The Top Ten Happenings in Mopologetics, 2018

[_Doctor Scratch]

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.

A good observation, Reverend (and happy holidays to you and your family!). I agree with you that Interpreter or even the old FARMS Review would be superior to the Ensign, pretty much no matter how you slice it. But your post, coupled with Physics Guy's, reminds me that one of the Mopologists' main goals, all along, has been to try and resolve the apparent conflict between what you call "a believer's framework" and legitimate scholarship. You just know that it eats at the apologists that they can't refer wavering or questioning LDS to the top journals in the field. They have to point to their own "vanity press" publications. That's not to say that there haven't been "prestige" publications, such as the one on Mountain Meadows with Oxford U. Press (a publication which touches the borders of the "Mopologetic"). But the problem, of course, is at least partly one of volume. If Mopologetic scholarly claims hold any water, they should be able to point to dozens of scholarly journals that contain peer-reviewed articles supporting their ideas. They never do this, though.

[_Kishkumen]

Happy holidays to you and yours, Doctor!

I recall Dr. P. arguing for a broader definition of scholarship than the current academic fashion allows. We know that the average person has a different definition of the word scholar than we academics do. But you are right that Mopologists have a love-hate relationship with the Academy, and there probably is a measure of envy and regret following on the great sacrifice on the altar to defend the Kingdom.

I don’t know. The more creative aspects of what they do remind me of Robert Graves’ White Goddess. Not that they are as creative, brilliant, or original as Graves, but the project of using antiquity to construct an imaginative system is somewhat akin to that work, at least.

[_Tom]

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.

I've tracked some statistics each year in my annual review.

Year 1

56 pieces published
41 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
34 authors
17 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

Year 2

55 pieces published
30 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
36 authors
16 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

Year 3

57 pieces published
32 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
35 authors
14 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

Year 4

74 pieces published
42 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
47 authors
16 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

Year 5

54 pieces published
28 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
35 authors
14 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

Year 6

59 pieces published
31 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
40 authors
14 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

[_Kishkumen]

Year 4 was a big one for Interpreter.

[_Symmachus]

Year 1

56 pieces published
41 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
34 authors
17 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

Year 2

55 pieces published
30 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
36 authors
16 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

Year 3

57 pieces published
32 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
35 authors
14 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

Year 4

74 pieces published
42 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
47 authors
16 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

Year 5

54 pieces published
28 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
35 authors
14 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

Year 6

59 pieces published
31 pieces authored by individuals affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation
40 authors
14 authors affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation

This is great work, Tom. I am just wondering, if you know: is it the same set of authors year over year? I notice, for instance, that the number of "authors affiliated" with the Interpreter Foundation seems to be quite steady (17, 16, 14, 16, 14, and 14).

[_Tom]

I am just wondering, if you know: is it the same set of authors year over year? I notice, for instance, that the number of "authors affiliated" with the Interpreter Foundation seems to be quite steady (17, 16, 14, 16, 14, and 14).

Fortunately, there are regulars among the authors who have published with Interpreter. One is Professor Bowen, whose work has appeared in 18 of the last 21 volumes of Interpreter. In total, Professor Bowen is the author or coauthor of 32 pieces published in Interpreter. Others affiliated with the Interpreter Foundation who have regularly published include Jeff Bradshaw, Craig Foster, Taylor Halverson, Jeff Lindsay, Louis Midgley, and Keith Thompson. I would guess that Stanford Carmack, Brian Hales, Neal Rappleye, and Stephen Smoot have each published 11-12 pieces.

Speaking of the Interpreter Foundation, I see that its #GivingTuesday Fundraiser launched 12 days ago and will continue until the end of the year. Thus far, $790 has been raised. Congratulations to the Foundation!

[Guest]

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.

Good Morning Dr. Scratch!

It is with heavy heart that I make this post, what with Mr. Peterson's commitment to a kinder, gentler, more Christ-like approach to living that seems to have gone off the rails mere days after lecturing his readers to embody, as it were, the Lord's love through kindness. The gentle reader of Mr. Peterson's blog may have noted that he exhorted his readers to kindness with not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but SIX quotes about kindness. SIX! Oh that man may be the culmination of Mr. Peterson's wishes. Truly Daniel C. Peterson is the Marcus Aurelius of our time, minus the latter's originality!

As I sit here this morning in my winter home, gazing out over the red bluffs that dominate the views of my quiet artists village of Kayenta, Utah, I can't help but feel there is a bit of irony as I sip my Kopi Luwak coffee. This faux coffee, as it were, isn't a bean but rather a seed, and it can only be processed by having a small mammal eat the seed and then crap out the product. One must pick through the excrement in order to retrieve the nuggets which then undergo rather labor-intensive process to produce what I'm now enjoying this cold dayspring.

It is in similar fashion that I found myself picking through Mr. Peterson's blog in an attempt to pluck out any nuggets that weren't re-hashed from old blog posts, aren't unaccredited plagiarisms of Wikipedia articles (such as the one dated yesterday about Hatikvah), or low-effort musings that might as well be lifted from the comments section of Deseret News when I noticed, unfortunately, that he wasn't following his own urgencies about kindness, and 'published' Part II of his holiday hit piece.

Sadly, I must report he's taken aim at you and another mysterious poster with whom he has quite a bit of animosity. I mourn how quickly Mr. Peterson abandoned his holiday spirit and assumed his usual role of the hateful bigot posting tone deaf diatribes about people who commit suicide at the Lord's university (blaming them of course), taking shots at David Bokovoy, sending missives toward his enemies both real and perceived, and of course bragging about upcoming vacations paid for by the largesse of others.

Well. These certainly are some things to ponder. I'll be taking a stroll up through Snow Canyon state park with my faithful canine companion, ironically enough an Australian Cattle dog, given the narrative of Sic et Non lately. It is a shame, though, that as we mosey toward 2019 Mr. Peterson will be sure to carry his vendettas and bitterness into yet another year as we stand witness to what Mopologetics do to normally decent people. Perhaps we should call it the Sméagol Effect, where perfectly decent people are corrupted by the lure of defending the Church, even unto the absolute corruption of their souls.

- Doc

[_Tom]

Lucky for us, 2018 blessed us with a wealth of material, so I also offer up these Honorable Mentions:

--The Mopologists exult over Elder Holland's talk at the MI
--DCP is still butt-hurt over Everybody Wang Chung's joke about traveling to the Holy Land
--The apologists admit that they don't understand Mister Rogers
--Stalinist Art becomes a flashpoint for the Mopologists
--Louis Midgley slams non-LDS forms of grieving
--Still more problems with plagiarism
--Pres. Nelson declares that "Mormon" shall no longer be used as the Church's name

I'll add my nominations for two honorable honorable mentions for 2018:

--The Interpreter Foundation apparently decided to end, or perhaps repurpose, the Ruth M. Stephens Prize. Back in September 2016, Dr. Peterson explained the purpose and history of the prize:

Two or three years ago, my wife and I and certain members of her extended family created a little prize in honor of my late mother-in-law. We chose to focus it on encouraging women to submit articles to Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture. Now, perhaps it’s not big enough — we’re not rich — but the fact is that our effort has had no discernible effect (so far as I can tell) on the number of manuscripts submitted to Interpreter by women. (We’re currently considering whether or not we’ll continue funding the prize and, if we do, whether we’ll change its focus; perhaps, if we do continue with it, we’ll alter it to aim at young scholars rather than at women.)

The Foundation did award the prize in 2017, but 2018 has passed without a prize announcement. As to whether the prize will be repurposed for awarding to Stephen Smoot or Neal Rappleye, I cannot say.

--The Interpreter Foundation has never been very transparent with its finances. Unfortunately, 2018 has been a particularly troubling year for the Foundation in terms of financial transparency. We're well into December, and the Foundation has yet to post its expenses report for the third quarter of 2018 (which ended September 30). Why do I mention this? I must confess that I've fielded several phone calls this month from the Relief Society sister in Parowan, soliciting my thoughts on whether she should continue to contribute to the Foundation (on which, see here). I've suggested that she wait until the Foundation improves its record on transparency. I will add that the Relief Society sister in Parowan—who, incidentally, is not only not rich but far from rich—is very concerned that the Foundation has thus far failed to change the name of its flagship journal and website address to comply with President Nelson's revelatory directive, issued nearly four months ago. (I note that Mormon Women Stand—an organization made up of faithful Latter-day Saint women who unequivocally sustain the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators—changed its name to Latter-day Saint Women Stand within a day.)

[_Physics Guy]

I sip my Kopi Luwak coffee. This faux coffee, as it were, isn't a bean but rather a seed, and it can only be processed by having a small mammal eat the seed and then ____ out the product.

All coffee beans are in fact the stones of the coffee cherry. Kopi Luwak is ordinary coffee except for that alarming extra step in its processing. Does it taste noticeably different?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I sip my Kopi Luwak coffee. This faux coffee, as it were, isn't a bean but rather a seed, and it can only be processed by having a small mammal eat the seed and then ____ out the product.

All coffee beans are in fact the stones of the coffee cherry. Kopi Luwak is ordinary coffee except for that alarming extra step in its processing. Does it taste noticeably different?

It tastes like crap.

- Doc