Thinking clearly about archaeology and the Book of Mormon

[_DrW]

Or, perhaps he is simply a pathological narcissistic, attention craving, and professionally discredited apologist for the most monumental religious scam of modern times.

Perhaps critics do not hate him. Perhaps they are simply amused by him and really do not want him to fade away. If so, it is mainly because DCP makes the job of the critics so much easier than it might otherwise be. He continues to be better than anyone else at providing fresh public examples of just how silly the Mormon religion, mindset and mythology really are.

[_EAllusion]

Oh please. Assigning Elements of Style as a style guide for paper writing is no more a mistake than assigning Chicago style or MLA as a standard for paper writing. It's as if Ex-Mormons never stepped inside a classroom outside of their GRE instruction.

It's an archaic style guide filled with the quirks and dialectical habits of the authors. That aside, that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about Elements of Style representing proper grammar. Not stylistic convention, rules of thumb, or field jargon. So when Shakespeare writes the line, "I never was nor never will be," for Richard III, poor Richard is making a mistake that plucky DCP will dutifully correct by handing out his dog-eared copy of Elements of Style to him. This is what is prescriptivist nonsense.

[_DrDarbyLDS]

It's an archaic style guide filled with the quirks and dialectical habits of the authors. That aside, that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about Elements of Style representing proper grammar. Not stylistic convention, rules of thumb, or field jargon. So when Shakespeare writes the line, "I never was nor never will be," for Richard III, poor Richard is making a mistake that plucky DCP will dutifully correct by handing out his dog-eared copy of Elements of Style to him. This is what is prescriptivist nonsense.

Flim flam.

So I was delighted, several years ago, to reread William Strunk and E.B. White’s little classic, “The Elements of Style,” and to realize that it covered virtually every recurrent student writing error. I immediately began to recommend it to my classes and, sometimes, even to require it. If they’ll pay close attention to it, I tell them, they’ll avoid most, if not all, of the mistakes that many of them regularly and predictably commit.

A common error is to write it's for its, or vice versa. The first is a contraction, meaning "it is." The second is a possessive.

I imagine this EAllusion poster takes this as Dr. Peterson to be indoctrinating his students in white code signaling, but you can see the exact same thing in MLA. As to the wild assertion that Elements is some kind of rigid prescriptive handbook, I draw the attention of people who actually have read the damned thing to the first edition where there is a chapter on spelling that showed awareness to the topic:

The spelling of English words is not fixed and invariable, not does it depend on any other authority than general agreement...

A constant theme of the little book is to do things for the reader to make reading easier. The book doesn't claim to be an authority not does DCP even say anything about it being an authority, just that it dealt with the mistakes he was consistently having to deal with. The fact that it came in a small book that also exemplifies brief and vigorous writing doesn't hurt either.

This is what happens when you attend the DrW school of "(lacking) Critical Thinking" or experience you intellectual education on the message boards of Rotten Tomatoes. It goes right back to the picture I posted earlier; this is simply hating on a scholar because he is a Mormon and nothing else.

[_Sammy Jankins]

To state the obvious. This quote doesn't work unless Dr. Peterson is willingly being framed for a crime he didn't commit as Batman was in The Dark Knight. He is a lightning Rod, I won't dispute that. But he is still influential. He gets a weekly column in the Deseret News. So people are going to comment on it and critique it.

[_Sethbag]

Or, perhaps he is simply a pathological narcissistic, attention craving, and professionally discredited apologist for the most monumental religious scam of modern times.

Actually I think that would be Islam. Oh.

[_SteelHead]

When did the thread go from archeology to grammar?

[_DrW]

This is what happens when you attend the DrW school of "(lacking) Critical Thinking" or experience you intellectual education on the message boards of Rotten Tomatoes. It goes right back to the picture I posted earlier; this is simply hating on a scholar because he is a Mormon and nothing else.

Hello DrDarbyLDS,

You might be surprised to learn that the DrW school of critical thinking has helped make me a reasonably secure and fulfilled individual, with a great family to boot. The patents resulting from the application of the critical thinking skills you hold in such low regard have resulted in substantial equity positions in several companies in the US and overseas.

The frequent and sometimes long term overseas travel afforded me as a consequence (Turkey, France and Mexico this month) has allowed me see first hand, and truly appreciate, the silly waste of time that religion really is, and the ways in which its associated unfounded belief, superstition and self-delusion can keep people from reaching their full potential. Religion can, and often does, damage or ruin lives as well as societies, economies, cultures and even countries.

Now, if you actually read my post, you should have noted that I certainly do not hate DCP. In fact, I consider him a dependable source of amusement, and a great object lesson for my kids as to what can become of folks who publicly dedicate themselves to defending the indefensible.

DCP is a cautionary tale of Mormonism if there ever was one.

[_DrW]

Or, perhaps he is simply a pathological narcissistic, attention craving, and professionally discredited apologist for the most monumental religious scam of modern times.

Actually I think that would be Islam. Oh.

It certainly would be if one were to consider Islam a modern religion.

Having spent several years living and working in various Islamic countries, I don't.

[_Yahoo Bot]

This is what happens when you attend the DrW school of "(lacking) Critical Thinking" or experience you intellectual education on the message boards of Rotten Tomatoes. It goes right back to the picture I posted earlier; this is simply hating on a scholar because he is a Mormon and nothing else.

Hello DrDarbyLDS,

You might be surprised to learn that the DrW school of critical thinking has helped make me a reasonably secure and fulfilled individual, with a great family to boot. The patents resulting from the application of the critical thinking skills you hold in such low regard have resulted in substantial equity positions in several companies in the US and overseas.

The frequent and sometimes long term overseas travel afforded me as a consequence (Turkey, France and Mexico this month) has allowed me see first hand, and truly appreciate, the silly waste of time that religion really is, and the ways in which its associated unfounded belief, superstition and self-delusion can keep people from reaching their full potential. Religion can, and often does, damage or ruin lives as well as societies, economies, cultures and even countries.

Now, if you actually read my post, you should have noted that I certainly do not hate DCP. In fact, I consider him a dependable source of amusement, and a great object lesson for my kids as to what can become of folks who publicly dedicate themselves to defending the indefensible.

DCP is a cautionary tale of Mormonism if there ever was one.

You must be very interesting at parties or class reunions. Presuming that you are invited to parties or that people will want to sit at your table.

[_EAllusion]

So I was delighted, several years ago, to reread William Strunk and E.B. White’s little classic, “The Elements of Style,” and to realize that it covered virtually every recurrent student writing error. I immediately began to recommend it to my classes and, sometimes, even to require it. If they’ll pay close attention to it, I tell them, they’ll avoid most, if not all, of the mistakes that many of them regularly and predictably commit.

He sets up the book as the fundamental basics for writing properly and brags of requiring his students to read it to avoid making writing mistakes articulated therein. That many things found in the book really aren't "mistakes" seems like a relevant observation here. Indeed, he relies on it analogously to laud Hamblin's essay as functioning the same for criticism of Book of Mormon historicity. The idea is that thinking it is Ok to use passive voice is akin to thinking the Book of Mormon is best interpreted as a hemispheric narrative.

I imagine this EAllusion poster takes this as Dr. Peterson to be indoctrinating his students in white code signaling, but you can see the exact same thing in MLA. As to the wild assertion that Elements is some kind of rigid prescriptive handbook, I draw the attention of people who actually have read the damned thing to the first edition where there is a chapter on spelling that showed awareness to the topic:

Fortunately I have "read the damned thing" and it explicitly sets its rules up as the baseline of proper grammar, describing it as "plain English" if I recall. The tone is strident and lecturing throughout, describing perfectly fine stylistic choices in terms like "unforgivable" and "indefensible." It allows for deviations from its ruleset in the same way that Picasso first had to master realistic still-lifes before moving into Dadaism. That it recognizes spelling isn't historically fixed and derives from the lived experience of the users of a language doesn't change any of this. The theme is, "This is the proper way to write. Venture beyond at your own risk only after mastering these basics." It was quite influential in leading others, apparently including Dr. Peterson, to think its articulated rules constitutes the basics of proper grammar.

This is what happens when you attend the DrW school of "(lacking) Critical Thinking" or experience you intellectual education on the message boards of Rotten Tomatoes. It goes right back to the picture I posted earlier; this is simply hating on a scholar because he is a Mormon and nothing else.

Heh.