Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

[_Dan Vogel]

Roger,

And as Dan points out, it is simply more convenient to conclude that it was all Smith and leave it at that.

I never said any such thing.

MCB said:

That is intellectually lazy, …

You should know better. Of course, I didn’t say that. That’s Roger’s strawman again.

… and improbable given Joseph Smith's academic problems.

The Book of Mormon isn’t academic, which should have been your first clue that the learned Spalding didn’t write it.

Roger said:

And I told you from the beginning that I am not concerned about following pre-determined rules for the formal structure of arguments or formally identifying logical fallacies.

That pretty much says it all!

[_Roger]

Dale wrote:

...until we have first of all presented a
compelling case for Cowdery's secret involvement in the
creation/compilation of the Book of Mormon text.

Three important early documents in this regard are to be
found in Book of Commandments chapters 7 & 8, along
with the mid-1829 "revelation" received/written by Cowdery.
If we can first of all present a case for Cowdery's integral
involvement in the compilation of the book, we can later
extend his probable methods/interests to Rigdon.

It seems obvious from those revelations that Oliver attempted to provide content for the book. I am not clear on whether anyone has positively identified any Book of Mormon content that we can all agree was produced by Oliver Cowdery with no input/oversight from Smith, but it appears that's what the revelation suggests he was attempting to do. It is logical then, to conclude that there might be some content in the Book of Mormon that came from the mind of Cowdery as opposed to the mind of Smith.

It gets much more complicated than that, Roger. Cowdery
also claimed to interact with an angel, and with John the
Baptist, and with Peter, James and John. When Cowdery
first appeared in northeastern Ohio, at the end of 1830, he
was reported in local newspapers as acting like a prophet.
The sum total of Cowdery's professions and pronouncements
reaches beyond the bounds of a deluded man making honest
mistakes about his religious experiences. Ether they all really
did happen (as Mormons claim) or he was a knowing liar.

Cowdery's being a knowing liar does not automatically mean
that he possessed no beliefs in God and Christ -- but that
same liar status can help explain some of his actions, whether
or not he was a faithful Christian. That may seem paradoxical
at first consideration, but I think we must hold open the odd
possibility that Cowdery was BOTH deceptive and sincere --
a fanatic who believed in supernatural powers. but who was
also ready to bend the truth more than a dishonest lawyer.

I'm not sure I'm following this. If you're saying that Cowdery was likely willing to use deception--as in deny use of a Spalding ms or forget to mention a Bible--for the greater good of bringing about modern revelation, and would have thought of that as being sincere or at least not fraudulent, I am with you. But you seem to be implying more than that here:

The sum total of Cowdery's professions and pronouncements
reaches beyond the bounds of a deluded man making honest
mistakes about his religious experiences. Ether they all really
did happen (as Mormons claim) or he was a knowing liar.

Again, I go back to the clear analogy I had right in front of me... quite deluded fanatics who give every appearance of believing every word coming from the charismatic faith healer they are following. This gets dicey when he claims they should be receiving healing when he puts his hand on their foreheads and pushes. What are they to do? All eyes are on them at that moment. Hands are uplifted. Prayers are being vociferously offered up by all present on behalf of the one needing healing. The pastor had already spent the previous hour and half relating several stories in which miracles always happened. He related how a man had come back to life as a result of his phone conversation with a pleading wife. (I kid you not. This is the kind of thing we're talking about.) So if they give any indication that they are NOT getting healed, that can only mean their faith is weak. At some point they have to either face that or claim healing. I've seen them do both. Some (honestly) admit they did not get healed this time. Others dance around the room claiming they were healed. Needless to say, it was an experience that made an impression on me.

I hear the same types of stories coming out of early Mormonism. People were jumping on tree stumps and preaching to Indian ghosts while contorting and twisting their bodies in bizarre shapes. This is the kind of environment we are talking about for early Mormonism. So why couldn't Cowdery have fanatically believed all of this stuff, like the rest of them? And why would he have believed telling people he had seen Christ, etc. was lying?

We can detect some of the basis for those earliest Mormon
professions in the pages of the Book of Mormon itself. The
text gives us examples of belief=faith, seeing with the "eye of
faith," and how a seer's perception is greater than that of a
prophet. Close attention to the book's doctrines on these points
may help us understand what the earliest Mormons meant by
"mysteries," "knowledge," "seeing," etc. I think we should be
prepared to understand that they used witnessing language in
ways rather different from scientific observation/reporting.

Exactly. This is exactly like what they do today when they claim to know the Book of Mormon is true. Are they lying? Or have they bent the semantic rules enough (without telling us) in order to justify (in their own minds) what they are claiming? And, they reason, it's not their job to clarify.

It is very difficult to separate concrete manifestations from
"visions" in that early Mormon testimony. When Sidney Rigdon
and Oliver Cowdery claim to have interacted with "Christ," we
must remember that they are using language differently from
the way you and I might use language. Quite likely those first
Mormons did experience wonderful things -- but there are many
ways to induce hallucinations and a sense of profound awe in
deceived believers.

Agreed. This is exactly what the faith healer does. Week after week. I was only privy to two meetings (that went on forever). That kind of influence/pressure is bound to produce results over time. And we all agree that Smith was both charismatic and good at deception. (Well Glenn may not agree on that).

We can speculate on the "mixture" of secrecy and faith, almost
endlessly. Probably that "mixture" varied from person to person,
with the top two or three Mormon con-men possessing a mix
quite different from that held by the multitude of dupes. I'd
say it is best for investigative purposes that we keep an open
mind regarding such things.

Agreed.

It would be very helpful if we today could conduct a cross
examination of those early witnesses. But I do not suppose
that we could count upon Oliver Cowdery to always tell us
the truth. Suppose, by some magic, we suddenly had Oliver
here with us, and could question the fellow closely -----

What would you ask him? How reliable do you think his answers
to your questions would be?

Wow what a thought. I think his answers would be evasive.

I would probably start by asking if his attempt to produce content for the Book of Mormon had any success at all, and if so, could he point it out. If the answer was no, I would then like to know at what point in the narrative did his attempt to develop content occur and why, at that point, did he suddenly have the desire to translate.

I then might ask whether the promise that God had additional material that he could translate later was ever fulfilled and if so, could he point it out, and if not, why does he think that promise was never fulfilled.

That of course, is merely the tip of the iceberg.

[_mikwut]

Roger and Marg,


I should first say that the main point of my original post was that the themes that I stated, namely:

Memories are extensively time erosive and fallible?
Bartlett's narrative recall and his War of the Ghosts test?
Semantic intrusions?
Proactive interference effect?
Semantic interference?
Suggestibility?
False identification?
False memory schema?
False memories in reality monitoring?
False memory from reasoning?
Autobiographical false memory?

together constitute the scientific evidence that allows for the distortions of conn. witnesses memory. These aren't big words to stultify the S/R advocates with. They are the themes and names used in the literature that I cited in my post. Marg ridiculously requests an exact replica of the exact scenario of the conn. witnesses before she is to accept the studies as properly relevant for the conn. witnesses. In the science of false memory her request is a lengthy request and I think that is her game. But, I will begin with obviously relevant tests and then continue to post as time permits further relevant studies that each apply to certain situations regarding the witnesses. The first I mentioned in my earlier post and will elaborate on again and further. I think the correspondence to key aspects of the conn. witnesses are beyond obvious and would be silly to state otherwise. It is in regards to adult subjects ability to recall narratives over time, even ones they have repeatedly been subject to. Bartlett originally produced these results over 80 years ago and they have recently been verified. I will quote from the Science of False Memory, I apologize but I only own the Kindle edition and so I can only cite to the Kindle (which is 5% - Locations 381-85 of 9,036 Kindle position):

Bergman, E.T., & Roediger, H.L., III (1999) Can Bartlett’s repeated reproduction experiements be replicated? Memory & Cognition, 27, 937-947. They conducted a carefully controlled replication that showed the memory-distortion results that Bartlett reported can indeed be reproduced under comparable conditions. Bergman and Roediger reproduced Bartlett’s original procedures with great fidelity. Thirty subjects read The War of the Ghosts twice and 20 performed written recall 15 minutes later, half under strict instructions and half under lenient instructions. All 30 subjects returned 1 week later and performed written recall, for the first time for 10 subjects. Six months later the subjects were recruited again, and all who were contacted returned for a final recall test. The recall protocols were scored using propositional analysis (Mandler & Johnson, 1977), which represents a narrative as a series of idea units called propositions. Explicitly, protocols were scored for the number of correctly recalled propositions (out of 42 propositions that are present in The War of the Ghosts), for the number of minor distortions, and for the number of major distortions. Both major and minor distortions were common even on the immediate test, just as Bartlett originally reported. Also, responses that we would term false-memory reports were not only common on the immediate test, they increased markedly as a proportion of overall output as one moves from the immediate to the 1-week, and to the 6-month test, a phenomenon that is called the false-memory sleeper effect and that has been the subject of a good deal of recent investigation. By 6 months, propositions that are recalled with major distortions constitute the major form of output. Strictly speaking, then, as Bartlett concluded, after a few months, narrative recall consists mostly of false-memory reports. This remarkable pattern anticipates recent findings on the relative persistence of false versus true memories.

I think it obvious that if after only 6-months the major distortions out-number the minor and the true then the same could easily be said for the nearly 20 years later recall as in the case of the conn. Witnesses. This is the first of many and manifold relevant tests and studies for the conn. witnesses. I will elaborate on others as time permits. And again I stress the combinational nature of the studies I will present composes the overall evidence that conclusively shows that when taken together with more recent eyewitnesses the false-memory is more probable than not.

my regards
mikwut

[Guest]

Post reference: link

I really don't have the time to get into an indepth discussion right now. I've got about 15 minutes.

Matters of logic know no bounds. It doesn’t matter who he is, I know a fallacious argument when I see one. His use of magic as an analogy was a fallacy. (by the way, magic was a serious hobby for me in my teens.) I note that you didn’t deal with my critique of his logic, but instead you used an argument from authority.

Dan when he used the word "illusion" he was not talking about magic. What he studies are anomalies of people who have brain dysfunction and by understanding where in the brain those anomalies are located he compares to the normal brain and can get a better understanding of it.

His comment had to do with how science works. Loftus is a psychologist, she doesn't study the mechanical workings of the brain. And it very much matters who he is and what he does to appreciate his point from his perspective as an experimental scientist. The audience in that video would have appreciated his comment because they were mainly scientists and fully aware of what he does.

HIs whole point was not to compare by analogy the mechanical working of perception versus memory. In Loftus's talk her focus is memory fallibility. But in her talk what she failed to clarify and which he did in his comment because it wasn't a question to her..was to point out her studies only reveal something about memory within the framework and limitations of the testing. There's obviously a limitation on the sort of conclusion which that can be derived via any memory study. If one is only interested for example on memory fallibility with respect to how easy it is to implant a memory and one sets up a test for that..then that test doesn't address short term working memory. Memory is a complex issue and any one particular study only addresses a particular aspects. That was what his comment was about.

To get a better perspective on Dr. Rama's work you might watch the series on Phantoms of the Brain a book he'ss well known for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq6u4XVrr58&feature=related

He most definitely used the analogy in the form of an argument. Someone who can’t see that need not accuse me of being illogical.

He wasn't arguing, he was adding clarification to her talk.

What you represent him saying above is what you inferred from his argument from analogy. You might be reading too much into his statement. Ramachandran wasn’t denying the legitimacy of Loftus’s studies, nor was he denying their implications. He was affirming that memory works well enough for the survival of the species, which a legitimate point to make although his analogy didn’t work. No one, not even Loftus denies this. Your statement that “her particular studies do not warrant conclusion that memory generally is fallible or in all or any situations it's fallible” is a strawman.

No he wasn't denying the legitimacy of her studies, nor denying their implications. He was simply making the point that those studies and their interpretation are dependent upon and limited to the testing used. Yes, a particular study might reveal memory fallibility under particular conditions but that we shouldn't lose perspective and appreciation that memory overall works extraordinarily well. If we are going to appreciate memory fallibility we need to appreciate under what circumstances it is fallible.

However, we tend to be overly confident about our memories until they are tested and we discover limitations.

Sometimes we are confident of memory because it has been encoded well and we know it. But irrespective of that test and what they reveal are a function of how the test is conducted and what is being tested.

Memory is definitely being stretched when applied to the Con. witnesses’ twenty-year-old recollections of a mostly one-time hearing of a MS being read.

It was not a mostly one time hearing of a MS being read. That is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. That is what Brodie based her argument on. I don't know what her excuse was but what's yours?

Historians are trained to be suspicious of late recollections and to prefer memories closer to the event.

Sometimes Dan, there are no closer to the event evidence, but in any event passage of time is not the only criterion in evaluating witness claims. If you are suggesting that the Book of Mormon witnesses are credible because the passage of time is closer to the event (of translating) you are ignoring all the other factors which make the Book of Mormon witnesses not credible or reliable. This whole issue of reliability of witness claims does not simply boil down to passage of time being the only criteria. by the way Dan where did you get your training as an historian. Since this isn't the first time you've used 'argument from authority' what are your credentials with regards to training?

You still haven't cited a best fit study on memory to discount the Conneaut witnesses. I went into detail why Loftus' study on implanted memory had significant weaknesses in comparability to the conneaut witnesses situation. But even so, even with Loftus's study in which she employed the help of parents and they were only trying to implant a very plausible mundane event ie. (lost in the mall scenario) ..for an event which allegedly happened to them at the age of 5...she only had a 25% success rate. Hurlbut didn't have the luxury of using the tricks she did. He didn't have the time she did either. Those conneaut witnesses were not the only ones he interviewed. He interviewed many more over a very short period of time, and it wasn't about a one time event that was common place and easily confusable, it was about discussions with the author someone they were intimate with and in included listening to him read his 'pride and joy' obviously as well as some of them having an opportunity over extended period of time of reading it themselves. And the contents of the book were of interest at the time to people then...because of the curiosity of the indians mounds and the mystery of the history of the indians. The experience they describe the material being of interest, repeated exposure over time, ability to relate experience to material or data, hearing, seeing ..relating it to their personal experiences and lives .are ingredients which make successful encoding in brain memory long term.

What your argument really boils down to Dan, is that in your opinion because it's convenient for the Smith alone theory you've decided to discount the conneaut witnesses based on faulty memory. You've not yet, explained in any sort of knowledgeable depth nor backed up with any study which closely aligns to the Conneaut witnesses experiences, an argument which successfully warrants dismissal of their statement on this basis. And sure there may not be one because really what they describe is highly probable of being well remembered fairly accurately as opposed to your theory of faulty memory.

There’s a reason for that. If memory can’t be question in the case of the Con. witnesses, it never can. This is a classic case if ever there was one.

Memory can be questioned. But I think what is known about memory and what the witnesses describe of their experiences and how the brain encodes memory long term, coupled with overall consensus of quite a few people (howe limited the number he included in his book) that the likelihood of faulty memory is weak ..not strong as you have been arguing.

Your continual insistence on limiting the lessons on memory to specific variables verges on the post-Modern rejection of any science yielding generalized knowledge on anything, discussed in philosophy as the problem of underdeterminism. So there is a potential of rejecting any study as pertaining to the Con. witnesses.

I'm looking for probabilities, I'm not being too demanding on evidence to justify "faulty memory". I appreciate memory is faulty especially long term. But I also appreciate that under some circumstances parts of memory can be very good, people can remember bits and pieces that have a stickiness factor, and can recall even more when they receive cues memory that has been well encoded. The witnesses do not claim to remember everything in great detail, they only claim unique aspects they remember clearly and that the Book of Mormon helped generate recall. And that is how the brain works. What Roger describes is not unique to him. And it wasn't silly of him to give his anecdote as you criticized.

Yet, I note you keep calling for something with a “high degree of correlation,” but you haven’t responded to Mikwut’s best evidence; instead you went for what you thought was the weakest first.

Mikwut didn't get into any depth of analysis. I went for the youtube because I can see exactly how the test was done. Whereas a brief write up wouldn't do that and could more easily be misinterpreted. I'm not going to spend my time going through each study he threw out. As it was I spent 10 minutes watching that youtube and it said nothing about the sort of situation the Conneaut witnesses experienced. That's not fair to me to expect me to waste my time. It's up to Mikwut if he's serious to shift through and offer the best study.

By the way, you say above: “Ramachandran’s early work was on visual perception but he is best known for his experiments in behavioral neurology which, despite their apparent simplicity, have had a profound impact on the way we think about the brain.” How is it that you can use his “simplistic” studies to generalize about the brain and at the same time be so minimalist about Loftus’s studies?

Loftus's studies are from a social scientist perspective. Where those sorts of memory studies have problems is that they are dependent upon how well the study is set up and conducted. So for example the studies on flashbulb memories initially found that flashbulb memories for individuals have much more vivid memories than their every day common memories. But then other social scientists later criticized those studies on not having adequate controls for every day common memories to compare with. So new studies were done and their findings were that on many parameters there was no difference in the memories of common every day events versus flashbulb memories.

Dr. Rama on the other hand is doing experimental brain studies. I think his work is much less subjective and less variable. HIs work isn't a function of whether or not he asks subjects the right questions in the right time period. His work is more observational, objectively testable and verifiable.

You evidently don’t understand the structure of my argument. I’m only arguing that the Con. witnesses could have misremembered the contents of Spalding’s MS, that their memories could have been contaminated by what they read in the Book of Mormon, or believed was in the Book of Mormon. You on the other hand are arguing that this is impossible. I’m also arguing that when one weighs the possibility of memory confabulation of the Con. witnesses against the more reliable memories of the Mormon witnesses, the scale is tipped toward memory confabulation no matter how unlikely it seems to you.

No Dan I am not arguing "impossibility"...I'm arguing probablity. The Book of Mormon rather than serving as a contaminator likely served as a cue to recall well encoded memories. And I wish you wouldn't keep saying that the Book of Mormon witnesses memories are reliable. Because that is just so absurd. Either the 3 Book of Mormon witnesses testifying in the Book of Mormon are lying or one or more are victims of implanted memories. If there's a problem with reliability in those statements...then why shouldn't there be a problem in reliability in any other of their claims with regards to the Book of Mormon. It is absurd to suggest those witnesses are highly reliable..they represent the antithesis of what constitutes a reliable witness. Passage of time is not the only critieria to consider when it comes to reliability of people's claims.

I’m sorry you feel that way, but I don’t believe I’m harassing you and I don’t accept your fake challenge. Mikwut has provided some research you need to address first anyway. But no one will find a study that fits all the variables of the Con. witnesses, because there will always be wiggle room as long as the principle of generalization is denied by you.

Dan it was you who used Loftus' work to reject the Conneaut witnesses based on faulty memory. I looked into the studies you cited and then explained why they were poor studies to warrant assumption of faulty memory of the Conneaut witnesses. It may very well be there are no studies which would warrant assumption of faulty memory because the circumstance involved of Hurlbut having little time or authority to implant a number of memories, the sort of memories the witnesses describe, their experience of discussions with Spalding and repeated exposure, the unique factors of their memories and why spalding's work would interest them...etc etc..are really indicators that they likely would remember bits and pieces of spalding's work and be able to recall even more by the cues offered in the Book of Mormon. What they describe is really how long term memory works..that bits and pieces after 20 years of something well encoded via repeated exposure to material of interest and material unique is likely to be remembered especially if one also has the opportunity to be cued with the material as they did with the Book of Mormon.

You can always accuse them of lying Dan.

As far as harassing, that's essentially what Mikwut was doing. He didn't go into any depth with the studies he cited, he threw out more ad homs than substance, syet you immediately praised him for providing a valuable post. So I asked you which study did you think offered the most value and why. And you didn't respond with one. So you are encouraging Mikwut to harass. And then your latest posts in which you are persisting on focusing on discounting the conneaut witnesses on memory but you are doing so not by backing up your argument with some study which aligns well. Rather you are focusing on tangents such as trying to fault with Dr. Rama and accusing him of being illogical and presenting an argument from analogy when he did nothing of the sort.

It's simple ..if you are going to dismiss the witnesses on faulty memory then your focus should be on studies which would warrant doing that or at least on an in depth explanation showing a good understanding of how memory works and why that would apply to the conneaut witnesses instead of attacking S/R proponents or irrelevant tangents. I offered a critical evaluation of Loftus' work and why it didn't align with the Conneaut witnesses experience and as far as I can recollect you've not offered a counter to my critical evaluation. Instead I believe your response was that 'faulty memory' wasn't necessary for your argument. That you had a better argument which was that you think the Book of Mormon witnesses are extremely reliable and hence on that basis anything the conneaut witnesses claim which violates what the Book of Mormon witnesses claim with respect to translation process you reject. It's a very precarious position you take Dan because as I said before the Book of Mormon witnesses have all the hallmarks of being unreliable witnesses. You are able to get away with this argument without much flack mainly because Mormon apologists the people most interested in this issue willingly support you on this.

edit: (p.s...I see Mikwut has written ..I really really do not have time atm to read and respond.)

[_Roger]

Dan:

And as Dan points out, it is simply more convenient to conclude that it was all Smith and leave it at that.

I never said any such thing.

You may be correct that you never said it as explicitly as that. It may also be that I am deducing that from what you actually did say. I don't have much desire to go back over every post searching for what you actually said.

I think we can agree that parsimony, at least, favors your theory. I have granted that much already. If that does not equate to "convenience" in your book, so be it.

MCB said:

That is intellectually lazy, …

You should know better. Of course, I didn’t say that. That’s Roger’s strawman again.

I'm not suggesting that "convenience" equates to intellectual laziness. Intellectual laziness is not something I would suggest you are guilty of. And I mean that sincerely.

The Book of Mormon isn’t academic, which should have been your first clue that the learned Spalding didn’t write it.

I agree that Spalding uses terminology that seems different from the Book of Mormon. That seems to be a legitimate criticism of S/R. But I think the parallels should not be brushed aside on that basis alone.

Roger said:

And I told you from the beginning that I am not concerned about following pre-determined rules for the formal structure of arguments or formally identifying logical fallacies.

That pretty much says it all!

Yes, Dan, I agree. Our reasons for discussion on this thread are different.

[_mikwut]

Roger says,

And I told you from the beginning that I am not concerned about following pre-determined rules for the formal structure of arguments or formally identifying logical fallacies.

Dan responds,

That pretty much says it all!

mikwut comments, wow! it sure does.

[_marg]

Roger says,

And I told you from the beginning that I am not concerned about following pre-determined rules for the formal structure of arguments or formally identifying logical fallacies.

Dan responds,

That pretty much says it all!

mikwut comments, wow! it sure does.

Actually Dan's employment of throwing out logical fallacy labels is really a weakness in his argumentation, not a strength. Where using identifying labels of fallacies is of value is between individuals carrying on discussions..both intellectually honest. When one points out a fallacy to the other..it is with the assumption that the other appreciates that fallacy and will refrain from its continued use..with the assumption being that they are intellectually honest and not into rhetorical games. It's simply a short cut to explaining to the other person where their reasoning may inadvertently have gone wrong, so that the person can correct it or refrain.

Every time Dan has thrown out a fallacy it's for something extremely minor and debatable whether it truly is a fallacy worthy of note or at other times he demonstrates his lack of appreciation of the facts and seems to use calling out fallacies as a short cut way to curtail discussion. The impression being that once he has used the word "fallacy" and come up with a label that's all there is to it, discussion on that point over. if Roger is not into labeling fallacies, then Dan shouldn't be throwing out those labels. If Roger is truly making a fallacious reasoning error then Dan should explain..not simply throw out a label.

I'm sorry to have pointed this out..re Dan's weakness regarding fallacy labeling. Normally I'd let the reader determine that themselves. However because of this recent back patting going on between Dan and Mikwut which is inappropriate to this discussion, I thought something should be said with regards to this latest back pat.

[_mikwut]

Marg,

I am more interested in the elaboration of the studies I posted and your assessment.

mikwut

[_GlennThigpen]

What would constitute "significant" using standard methods and practices?

If you look over the list of parallels Dale lists on the page I linked to, you will see quite a list. How many more parallels should be there before it becomes "significant"?

Roger, that is what I have been trying to get across to you. Dale has no defined structure, no base line, no controls to indicate what should be significant and how to determine how much is significant. It is his responsibility use the pertinent tools that will validate his work with scholars in the literary and history fields in order for his work to be taken seriously by them

You seem to be relying on your own gut feelings rather than science.

Glenn, I'm not trying to be insulting, because I am convinced you are being sincere, but, I don't think you are relying on science any more than I am.

Roger, what science are you using in your promotion of the Spalding/Rigdon theory?

Dale has not been able to find any non LDS scholar, even those highly critical of the Book of Mormon story to hardly give him the time of day just because of those problems.

I don't think that is accurate. It is more accurate to state that hardly any non-LDS scholar cares enough to even look at it. What do they care whether Smith produced it or he had help? And as Dan points out, it is simply more convenient to conclude that it was all Smith and leave it at that.

If Dale had some kind of accepted method to make his point, I think that some one would have listened. There are tools and widely accepted methods for comparing texts that have Ben shown to work pretty well. But using those tools does not produce encouraging results.

[quote"Glenn"]Roger, the only evidence for number 2 is uncorroborated and anecdotal. It also defies logic, as Hurlbut was determined to bring Joseph down.[/quote]

Actually it doesn't defy logic. It's just not what we would expect, but then, humans aren't predictable--and especially humans like D. P. Hurlbut.

Hurlbut was pretty predictable. To make your theory work, you have to make Hurlbut act in a manner for which he was against his nature. Something for which you can provide no logical explanation except to say that he may have not done as we would think.

Of course it can't be proven either way, Glenn, but there are logical reasons for thinking Hurlbut pulled both MF and MSCC out of the trunk. I admit that I thought the idea was far-fetched when I was first exposed to it as well, but there are some good reasons for thinking that's what happened.

I agree, that it cannot be proven one way or the other, but there are more logical reasons to believe that Hurlbut retrieved only one manuscript and that "it did not read as expected".

Are you talking about Briggs for your "reasons"?

Glenn

[_Dan Vogel]

Marg,

Every time Dan has thrown out a fallacy it's for something extremely minor and debatable whether it truly is a fallacy worthy of note or at other times he demonstrates his lack of appreciation of the facts and seems to use calling out fallacies as a short cut way to curtail discussion. The impression being that once he has used the word "fallacy" and come up with a label that's all there is to it, discussion on that point over. if Roger is not into labeling fallacies, then Dan shouldn't be throwing out those labels. If Roger is truly making a fallacious reasoning error then Dan should explain..not simply throw out a label.

This is absurd. Roger doesn’t believe in logic, so he is exempt from its restrictions.

I use logic when I think its being violated in the hope to raise the quality of discussion. If it “curtails discussion”, it is the kind that shouldn’t have occurred in the first place.

I assume those engaging in debate know or should know the fundamentals, especially those who do it as much as you guys. When Roger didn’t know what an argument from silence was, I encouraged him to look it up. It was an important point that Roger needed to learn, and I didn’t just throw it out as a way to curtail discussion. But you can lead a horse to water … I don’t mind explaining logic in detail, but Roger said he wasn’t interested. So it’s not worth the extra effort. Sometimes I’m not writing for Roger, but for others reading along.