest. I believe there
are CoC "apostles" in office today, who will admit to the truth of Mrs. Benson's account, but then
attempt to swear their CoC members to secrecy on the matter. I can understand that sort of
thing back in 1860, when the Reorganization was first coming together. But to continue to
obey Smith's orders on telling such lies, here in 2011, is absolutely indefensible.

We cannot grant early Mormon witnesses a blanket benefit of the doubt, when they are
accused of keeping Smith's secrets, or of lying in his behalf. Those people are not worthy
of our automatic trust.

UD

[_marg]

Links to previous relevant posts

Dan’s response to my post on May 20, 9:42 a.m. Link:Dan-Fri May 20, 2011 10:02 pm

My first partial response to Dan’s May 20, 10:02 post
Marg -Sat May 21, 2011 8:38 am

My second partial response to Dan’s May 20, 10:02 post Marg-Sun May 22, 2011 4:06 pm

Third response to Dan’s May 20, 10:02 postMarg - Tue May 24, 2011 3:13 pm

This is my fourth response to point 4 of Dan’s May 20th post ..link above.

So notice in the above example..the claimant is making an explanatory hypothesis which is open to falsification. A counter argument is made with evidence which falsified the original claim...which shifts the burden of proof back to the original claimant, but their response does away with that evidence by rejecting it as being “bad”. So the burden of proof hasn’t been met by the original claimant in overturning the counter evidence.

Theoretically through inductive testing Juanita's claims can be objectively verified.
In effect, the discussion can’t proceed because how can Juanitia prove the pills she took weren’t bad.

I know how she feels. This is the situation with your ad hocs as well. How can we prove Joseph Smith didn’t use a trick-hat? How can we prove the Spalding witnesses didn’t have the weird interpretation of “lost tribes” that you invented? How can we prove most of the Mormon witnesses weren’t part of a conspiracy? Obviously, any attempt to do so will be met with another ad hoc, which makes your main theory unfalsifiable.

But the problem Dan is that you are claiming your evidence overturns S/R claims, theories, speculations. If it’s not based upon objective verifiable evidence, then on what basis have you overturned a claim? That’s why I’m saying that in order to use ad hoc fallacy correctly the counter claim/Dan’s counter claim needs to be open to objective verification.

The whole point of fallacies is to identify where “faulty reasoning” has occurred. If you are countering an S/R claim,speculation, theory and your reasoning is faulty or unreliable then you’ve not been successful in overturning a claim. For an ad hoc fallacy to occur a counter claim against an original claim must meet a burden of proof to overturn the original claim. Only then does the original claimant commit an ad hoc fallacy if they counter in an attempt to rescue the original claim but by using an irrational counter claim which changes the background assumptions.

In the situation that we have with historical claims much of it, perhaps most of it, is not objectively verifiable. We have to employ critical thinking instead. We can’t use logic incorrectly ..as a means to a “quick win”.

So it’s not a matter of "how can we prove Joseph Smith didn’t use a hat trick". What is important is establishing what Smith probably did do. And that can’t be accomplished by objective verification. We can’t go back and observe. So we apply critical thinking to all the evidence, not just pick and choose what one wants to accept. All the evidence and reasoning should be consistent with each other. And what we look for is the most probable explanation of what occurred. And so with counter claims such as yours against S/R theory, not open to objective verification, ad hoc fallacy doesn’t apply.

It’s not the S/R advocates who are using ad hoc fallacy to dismiss Smith alone..they are using critical thinking applied to all the evidence to , to come up with the most likely explanation and that is S/R theory. They aren't trying to make quick wins like you are Dan.

So the whole point that I’m arguing Dan is that your accusation of ad hoc fallacy against the S/R theory has been incorrect. Ad hoc fallacy is not applicable. If there is objective verifiable evidence to counter a claim then it can be applicable.

And in science lots of ad hoc justifications indicate a problem with the new hypothesis. The reason is because the new hypothesis by changing previous assumptions which have been accepted via a process open to objective verification..is more likely to be wrong the more it rejects previously accepted theories and reasoning.

But with the situation of historical claims not open to objective verification, a more complex theory will automatically have more explanations and when challenged by you for example, will of course offer a response… but that response and the sheer number of responses does not make those responses likely to be faulty…unless you have been countering their claims with objective verifiable evidence which meets a burden of proof which overturns the S/R claim. Your opinion that Smith alone evidence is stronger than S/R evidence is merely ..your opinion ...because you favor your opinion.

So what is boils down to Dan is there are no quick win methods..employing logical fallacies to claim victory for the Smith alone theory against the S/R theory. It is a matter of critical thinking. It’s a matter of objectively evaluating the evidence and applying reasoning.

[_Roger]

Glenn:

Roger, there are too many variables to summaarize briefly. But for starters, the therefore/wherefore shift depends on the hypothesis that Joseph Smith translated Mosiah and the rest of the Book of Mormon before he translated 1 and 2 Nephi. This hypothesis has not been established and Royal Skousen presents evidence that it is not the case, among other things.

Well the loss of the 116 pages had to be replaced, Glenn, so I agree with the S/A proponents on the sequence of "translation" beginning with Mosiah. But from your point of view, which also seems to be Skousen's, what difference does it make? You can see the pattern in the chart Dale posted regardless of whether Mosiah represents the earliest extant portion or not. Why would word use patterns and error patterns fall so dramatically uneven across the entire Book of Mormon text resulting in a clear beginning and ending pattern that are similar to each other but radically different from the middle? How would S/D (or S/A for that matter) explain the data?

[_marg]

Links to previous relevant posts

Dan’s response to my post on May 20, 9:42 a.m. Link:Dan-Fri May 20, 2011 10:02 pm

My first partial response to Dan’s May 20, 10:02 post
Marg -Sat May 21, 2011 8:38 am

My second partial response to Dan’s May 20, 10:02 post Marg-Sun May 22, 2011 4:06 pm

Third response to Dan’s May 20, 10:02 postMarg - Tue May 24, 2011 3:13 pm

Fourth response to Dan’s May 20, 10:02 post Marg- Tue May 24, 2011 5:10 pm

Fifth response to Dan’s May 20 post with link to it above.

As well, the ad hoc fallacy accusation doesn’t work when a claim is a subjective opinion.. not open to objective falsification.

If I say I believe I’ve won this argument and you say no you haven’t. Your response isn’t an ad hoc fallacy. We are expressing opinions.

So is that what you want us to do. Regard your ad hocs as an expression of “opinion”? I wish I could do that, but it’s not that easy. The problem with that is that you formulated them as arguments, and presented them as a means to dismiss counter-evidence threatening your main theory. They are not opinions. And, obviously, opinion can be contradicted by evidence. It’s actually the other way round—evidence can’t be overturned by opinion—which is what you have been trying to do with your ad hocs.

Dan your counters have not been threatening. Please this is an important point to appreciate. That’s why no ad hoc fallacy has been committed when responding to your counters. I’m not saying that I’ve established that Smith did use a hat trick..I’m saying that your counter that ‘the Book of Mormon witnesses say so’ doesn’t allow it, is not strong evidence, not the least bit objectively verifiable. It’s my opinion against yours. I gave reasons to support my opinion. It’s not as if my opinion is implausible. It’s as plausible as your claim that Smith put his head in a hat and dictated with no reviewing the Book of Mormon, while resting his elbows on his knees for the entire Book of Mormon. Your evidence that the Book of Mormon witnesses said that’s what he did, is not reliable credible evidence. It’s one opinion versus another warranted by reasoning.

[_Roger]

UD:

We cannot grant early Mormon witnesses a blanket benefit of the doubt, when they are
accused of keeping Smith's secrets, or of lying in his behalf. Those people are not worthy
of our automatic trust.

And this is a matter I assumed was so obvious (to any serious critic of Mormonism) I simply took it for granted in my earlier conversations with Dan on this thread. This is what caused me some initial confusion and surprise until I realized, despite what he seems to be saying in American Apocrypha (which I have now come to realize is not what he's actually saying!), he actually does give the Book of Mormon witnesses and other early Mormon witnesses "a blanket benefit of the doubt." It took a while for that reality to sink in, and I still find it remarkable. In fact, it gets even worse than that in the specific case of David Whitmer. When confronted on the discrepancies in Whitmer's statements, Vogel attributes them to the reporters mistakes or misunderstanding, rather than conceding that Whitmer actually gave contradicting reports. I can see no rational reason for this. It seems to be bending over backwards to grant a benefit that was never earned and is not warranted.

If one is going to give every conceivable (but unwarranted) benefit of doubt to early Mormon witness testimony--excluding only whatever one perceives to be the supernatural elements--then the distance between that and the Official Version is indeed very small. Viewed in that light, Glenn's alliance with Dan on this thread makes perfect sense.

[_marg]

If one is going to give every conceivable (but unwarranted) benefit of doubt to early Mormon witness testimony--excluding only whatever one perceives to be the supernatural elements--then the distance between that and the Official Version is indeed very small. Viewed in that light, Glenn's alliance with Dan on this thread makes perfect sense.

Correct and that is why I have a hard time accepting that Dan is a skeptic of Mormon claims....to the point..that it almost appears to me he's a "plant" by the LDS church. Sorry Dan if that is offensive but that's the perception I have because I've never seen a self-proclaimed skeptic be so non-skeptical of claims in this case supporting the church which should warrant high skepticism, not just average skepticism.

Dan applies virtually no skepticism against Mormon claims that I can make out. The only skepticism he applies in this issue is against the S/R theory and in that case he goes overboard above and beyond the call of duty..to the point of being unreasonable. He even resorts to applying logical fallacies against S/R when they aren't even applicable.