CaliforniaKid wrote:Darth J wrote:I picked the Eight Witnesses as an example simply because Peterson singled out the "Book of Mormon witnesses" (which is already a question-begging term) in his blog post. You seem to be addressing a different point than what I was discussing. The Eight Witness' ability to determine that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon and that the plates they saw appeared to be of ancient work is a different issue than the probability that the plates they were shown were in fact what Joseph Smith claimed them to be. The probability that the Eight Witnesses were qualified to make those determinations is zero. They did not have any knowledge or ability to research the plates that would make them competent to make those statements. If what they were shown were in fact ancient Nephite records, that's coincidental to their testimony. You're not looking at the odds that they knew what they were talking about; you're trying to guess what the odds are that Joseph Smith was telling the truth. It still comes down to whether Joseph Smith was right, which still means that the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses is irrelevant (because their personal knowledge doesn't factor into your analysis) and lacks foundation (they couldn't have known whether Joseph Smith translated the plates and whether the plates were of ancient origin).
Let's put it this way. There are several possible explanations for the witnesses' testimony. 1) Perhaps Joseph fabricated some plates which he showed them, and they just hallucinated or lied about the angel. 2) Perhaps they hallucinated or lied about the whole thing, plates and angel entire. 3) Perhaps they really were shown plates by an angel, and the Church/Book of Mormon are true. 4) Or perhaps they really were shown plates by an angel, but for some reason the Church/Book of Mormon are not true.
Group hallucination and conspiracy aren't unheard of, but they are fairly rare, which means explanations 1 and 2 are somewhat improbable. Thus, I think, the witnesses' testimony raises the probability of explanations 3 and 4 above what they would be if there was no witness testimony for a naturalistic explanation to account for. (Still not high enough to justify acceptance, in my opinion.)
The Eight Witnesses did not claim that an angel showed them the golden plates.
You're right that my discussion about foundation and relevance is similar to evidence in a legal setting, but I'm not suggesting that people should follow the Rules of Evidence in their daily lives. I'm talking about the reasoning behind rules that determine what a fact-finder can legitimately consider as evidence---whether that fact-finder is a member of a jury, a researcher, or a person shopping religions.
I am very leery of applying legal standards to historical problems. Legal reasoning and historical reasoning are designed to accomplish different objectives.
So am I, and yes, they are. But like I said, I'm not suggesting we apply legal standards to questions of history or factual claims in general. I'm talking about principles of reasoning and heuristics that people use in general---principles that guide evaluation of proffered evidence in many areas of life, not just law.
The highest priority of legal reasoning is to protect the innocent, whereas the highest priority of historical reasoning is to determine the most likely explanations about what happened in the past.
That's not really accurate. The law of evidence is about reliability. The same rules of evidence apply in both civil and criminal cases---the presumption of innocence does not apply to the former. And in criminal cases, both prosecution and defense have to follow the rules of evidence.
For this reason, the standards of admissability and definitiveness of evidence are very different. For instance, "hearsay" is considered pretty much invalid in legal reasoning, whereas in historical reasoning second-hand accounts are used liberally.
That's not entirely accurate, either. There are numerous exceptions to the hearsay rule. The fundamental consideration for statements that would otherwise be considered hearsay, and for statements that are hearsay but can come in anyway, is that the statement is shown to be reliable. Also, whether a statement is hearsay depends primarily on what you're using the statement for. If you're simply trying to prove that a statement was made, then it is not hearsay. If you're trying to prove the truth of the matter asserted, then it is hearsay. Example:
"Bob told me the car was blue."
If you're trying to prove the car was blue, this is hearsay, because Bob is the one who saw the car, not the person saying this. But if you are just trying to prove the fact that Bob made the statement that the car was blue, then it is not hearsay.
In fact, I think the application of legal standards to religious history has usually been promulgated by apologists who view the historical enterprise as a prosecution of their cherished beliefs, texts, and leaders. They want us to assume their religions' innocence until proven guilty, and to throw out any evidence that wouldn't qualify for a courtroom. You, Darth, seem to be sort of turning that approach on its head, to make naturalism the privileged defendant. A strictly probabilistic approach rejects any such privileging of one side or the other. There is no defendant; there is only a set of alternatives.
Actually, I'm not (and heuristics, which I talked about, does not come from law---it comes from cognitive psychology). It has nothing to do with naturalism, or about supernatural claims. A person could be a true believer in angels and miracles and whatever and still validly consider questions about foundation, relevance, and "common sense" about assessing the reliability of claimed evidence. The principles I'm talking about apply just as much to a believing Mormon evaluating whether to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone as a secular critic evaluating whether the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses is legitimate circumstantial evidence that the Book of Mormon is real history.
In fact, you've actually suggested the confusion of the issue that Mormon apologists consistently raise--and I would say rely on--in the face of secular criticism. You can go ahead and grant the existence of supernatural beings and events. The issue is not
either the faith-promoting narrative is true,
or you summarily dismiss the possibility of angels and miracles and whatnot. The issue is whether on this specific occasion, an angel showed Joseph Smith an ancient Nephite record that he later showed to eight of his close friends and relatives. The reason I say Mormon apologists generally rely on the false dichotomy is it creates the out for them and their target audience of, "Well, you just don't believe it because you don't believe in God."
But I'm having a hard time seeing how P(h) is not arbitrary.
Unfortunately, we frequently can't assign hard and fast numbers to the different alternatives. We weigh probabilities on a sort of intuitive level, based on a lot of educated guessing and induction.
In this example, I would not find a Bayesian probability persuasive either for or against the plates really being an ancient Nephite record because we have no frame of reference for how likely that would be.