Grant Palmer is attacked by Brian Hales and Gregory L. Smith

[_Kishkumen]

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[_Yahoo Bot]

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I know, you want to insult me for my bloviating against your good friend.

It was just all tongue in cheek. I hope Kevin understands.

[_AZCaesar]

An audiologist is not a credible historian. He's never had to defend a dissertation...

Well, hell. If I'd have known that my wife didn't have to defend for her Au.D. we could have saved all kinds of stress and trouble. Also, I am totally going to K-Mart for my videonystagmography testing and cochlear implant programming from now on.

[_Yahoo Bot]

An audiologist is not a credible historian. He's never had to defend a dissertation...

Well, hell. If I'd have known that my wife didn't have to defend for her Au.D. we could have saved all kinds of stress and trouble. Also, I am totally going to K-Mart for my videonystagmography testing and cochlear implant programming from now on.

Van Wagoner does not have a doctorate. He's qualified to work at K-Mart, yes, but nothing much more.

[_AZCaesar]

Van Wagoner does not have a doctorate. He's qualified to work at K-Mart, yes, but nothing much more.

Oh, ok. Glad we could clear up that when you said

An audiologist is somebody who works at K-Mart next to the photo booth.

you didn't mean

An audiologist is somebody who works at K-Mart next to the photo booth.

[_Yahoo Bot]

Van Wagoner does not have a doctorate. He's qualified to work at K-Mart, yes, but nothing much more.

Oh, ok. Glad we could clear up that when you said

An audiologist is somebody who works at K-Mart next to the photo booth.

you didn't mean

An audiologist is somebody who works at K-Mart next to the photo booth.

Yeah. I meant it, and with a trumpet fanfare.

Apologies to your wife. She is no more qualified to write a historical text for peer-reviewing than the oculist who works at KMart. It is indeed possible, of course. Brent Metcalf was a security guard and turned out some respectable analyses. (I don't agree with them, but they had an impact in academia.) But really doubtful. Doctors (Smith and Hale), audiologist (Van Wagoner), newspaper hound (Bagley), Metcalfe (security guard), Ashment (insurance salesman), Tanners (not sure) are not the same as Compton, Quinn, Mauss, Arrington, Coe, DCPeterson, Nibley, Hamblin.

Quinn bugs me because he never published a book-length work in a university peer-reviewed setting on any subject outside of BYU except for his Queer Studies book (sorry; I'm using the Library of Congress designation for the field of study where his book was classified). I wonder why he committed the best of his life to Signature Books where peer reviewing and editing can be a bad joke.

[_grindael]

Obviously D. Michael Quinn respected Signature Books. And as for all of the above, they have helped to redefine Mormon Studies in ways that never would have happened if it had been up to the likes of DCP and Bill Hamblin, whose views and conclusions are, well... simply as weird and contrived as those of Brian Hales.

[_Yahoo Bot]

Obviously D. Michael Quinn respected Signature Books. And as for all of the above, they have helped to redefine Mormon Studies in ways that never would have happened if it had been up to the likes of DCP and Bill Hamblin, whose views and conclusions are, well... simply as weird and contrived as those of Brian Hales.

As the Wall Street Journal reported, Quinn's decision to focus on non-university outlets torpedoed his career. Reading his Power books it is quite evident that there was little editorial control, and as I checked some footnotes, little cite checking. (Although, he is better than most at his cites.)

Whether Dr. Peterson, Dr. Hamblin or Dr. [med] Hales' conclusions are weird or contrived is probably a matter of perspective. I thought Hales's recent work to be of monumentally better help than Van Wagoner's or Compton's. And, Dr. Peterson is the best writer since Nibley. As to Dr. Hamblin, I don't know what he has published in an academic setting.

[Guest]

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[_grindael]

Obviously D. Michael Quinn respected Signature Books. And as for all of the above, they have helped to redefine Mormon Studies in ways that never would have happened if it had been up to the likes of DCP and Bill Hamblin, whose views and conclusions are, well... simply as weird and contrived as those of Brian Hales.

As the Wall Street Journal reported, Quinn's decision to focus on non-university outlets torpedoed his career. Reading his Power books it is quite evident that there was little editorial control, and as I checked some footnotes, little cite checking. (Although, he is better than most at his cites.)

Whether Dr. Peterson, Dr. Hamblin or Dr. [med] Hales' conclusions are weird or contrived is probably a matter of perspective. I thought Hales's recent work to be of monumentally better help than Van Wagoner's or Compton's. And, Dr. Peterson is the best writer since Nibley. As to Dr. Hamblin, I don't know what he has published in an academic setting.

Here's the thing. Like I said above, every writer has problems. I read them all and take them at face value. Do they make reasonable conclusions based on the evidence? In the case of Nibley, Peterson Hamblin and Hales, I can definitely say NO, and SHOW HOW, and will do so with Hales work on this thread.

You must actually struggle through all of Hales inane dialogue to get to the documents. These are not really reference books, they are Hales interpretation of polygamy with the documents indispersed among his speculations, with some in an appendix at the end of the 2nd Book. The whole set of books is an apologetic for Joseph Smith's "faithful" history. Quinn himself critiqued Hales work, and here is his list from an article he wrote in 2012-13,

Quinn accuses Hales of “citing easily refutable claims” (pg. 6), quotes secondary sources over primary sources (page 6), Quinn writes that “The best evidence is the original record of sealing, not someone’s century later commentary about it” which Hales quoted instead of the original record. Hales “brushes off the significance of some of the evidence he has cited,” (page 11), makes contradictory assertions (page 11), conveniently shifts his standards of evidentiary analysis in his own direction (page 18), Hales “apologetical observations contradict evidence (page 23), red herring, (page 25), makes claims that have no basis whatever (page 27), strains credulity (page 27), “presentist bias” (page 33) Of “misrepresentation” (page 64), of not consulting original sources (page 66), that he had an “academic obligation” to reveal certain information which he did not (page 66), of using a “vacuous red-herring when Hales does not quote a single exception from the “original records” about which he writes” (page 69), that Hales would not acknowledge crucial evidence that undermined his narrative (page 70 n. 46) which was that Joseph Smith forbid the practice of polygamy in Oct. 1843, citing a source critical to his argument without a page number (page 72), flawed methodology and closed system of logic (page 73), worse (Quinn’s word) he has failed to acknowledge several of the contrary evidences in publications he has cited, he makes “perplexing gaffes” in his use of evidence (page 73-74), he repeatedly questions the memory/accuracy of faithful Mormon witnesses that Hales disagrees with (page 74), does not use equal standards for evidence (page 74), making “apologetical claims” knowing they were “improbable” (page 75), did not acknowledge critical evidence until forced to by Quinn (page 78), gave “anachronistic assessment”, and “a fallacy of irrelevant proof”, and “chronologically false” assessment (page 80), overstates problem in proving a negative, (Hales - Can’t prove a negative) Quinn writes, “for example it is possible to prove that someone didn’t die on a particular date” (page 82), falsely accusing Quinn of stealing documents (84), red herring (87), absurdity (87), claimed that Quinn said something he did not (90), another fallacy of irrelevant proof (page 90), Hales wrongly corrected an accurate page citation by Quinn (page 91), knowing of evidence but ignoring it to support his conclusions (page 94), claimed no documentation existed when it did (page 95), not acknowledging evidence (page 98)making claims that were wrong (page 98), raising apologetical smoke-screen by questioning well known facts(page 101), ridiculous assertions about conspiracies (page 101), fallacy of irrelevant proof (page 102), Hales unreasonable researcher (page 102), using “multiple fallacies” (page 104), purposeful absence of references (page 105), purposeful non-inclusion of first-person sources that contradict his argument (page 108), using “imprecise and less detailed” evidence to support his argument (page 108), exclusion of evidence (page 108), claims there is no “specific documentation” when Quinn provided it (page 110), wrongly stated something Quinn did not say (page 113) which was a “Stunning gaffe”, again red herring (page 113), another red herring (page 115), irrelevant statements (page 115) “frequent use of polemical red-herrings to undermine historical evidence he dislikes” (page 115), On page 118 Quinn writes, “NOTHING (Caps in original) can satisfy Brian Hales’ calculatedly stringent requirements that are impossible to achieve, unless he finds a Victorian American woman who said, wrote, or testified that she (as a devout Mormon) alternated sexual intercourse with two husbands during a period of time” [This speaks for itself], Also includes Hales in the “double standard of LDS apologists who narrowly define acceptable evidence for unpleasant realities” (page 118), denying and ignoring evidence (pg. 123), closed system of logic (God knew Smith would be obedient so he was), page 124, Quinn compares Hales to Joseph Smith III, who refused to believe evidence he did not like, (page 124), accuses Hales of playing “a skillful shell game in which premises for judgment are conveniently shifted so that the conclusion is always the same” (page 125), ignores contradictions and other problems in evidence (page 126), omits significant facts (page 127), another wrong claim (page 127), does not cite sources he knows of (page 128), unqualified conclusions (page 128). ~ Evidence for the Sexual Side of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, D. Michael Quinn, (expanded-finalized, 31 December 2012; circulated in mid-2013)

I'm sure that list would have been much longer if he had included the trilogy of polygamy books. Again, who cares what anyone else said about Quinn's choice to go with Signature Books? D. Michael Quinn obviously respected them and that was his choice. Just because you don't like them is irrelevant. And actually it was the Mormon Church that torpedoed his career. They forced him out of BYU and everyone knows it. And it is easy to make claims about citations, (there are documented mistakes that Mike made that I've seen floating around) but let's have a nice big list from you of all the mistakes you found. I would like to see it. 50 will do, since the books are so full of mistakes, right?

Hales conclusions (along with DCP's and Hamblins) are weird, contrived and generally “a skillful shell game in which premises for judgment are conveniently shifted so that the conclusion is always the same”. I won't waste my time on DCP or Hamblin, but I am going to show how Hales is a poster boy for weird and contrived.

So, believing that an angel with a drawn sword appearing to Smith and threatening his life if he didn't marry more women is NOT weird? (It actually destroys Smith's "plan of salvation" by denying men their "free agency"). It's not weird to go to great lengths (even publishing an article about it) to try and prove it REALLY happened, instead of consigning it to folklore where it belongs? But men like Hales will latch on to ANYTHING in their desperate attempts to make Smith look even a little bit better (if that were possible) when it comes to polygamy. This is better? Ok, if you say so....