Divining Rods and DCP

[_DrW]

How then can you separate a person's belief in proven frauds such as dowsing, from their intellectual credibility as a whole?

Excellent question. And people have been banned from MADB (MD&D) for little more than simply asking it.

Now that DCP has professed belief in something unrelated to Mormonism that can be, and has been, demonstrated as false, I would really like to hear his answer to your question.

[_Yong Xi]

Now that DCP has professed belief in something unrelated to Mormonism that can be, and has been, demonstrated as false, I would really like to hear his answer to your question.

I would like to hear it as well. He has, no doubt, seen this thread.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I would like to hear it as well. He has, no doubt, seen this thread.

Only just now, actually.

I've been up in Yellowstone National Park since Friday, indulging my hobby interest in geology -- a rather odd interest, it seems to me, for the anti-scientific "paragon of self-delusion and magical thinking" that I'm supposed to be. Earlier this summer, I was back and forth across Rocky Mountain National Park, for the same reasons. (I've read at several places on the Web that I'm a young-earth creationist, which is very surprising to me but which must, I suppose, be credited, since, surely, nobody on the Web would ever get anything wrong.)

I don't recall specifically what I said in the podcast about divining rods. But here is what I think:

I have absolutely no theory about the efficacy of divining rods. I simply report my own single experience with a divining rod: I was stunned and unnerved by the fact that it seemed to work.

Since then, I've spoken with a few others who have had similar experiences.

I haven't decided what to make of all this.

I'm not going to deny my direct personal experience because it conflicts with consensus theory. To do so would be dishonest. However, I also don't base any theory of my own on that experience, either. I don't claim to be refuting any scientific studies. I simply relate it, and say that it bothered me a great deal (since, as a matter of actual fact, I tend to be a rational empiricist). Which it did.

[Guest]

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[Guest]

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[_DrW]

(since, as a matter of actual fact, I tend to be a rational empiricist).

Dr. Peterson,

As soon as I finish cleaning the orange juice off of my monitor and recover a normal heart and respiration rate, I have a few questions regarding your tendency towards rational empiricism.

Rational empiricism (if practiced correctly) would seem dangerously close to the arrogant dogmatic scientism that you so gleefully and dismissively ascribe to folks like me. (Or is it just to me?).

Did the fact that science can provide an extremely detailed explanation of the real-world geological phenomena that you witnessed at Yellowstone happen to change your dim view of science and scientists in some way?

More later. A believing Mormon claiming to be a rational empiricist? We clearly need to get to the bottom of this.

[_Simon Belmont]

DrW:

Are there any LDS scientists?

If there are, it dashes your NTS theories to bits, I'm afraid.

[Guest]

(since, as a matter of actual fact, I tend to be a rational empiricist).

Dr. Peterson,

Just to be sure that we agree on the meaning of terms here, Empiricism is the gaining of knowledge (exclusively) by means of one's experiences. Rational empiricism, as the term implies, involves the use rationality, reason, logic and even (heaven forbid) the scientific method in interpreting and validating the experiences and observations that go into making up one's worldview or set of beliefs.

Were you to have stopped at Empiricist in describing your approach to acquiring knowledge about the world, I would have been in agreement.

Empiricism is indeed the way Mormons are taught to view the world. They are encouraged to have all manner of Church sanctioned experiences, the intended meaning and implications of which are dictated by, well -- the Church.

However, given the dozens (if not hundreds) of internal inconsistencies, anachronisms, mistakes and invalid claims in the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price and other of Joseph Smith's "scriptures", how can anyone claiming to be a rational empiricist (as you have done) possibly hold that these works of 19th century fiction are what Joseph Smith and the LDS Church claim them to be?

While I understand that it is your job to try and create wiggle room and reasonable doubt as to all disconfirming evidence, I would think, at least now and then, that no even apparently rational apologetic theory would be possible in response to some of these problems.

For example, there is no objective evidence whatsoever that the Tower of Babel, as described in the Old Testament, ever existed. There is no linguistic bottleneck, no confirming archeology - nothing. Secular archeologists and historians have determined that it never existed. I am confident that you would agree that the Tower of Babel is a baseless myth of the Old Testament. There is no evidence whatsoever for a Tower of Babel and there is no evidence whatsoever for universal confounding of language by a vengeful supernatural being.

Yet, we have the Book of Mormon claiming that the Tower of Babel was a fact. It even uses the Tower of Babel as a key element in the "history" of the Jaredites. Same with the global flood of Noah in the Old Testament. Again, this flood was described in some detail in Joseph Smith's Book of Moses (Moses 7:43 and 8:17, for example), and referred to in Alma, yet we know that a global flood never happened.

I could go on and on, but I will stop and ask a few simple questions.

How in the world can you even assert, let alone really believe, that you approach the world as a rational empiricist, while claiming that these kinds of fairy tales, and the fictions based on these fairy tales, represent objective reality? Or are these things inconvenient truths that you simply choose to ignore?

Given your stated beliefs related to these issues, is it not reasonable to question your judgment, your grasp of what rational empiricism actually is, or (as Willy Law points out) your intellectual credibility?

[_DrW]

DrW:

Are there any LDS scientists?

If there are, it dashes your NTS theories to bits, I'm afraid.

Simon, my friend,

There certainly are LDS scientists.

Since the current subject is actually rational empiricism, and you still seem fixated on True Scotsmen, allow me to first name for you a few True Scotsmen who qualify. These would certainly include James Clark Maxwell (Maxwell's Equations) , James Watt, Alexander Graham Bell, Daniel Rutherford, and Alexander Fleming (as well as dozens of others).

While acknowledging the above named true Scotsmen as rational empiricists, as well as scientists, I would also claim that, given the scientific evidence available today regarding the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon, a believing LDS scientist cannot also be an intellectually honest rational empiricist for the very reasons described in the above post.

[_Willy Law]

I don't recall specifically what I said in the podcast about divining rods. But here is what I think:

I have absolutely no theory about the efficacy of divining rods. I simply report my own single experience with a divining rod: I was stunned and unnerved by the fact that it seemed to work.

Since then, I've spoken with a few others who have had similar experiences.

I haven't decided what to make of all this.

So you are a "mamby pamby" dowser.