The Top Ten Happenings in Mopologetics, 2018

[_Tom]

On a side note, during the November 11 broadcast of the show, Dr. Gee offered some criticisms of the latest volume in the Joseph Smith Papers Project, Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts (ed. Hauglid and Jensen). Dr. Gee said that this volume "seems to be not of the same quality" of the other published volumes and noted that "there are some disappointing problems" with it. He is apparently working on a review for publication (he didn't name the outlet; I assume it's Interpreter). Will it be a takedown, a flawless victory, or something else?

Why wouldn't the JSP project team, Hauglid and Jensen, have engaged with Egyptologist and Mormon John Gee in the production of the volume Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts, and does that snub explain Gee's lack of enthusiasm for it?

That's a good question. Perhaps Professor Gee will address that issue in his review. A related question: was Professor Muhlestein involved?

[_Mormon Think]

Thanks much for doing this Dr. Scratch. Something I always look forward to at the end of the year.

[_Gadianton]

He is apparently working on a review for publication (he didn't name the outlet; I assume it's Interpreter)

Don't hold your breath. The Interpreter is pretty tough to get into and can't just assume that because he's best friends with the chairman or has a long publishing record with FARMS that he'll get in.

[_Symmachus]

Regularity can be the mother monotonous predictability. The paradox Dr. Scratch so generously offers up every year, though, is that the Top Ten is never monotonous or predictable. And yet I for one am filled with festive gratitude each year, as well as amazement, that he can produce these lists, rich with both merriment and instruction, with the sort of comforting regularity that is the stuff of true tradition.

[_Kishkumen]

The holiday season is not in full swing until Doctor Scratch’s Top Ten hits MDB.

[_Gadianton]

And yet, this is the person who is in charge of editing the flagship "journal"? I mean: kudos to Wyatt for clawing (or slithering?) his way to the top, but you have to wonder what the classic-FARMS "leadership" is thinking. They seem to be, essentially, "absentee 'leaders'" in this whole affair. The only person who seems to be even halfway connected to the whole thing is the increasingly unhinged and frenetic Dr. Midgley, who, as you point out, has a strange and dissonant view on credentials and authority.

Okay, I'll share my speculation with you, since that's all we have in absence of transparency.

I think the Interpreter is struggling. Not financially, mind you, it appears that the project has extensive backing. The reason why there is no serious peer review -- or rather the reason why one guy is making the decisions -- is because there's little interest in terms of submissions. That's why Midgley and Jeff Lindsey and a couple others can get multiple articles in during the year. If you're the least bit connected to Mopolgetics, now is the time to get your face in the camera if that's what you want. I didn't review Lindsay's latest paper because it's 30+ pages of amateur brainstorming, but I did think it was interesting in the sense that yes, he's trying to gain more formal status as a serious apologist through the Interpreter and the field is wide open right now, with Mopologetics still formally dead, but he's being a team player about it. He's probably on the humble end of the spectrum, compared to the enormous egos one normally finds in Mopologetics, and he's stepping up to the plate to do what he can. Some of his essay goes over apologetic contributions from a variety of sources over the years, and he's struggling to tie it all together. It's as if he's trying to get something going, get something others will build on, and include everyone he can on the team. It's a noble aspiration, for sure.

But it doesn't seem to me anyone is feeling the energy. Any of the big names, Lindsay, Smoot, Midgster, etc., are for-sure prints, once SG sees one of those names, a Friday is covered automatically. So it's a matter of picking between the one-hit wonders. If there's only a couple submissions a week, then there's not much to filter.

[_Physics Guy]

Has anyone compiled a spreadsheet of Interpreter authors? The information is easy to find on the website and should not take too horribly long to collate. A quick impression is that a few names keep cropping up, volume after volume and often multiple times in a single volume. No serious journal I know is ever like that.

Lay people often seem to have the impression that peer review implies stringent standards of quality, but the principle of peer review is as much about academic freedom as it is about quality control. Peer review says that quality standards are to be set by the researchers themselves, collectively, rather than being imposed by some designated authority. So a journal can legitimately claim to be peer-reviewed if its authors and reviewers are peer members of the same research community, even if that community is just a small club of crackpots. That's the trade-off we make in research, because maybe one time in a hundred the small club of crackpots will turn out to be right.

So just because Interpreter is peer-reviewed doesn't mean it's any good. The more insular its roster of authors is, the more limited its roster of peer reviewers is likely to be, and so the more likely it is to be a journal of doubtful quality. If Interpreter looks like an iffy journal, getting published in Interpreter isn't going to count for much with deans and promotion committees as evidence of substantial research productivity. Conversely, if any professional researcher does have a substantial paper, they're going to want to get full credit for their substantial work by publishing it somewhere more respectable than Interpreter.

There's probably a make-or-break threshold phenomenon whereby a journal has to have a big enough pool of serious contributing authors in order to be respectable enough to attract a big enough pool of serious authors. Below threshold the journal will be too full of substandard works by fringe authors for any serious author to consider submitting to it. A few hours with a spreadsheet might let someone assess whether Interpreter looks like a narrow but respectable academic journal or whether it's in fringe journal territory, peer review notwithstanding.

[_Fence Sitter]

A few hours with a spreadsheet might let someone assess whether Interpreter looks like a narrow but respectable academic journal or whether it's in fringe journal territory, peer review notwithstanding.

Even BYU did not consider the publishing work that the Dr's Peterson & Hamblin were doing at the MI respectable enough to allow them to continue it. Hamblin bitterly noted that his own department head gave him poor reviews because of his apologetics.

[_Kishkumen]

So just because Interpreter is peer-reviewed doesn't mean it's any good.

OK, but good at what? If you want an interesting discussion of Mormon scripture within a believer's framework, you are probably better off reading Interpreter than the Ensign or a lot of other things. On the other hand, the polemical aspects of it are pretty dreadful, and one of course cannot expect a regular academic approach.

[_Doctor Scratch]

And yet, this is the person who is in charge of editing the flagship "journal"? I mean: kudos to Wyatt for clawing (or slithering?) his way to the top, but you have to wonder what the classic-FARMS "leadership" is thinking. They seem to be, essentially, "absentee 'leaders'" in this whole affair. The only person who seems to be even halfway connected to the whole thing is the increasingly unhinged and frenetic Dr. Midgley, who, as you point out, has a strange and dissonant view on credentials and authority.

Okay, I'll share my speculation with you, since that's all we have in absence of transparency.

I think the Interpreter is struggling. Not financially, mind you, it appears that the project has extensive backing. The reason why there is no serious peer review -- or rather the reason why one guy is making the decisions -- is because there's little interest in terms of submissions. That's why Midgley and Jeff Lindsey and a couple others can get multiple articles in during the year. If you're the least bit connected to Mopolgetics, now is the time to get your face in the camera if that's what you want. I didn't review Lindsay's latest paper because it's 30+ pages of amateur brainstorming, but I did think it was interesting in the sense that yes, he's trying to gain more formal status as a serious apologist through the Interpreter and the field is wide open right now, with Mopologetics still formally dead, but he's being a team player about it. He's probably on the humble end of the spectrum, compared to the enormous egos one normally finds in Mopologetics, and he's stepping up to the plate to do what he can. Some of his essay goes over apologetic contributions from a variety of sources over the years, and he's struggling to tie it all together. It's as if he's trying to get something going, get something others will build on, and include everyone he can on the team. It's a noble aspiration, for sure.

But it doesn't seem to me anyone is feeling the energy. Any of the big names, Lindsay, Smoot, Midgster, etc., are for-sure prints, once SG sees one of those names, a Friday is covered automatically. So it's a matter of picking between the one-hit wonders. If there's only a couple submissions a week, then there's not much to filter.

It's because this crowd thrives on the verbal warfare--just as you yourself pointed out not long ago, Dean Robbers. The posts that get the most comments on Sic et Non are the ones that are about picking fights. The impresario of that blog knows this, and knows how it looks, too. So, there's this attempt to wallpaper over all that with "nice," watered-down, polite, completely boring posts. (And lol at the thinking behind that: "Gee, if I do five nice posts for every mean post, that'll make it all okay, won't it?") Let's face it: bellicosity is the Mopologists' metier, and it's what their principal audience wants as well.