Midgley Announces an Essay on “the silly and disgusting things” that BYU Admin Did to John Gee

[Marcus]

Who knows when we'll get anything from Midgley. He did have this exchange, way back, which gives an interesting rationale for why gee wrote his book, which was so far out of his wheelhouse:

Louis Midgley Glen Danielsen
3 years ago edited

I am next to certain that Professor Gee's book is a response to Jana Riess, but without necessarily going directly after her terrible book. The fact is that John Gee's excellent book was the product of research long before Riess started her "work," and was for six months in the process of being refereed prior to its publication. His demonstration of the serious flaws in her book has already been published in Interpreter.

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John Pack Lambert Louis Midgley 3 years ago
It takes longer to write a good book than a bad one.

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Louis Midgley John Pack Lambert 3 years ago
John Gee's book went through a very lengthy peer review process.

http://disq.us/p/2afhwqi

It did? And no one had any concerns? Who did the peer review, the Interpreter?

[Tom]

I've learned that Dr. Midgley's review will be posted today. A review of Spencer W. McBride, Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom will also be posted on the Interpreter website.

Thanks Tom!

"The Interpreter leaks like a sieve." -- DCP

That's very true. I wonder if we'll see Dr. Midgley's draft review at some point. It must have been something more substantive than the insipid review posted on the Interpreter website today.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Professor Midge's article was definitely watered down by the editors.

In summarizing statistical data on the causes of homosexuality, Gee’s words were lifted out of context and twisted by those who felt threatened by his use of data.

Lacking any public statements by the publisher, those who howled at Gee’s statements were able to claim victory — their foe had been vanquished and they, the victors, must be right and Gee must be wrong. One of the howlers triumphantly stated — without providing any supporting evidence — that the book was pulled “because of author John Gee’s statements about homosexuality and child sexual abuse.”3 Gee was obviously evil, and those opposed to him were happy — almost gleeful — to tell us why. The online book-burning was a rousing success, and fun was had by all.

Was BYU’s Religious Studies Center correct to pull Professor Gee’s book from the shelves? It is hard to say without understanding why they did so, and they aren’t talking. Some will see their action as capitulation to the howling of those poked by Gee’s words. For this reader, the action of the Religious Studies Center is a shame because it really is “more important to save faith than to save face,” and Saving Faith is a great resource toward that end.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... able-book/

[Tom]

I've learned that Dr. Midgley's review will be posted today. A review of Spencer W. McBride, Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom will also be posted on the Interpreter website.

Dr. Sainsbury's review is a reprint from a review previously published in The Civil War Book Review (with "slight editorial changes").

Having reviewed the original version of the review, I can report that Interpreter's editors changed some references in the original to "Mormon" and "Mormons" to read "Latter-day Saint" and "Latter-day Saints."

Other key changes:

Mormon Church
Mormons the Church members
Mormons Saints

[Marcus]

Book
John Gee is the William (Bill) Gay Research Professor in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University. Hence, this book is the work of a very able research professor. His employment requires him to do research and publish essays and books, which he has done in Egyptology (the field in which he has his PhD) and in other academic areas he finds challenging and important for preserving and advancing the faith of Latter-day Saints. Saving Faith is, I believe, his fourth book, and he has published over a hundred essays and reviews.

In this work, Professor Gee has been able to locate, understand, and master the secular literature on the crucial issues that each of the book’s chapters addresses. If I have counted correctly, Saving Faith has 1,052 footnotes, and at least half of these draw upon contemporary social science scholarship central to the issues addressed in the book. The reader can be assured that Gee has not manufactured evidence to support a revisionist ideology, which some others seem to have done.2

That's an embarrassing level of justification. No legitimate offering would require all that "but, but, but... " nonsense.

[Marcus]

I am, however, pleased that I have managed to have my review of a really excellent book by my friend, John Gee, finally in print. And also to have some of the story of how his excellent book was unpublished by the BYU Administration told with most of the ugly details set out, My essay sets out some of the silly and disgusting things that the current BYU Administration allowed or facilitated when they unpublished Professor Gee's wonderful book entitled Saving Faith: How Families Protect, Sustain, and Encourage Faith, which is a genuinely faith supporting book that was published by the Religious Studies Center at BYU, in cooperation with Deseret Book Company, in 2020.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... 6207610302

Interesting. Maybe midgley's explanation of the "silly and disgusting things" was cut by reviewers, because here is all we got:

Was BYU’s Religious Studies Center correct to pull Professor Gee’s book from the shelves? It is hard to say without understanding why they did so, and they aren’t talking.

And this

In late 2020, shortly after it was published, Saving Faith was pulled from publication by its publisher, BYU’s Religious Studies Center. There was no formal statement as to why the decision was made...

Lacking any public statements by the publisher...

hmm.. for once, midgley has no beans to spill.

[drumdude]

If I have counted correctly, Saving Faith has 1,052 footnotes, and at least half of these draw upon contemporary social science scholarship central to the issues addressed in the book.

Following footnotes in LDS apologetics is a well traveled road out of the church.

The number doesn’t matter, the quality does. More often than not the apologists completely misrepresent the source material.

[Tom]

Book
John Gee is the William (Bill) Gay Research Professor in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University. Hence, this book is the work of a very able research professor. His employment requires him to do research and publish essays and books, which he has done in Egyptology (the field in which he has his PhD) and in other academic areas he finds challenging and important for preserving and advancing the faith of Latter-day Saints. Saving Faith is, I believe, his fourth book, and he has published over a hundred essays and reviews.

In this work, Professor Gee has been able to locate, understand, and master the secular literature on the crucial issues that each of the book’s chapters addresses. If I have counted correctly, Saving Faith has 1,052 footnotes, and at least half of these draw upon contemporary social science scholarship central to the issues addressed in the book. The reader can be assured that Gee has not manufactured evidence to support a revisionist ideology, which some others seem to have done.2

That's an embarrassing level of justification. No legitimate offering would require all that "but, but, but... " nonsense.

Amen. I had trouble discerning the lines of reasoning in those two paragraphs.

[Alphus and Omegus]

If I have counted correctly, Saving Faith has 1,052 footnotes, and at least half of these draw upon contemporary social science scholarship central to the issues addressed in the book.

Following footnotes in LDS apologetics is a well traveled road out of the church.

The number doesn’t matter, the quality does. More often than not the apologists completely misrepresent the source material.

Can you think of a more worthless endeavor than counting the footnotes in someone else's book so you can use the total as a "proof" that it's of good quality? No one cares about the number of footnotes unless it's extremely small.

Your point is correct as well regarding accuracy of citations.

[drumdude]

Following footnotes in LDS apologetics is a well traveled road out of the church.

The number doesn’t matter, the quality does. More often than not the apologists completely misrepresent the source material.

Can you think of a more worthless endeavor than counting the footnotes in someone else's book so you can use the total as a "proof" that it's of good quality? No one cares about the number of footnotes unless it's extremely small.

Your point is correct as well regarding accuracy of citations.

Interpreter makes a mockery of scholarship. It makes me very nervous that we will see more of that in the future.

Journals publishing junk science on vaccines, evolution, public policy, etc. The possibilities to flood academia with too many biased papers to debunk are endless.