Welcome question for Mr. Peterson: Where is the stone box?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Your question seems irrelevant to me, especially given the fact that DCP himself has noted more than once that FARMS Review is an "atypical" journal. (I believe the phrase he use was sui generis.)

"Atypical" in one regard doesn't mean atypical in all regards. It's not atypical in its peer-review procedures.

It actually follows a far more rigorous and complex peer-review process than book reviews are typically subjected to, but, otherwise, its review procedures are modeled on those with which we're familiar in the broader scholarly world.

I've explained this. In detail. In print.

[Guest]

have you not read Prof. Hamblin's insane, anti-Semitic tirade, which he posted on RfM?

Yes. Enough to know that it was neither "insane" nor "anti-Semitic."

Your malignant spin may work on people who don't know the facts. You waste your time when you try it on me.

your reticence really helps your case.

We follow standard peer review procedures. If you think that indicates some sort of conspiracy, feel free to don a tin-foil helmet.

[_Mister Scratch]

Look at it this way, Scratch: Your dream of discrediting us publicly could be achieved in one fell swoop if the secretary to the First Presidency were to confirm that we had invented this letter out of whole cloth, or that we had falsified its contents for publication.

No more laborious research, tedious but creative spinning, and arduous mind-reading would be required. You would be free to target others. We would be openly disgraced. Our lucrative, lying mopologist careers would be finished. We would probably lose our jobs, and, conceivably, even our membership in the Church. (Forging letters from the First Presidency and using them publicly has got to be some sort of punishable offense, wouldn't you think?)

I say, Go for it!

ROTFLMHO

Oh man, Scratch, you gotta admit that Dr. Peterson has a point there. The worst thing that could happen to you is that you'd be proven wrong. The best thing that might happen is if you were ignored. Either way, I think you'll have to back down your assertions until you give it a shot.

He does not have a point, and neither do you. I will neither be helped nor harmed by any investigation into this "2nd Letter." I feel no need to go asking for it---and moreover, as you point out, I would probably just be ignored. The fact of the matter is that Profs. B & P continue to make assertions based on absent evidence. It is really as simple as that.

Or maybe you think that writing them for the information would give them information to send a Danite hit squad after you. Mwahahaha

ABman---have you not been reading some of the other threads? You and the other TBMs want to yuk it up about how there's all this paranoia and fear and so forth, but have you not read the accounts of what has been done to Murphy, Palmer, Southerton, and et. al.? Of course, I'm sure you feel safe, since you are "loyal to the cause." Make a slip-up, though, and they will feel no guilt at totally fabricating evidence in order to smear you and hurt you.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Make a slip-up, though, and they will feel no guilt at totally fabricating evidence in order to smear you and hurt you.

"They" being a group that, according to Scratch, includes me (a.k.a. "the Good Professor," for whom he professes to have considerable respect and whom he claims to like). The vile character of the people that Scratch claims to respect ought to tell you all you need to know about him.

[_Mister Scratch]

have you not read Prof. Hamblin's insane, anti-Semitic tirade, which he posted on RfM?

Yes. Enough to know that it was neither "insane" nor "anti-Semitic."

Your malignant spin may work on people who don't know the facts. You waste your time when you try it on me.

It was completely out-of-control, over-the-top, and ugly on any number of levels. People are free to read the rant for themselves.

your reticence really helps your case.

We follow standard peer review procedures. If you think that indicates some sort of conspiracy, feel free to don a tin-foil helmet.

So far as I know, apply the rubber-stamp of Church orthodoxy to the articles that see publication does not constitute "standard peer review procedures." But, on this, I guess we will have to agree to disagree. If you consider "stacking the deck" in the name of the sort of "holy apologetic crusade" that you outlined at the conclusion of "Apologetics by the Numbers" to be a "conspiracy," then by all means, let me get my hat.

Edited to add: You know, my dear Professor, I have noticed that you have never simply come out and said, "No. We do not stack the deck." Rather, your tactic is to repeat, over and over and over, like a kind of mantra, "We fellow standard peer review procedures." Does this therefore mean that you feel that every academic journal is biased and fueled by a desire to conform to orthodoxy? (And especially an absolutist religious orthodoxy?)

[_Daniel Peterson]

So far as I know, apply[ing] the rubber-stamp of Church orthodoxy to the articles that see publication does not constitute "standard peer review procedures."

But, of course, that's merely your claim about what we do. I've denied your claim, and you've refused to credit my denial. (Your default position and deep personal conviction is that I'm "a mean-spirited liar" -- one who might even be willing to forge a letter from the First Presidency in order to use it publicly to further my ends.)

But, on this, I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Yes. You invent facts. I know facts. We're different in that regard.

If you consider "stacking the deck" in the name of the sort of "holy apologetic crusade" that you outlined at the conclusion of "Apologetics by the Numbers" to be a "conspiracy," then by all means, let me get my hat.

I regard the whole thing as your malevolent fantasy. Get the hat.

[_asbestosman]

Make a slip-up, though, and they will feel no guilt at totally fabricating evidence in order to smear you and hurt you.

"They" being a group that, according to Scratch, includes me (a.k.a. "the Good Professor," for whom he professes to have considerable respect and whom he claims to like). The vile character of the people that Scratch claims to respect ought to tell you all you need to know about him.

Oh dear, I'm at a loss. It appears I respect some of the same vile people as Scratch does but for entirely different reasons.

Incidentally I've never been concerned about becoming part of a smear campaign one way or another. I'm not an academic and the most I've been published was once as a contributing author in some engineering journal (as a BYU undergrad). If any dirt was dug up on me, the furthest it would reach would be my stake and possibly a few of my old friends.

[_Daniel Peterson]

You know, my dear Professor,

Which, being interpreted, means, "You mean-spirited, lying smear-meister and pseudoscholarly hack."

I have noticed that you have never simply come out and said, "No. We do not stack the deck."

I have denied that claim in detail, in print.

Rather, your tactic is to repeat, over and over and over, like a kind of mantra, "We fellow standard peer review procedures."

Because, in fact, we do.

Does this therefore mean that you feel that every academic journal is biased and fueled by a desire to conform to orthodoxy?

Bias and pressures to conform exist in every area of human endeavor. It would be perfectly astonishing if academics had somehow managed to transcend the mortal condition in that regard.

(And especially an absolutist religious orthodoxy?)

Most journals have nothing to do with religion in any way.

You lose on this one, Scratch.

Try another weapon. You might have more luck.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

The entire text of the letter has been published. That the original went missing afterwards in the black hole that is Professor Hamblin's office is unfortunate. (It wouldn't have fared any better in mine.) But Michael Watson may still have a copy of it, so that, if truth is really Scratch's concern as he claims it is, all does not appear to be lost. In any event, Professor Hamblin saw the letter, as did I. As did the managing editor of the FARMS Review, as did the two associate editors, as did at least one source checker. That's at least six people who can verify that it said what it's quoted as saying -- which is certainly more verification than the average primary source receives during the publication process for the typical book of, say, American history, where the publisher relies pretty much entirely on the care and honesty of the author of the book.

Query: why did no one among the "six people" you mention make a copy? Was the original the only copy? Did all those people reading/verifying the letter just pass the original amongst themselves? It seems odd to rely so heavily on a letter for which the original has disappeared and no copy apparently was ever made.

[_rcrocket]

There is a clear difference between "hand-picking" someone for their expertise vs. "hand-picking" them for their bias.

I guess I don't see your argument.

If the blind system is the same as most other journals, and the hand-picking (picking friends and cronies) is the same that other academic journals employ (I notice that economic journals tend to stick to their own "bias"; I deal with the University of Chicago's antitrust articles and note that they stick to same theory over and over again in the subject area in which I practice), I can't see why you would contest the blind system for reviewers for FARMS Review or the hand-picking of cronies.

My questions remain unanswered by you. What academic (let's change it to university) journals publish the names of its reviewers to the public, and what university journals pick reviewers other than by "hand" of "cronies?" I mean, any might be interesting to discuss.

But being a published author, and being a peer reviewer in one non-religous journal, I just can't see a whole lot of difference between FARMS Review and, say, the The Los Angeles Lawyer where I was an editor, or the Western Historical Quarterly where I have been through initial peer reviewing for one article (rejected, in the end, on a 5-4 vote by the peers; alas), or another western journal where I am currently in the middle of being peer reviewed.

I know there are academics on this Board, all hostile to the Church. Guy Sajer has tons of publications. In which of the university publications was he aware of the peer reviewers?

rcrocket