Gadianton wrote:Well, Mister Scratch, you asked a timely question in a very respectful and sincere way but it doesn't look like you're going to get an answer. I'm hoping JustMe really hasn't gone over the edge and is playing around.
I guess absent even an attempt to answer, I'll have to chalk up another win for Scratch.
As the thread starter, I'm hoping this thread will stay on topic. As for the scorecard, you can chalk that post up to the ever increasing number of posters who fail to take Scratch seriously on most any level.
Myself included.
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
Chinese Proverb
1) I take Scratch seriously. I find his writing style enjoyable, in fact that he has a writing style at all is unusual for this board. I find it a pleasing mixture of the urbane and witty with a dash of Situationist prank (an example, par excellence, of detournement). I also find the content of his posts of interest since he both works the archive (I find research sexy) and conducts his investigations at a very finely focused level. His work operates like an electron microscope, bringing to light through its higher power of magnification and greater resolution a level of apologetic activity that is otherwise invisible to the naked eye, but which, like atomic structure, supports and makes possible the activity on all other levels.
2) Speaking as an academic, peer review is useful and important, but more so in some disciplines than others (broadly speaking, "science" vs. "humanities"). In general, publishing is good because it both shows that others find your work useful and of interest, and where one publishes, whether it is strictly "double-blind" peer reviewed or not, can be a good indication of a text's merit given the reputation of the editorial staff and the quality of work regularly published there. This applies to both off and online publication--there are by now plenty of academic journals (peer-reviewed or not) that publish purely online and carry the same weight as any other kind of publication for judging a project's worth and merit. How online self publishing is regarded academically is another interesting development. There is a growing recognition of "new" (to academia) genres like blogs: there are personal blogs of academics across a range of fields (including science, interestingly) which have generated extraordinary and valuable commentary and discussion taking place among degreed faculty, undergrad and graduate students and interested autodidacts and "others" of all kinds. This sort of thing is recognized as an important new dimension of scholarship among the most forward-thinking tiers of academia.
I could talk about this for hours, but really it has nothing to do with the real question of "peer review and apologetics." The "scientific" and "historical" claims of/for the Book of Mormon or Book of Abraham are not recognized by the relevant scholarly communities. There are perfectly legitimate, nice, normal LDS scholars who write about aspects of Mormon religion and history sans an attempt to prove religious truth claims whose work is recognized and appreciated by the relevant scholarly communities.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
Gadianton wrote:Well, Mister Scratch, you asked a timely question in a very respectful and sincere way but it doesn't look like you're going to get an answer. I'm hoping JustMe really hasn't gone over the edge and is playing around.
I guess absent even an attempt to answer, I'll have to chalk up another win for Scratch.
Since I cannot possibly take much that Scratch says as being serious, yes I am totally playing around, no matter how sincere his feigning is about being sincere. He made it impossible to take him serious, and I don't. So if you wish to continue chalking up points in this worthless and meaningless game, please do feel free to deevote your time to a wasted cause. More power to ya. lol.....
I thought you were just playing. A "third way" to avoid the ill conseqences Scratch outlined I'm pretty sure is impossible. At least you're honest enough to admit that now.
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.
LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
by the way, all this BS about about "paradigms" and notes on important discoveries that were neglected by mainstream science along with the general Kuhn worship -- and later we'll learn something about this as K. C. has a negative review of Dan Vogal in FROB V.2 -- only shows the desperation of the apologists. And if Kuhn's model were the de rigeur of how science is done, then apologetics would never exist. Far more important in Kuhn's thinking than the ultimate bizarre end result of incommensurability are his descriptions of normal science. And his sentiments here make it clear that mesoamerican researchers should only work within the reigning paradigm. As it appears mainstream science has no need Old Testament the Book of Mormon to prevent fissures in the very fabric of contemporary mesoamerican archeology, the Book of Mormon should be cast aside and never taken seriously, and this applies to everyone in the field, including Mormon archeologists. Mormon apologists can't have their dessert, an incommensurable Kuhnian research paradigm that mainstream science can't translate let alone refute, without first finishing their supper, the long, arduous years of serious work within a single established model without any thought whatsoever of a revolution. Kuhn afterall, was a positivist himself with no intents of destroying science by putting anti-human race endeavors such as apologetics on equal grounds, so it should come as no surprise that his first commitment is to serious scientific research. So no matter how brilliant the apologists think they are, and no matter how neglected their research might be, if Kuhn is right, then they will continue to be neglected until the very fabric of current archeology begins to tear apart due to unusual and unexpected discoveries that may be explained by the Book of Mormon.
The current peer review process among the scientific worlds most distinquished journals might be flawed, but per Kuhn, it is not open to new and radical ideas such as Book of Mormon research, and further, there is no place for serious Book of Mormon science, at all. It's simply not science. And because it never will be science (especially in a Kuhnian world), like ID, the only chance it has as becoming "legitimate" is through its own fundraising and building an anti-science culture backed by mostly laypersons with mad religious beliefs. If the Book of Mormon is really true, then (especially in a Kuhnian world) the Mormon archeologists should cast aside their BS FARMS and FAIR write-ups and conferences and work in the reigning paradigm. And if their silly angel book has any credibility, perhaps a hundred or two years later archeology will begin feeling the strains of discoveries it's not equipped to handle but yet some new methods with the Book of Mormon can. But in Kuhns philosophy of science, that works from the inside of mainstream science, not among rogue apologists out on their own being evil, dishonest crackpots.
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.
LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
1) I take Scratch seriously. I find his writing style enjoyable, in fact that he has a writing style at all is unusual for this board. I find it a pleasing mixture of the urbane and witty with a dash of Situationist prank (an example, par excellence, of detournement). I also find the content of his posts of interest since he both works the archive (I find research sexy) and conducts his investigations at a very finely focused level. His work operates like an electron microscope, bringing to light through its higher power of magnification and greater resolution a level of apologetic activity that is otherwise invisible to the naked eye, but which, like atomic structure, supports and makes possible the activity on all other levels.
Bless your heart, Blixa. You are truly one of the good ones.
I actually had a goal in mind when I started this thread, I'll start going there now.
My understanding is that in the process of (at least some) academic peer reviews are conducted in such a way that the reviewers are anonymous to the person's whose work is being reviewed.
Is this true in all cases of peer review?
What are the pitfalls of such a process?
If reviewers are anonymous, what protection does the applicant have against possible bias on the part of reviewers?
In the case of double-blind reviews, are both the applicant and reviewers anonymous to each other and can that be requested?
Last edited by Google Feedfetcher on Sun Sep 21, 2008 5:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
Chinese Proverb
Bless your heart, Blixa. You are truly one of the good ones.
Hopefully my one last comment regarding this. I had an actual goal in mind when starting this thread and would like to see it realized if you all don't mind.
Scratch, I don't particularly mind that you post what you do on this board. That I find it tiresome does in no way negate your right to post it. What I object to is that you chose to insert your accusations on this which was meant to be a topical thread with a desired outcome insofar as polling, if you will, opinions regarding the process of peer review and I would not like to see it derailed.
I'm after something here.
Hopefully you understand the process of working toward a long term goal and will honor that.
Last edited by Google Feedfetcher on Sun Sep 21, 2008 5:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
Chinese Proverb
Daniel Peterson wrote:Peer review is helpful to an editor, but it's not magical.
I offered some thoughts on peer review and the Maxwell Institute (or FARMS) in my Editor's Introduction to FARMS Review 18/2 (2006), entitled "The Witchcraft Paradigm: On Claims to 'Second Sight' by People Who Say It Doesn't Exist":
Have you seen FAIR buddies ever contradict each-other?
Does the name Kevin Graham mean anything to you?
Kevin is not a member of FAIR and has not been for quite some time... since they threw him under a bus, If I recall correctly.
And what can any active member learn from Kevin's experience? That with friends like FAIR, one does not need enemies or peer review.
When I asked Daniel where he thought Trixie should publish her paper on mesoamerica's relationship with the Book of Mormon where LDS mesoamerican experts could read it, he suggested Sunstone or Dialogue. Neither of those publications is a peer reviewed journal catering to mesoamerican experts. They aren't even peer reviewed journals catering to experts of the LDS religion. So why would Daniel say those publications were appropriate for Trixie to publish in, when they have nothing to do with horses in mesoamerica nor are they recognized experts in the LDS religion? When one is marrying two radically different concepts (horses in mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon), how does one choose which catagory to attempt to publish in?
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.