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

[_Mister Scratch]

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.

No "claim" is necessary. The evidence for the "stacked deck" is right there in the pages of each and every issue.

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.

What have I "invented"? I have relied upon the evidence at hand. If you'd like to supply additional evidence---the 2nd Watson letter, for example, or the names of your usual peer reviewers---I'd be happy to re-evaluate my views. I'm sorry that I cannot simply take you at your word, but you have shown yourself to be deceptive in too many other instances (such as the "FreeThinker" charade). Don't get me wrong: I think that you are basically a pretty nice and decent guy, but, given everything I have seen and read, I am just going to need some more evidence to accept some of these claims you are making. Until then, I'm afraid I'm going to have to stand by my interpretation of the data that I have.

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.

I can really only comment on the evidence at hand. Sorry about that.

[_Mister Scratch]

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.

rcrocket

Let me see if I can clarify this for you, Bob. Let's take your submission to the Western Historical Quarterly, and let's say that you were doing an article on MMM. Your submission there would be analogous to FARMS Review if the editor and his peer-reviewers all belonged to the same club that also happened to espouse the same absolutist beliefs. While the intellectual content of your article carries some weight, ultimately, it cannot Trump the ideology of these "absolutist beliefs." What's more important is that the article, above all, conforms. So, let's say that the underlying ideology here is to smear the Church and implicate BY. You have found evidence that exonerates Brigham and speaks favorably about the Church. For Western Historical Quarterly to be similar to FARMS Review, the editor would need to know that he had a reliable cabal of pals who would give the "thumbs down" to the piece, since it didn't do a good enough job attacking BY.

Oh, and the journal would also need to contain copious amounts of ad hominem attack.

[_Mister Scratch]

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.

I agree that it all seems very, very odd, hence my suspicion. A further question: Given the importance of the letter, and the fact that its absence raises suspicion, why wouldn't anyone request a new copy from Michael Watson?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Query: why did no one among the "six people" you mention make a copy?

One or two may have, for all I know. (I didn't.) But it's been years, and I have no reason to suppose that any of them retained such a copy, if in fact it was made. Typically, our source checkers discard whatever copies they've been using after the item they've been working on comes from the press. There's almost never any significant reason to retain such copies.

[_Daniel Peterson]

-1-

Given the importance of the letter, and the fact that its absence raises suspicion, why wouldn't anyone request a new copy from Michael Watson?

Indeed. You're the only person I'm aware of (although perhaps Rollo Tomasi will back you up) who has raised any "suspicion" on this issue. Nobody else has. Nobody else has suggested that Bill Hamblin and I would forge a First Presidency letter and publish our forgery in order to score a polemical point. So why don't you request a copy from Michael Watson?

-2-

It becomes apparent that Scratch's real objection to the Review is to its content.

This is scarcely surprising. His exceedingly silly objections to its peer-review process were always transparently agenda-driven, and too obviously insubstantial to represent his true complaint, for which they served as rather ridiculous surrogates.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

You're the only person I'm aware of (although perhaps Rollo Tomasi will back you up) who has raised any "suspicion" on this issue. Nobody else has. Nobody else has suggested that Bill Hamblin and I would forge a First Presidency letter and publish our forgery in order to score a polemical point.

I have not accused you of forging anything. I just find it odd that a particular document is cited/quoted in a journal (and continues to be relied upon by apologists), yet no one (including the author) apparently has a copy.

[_Mister Scratch]

-1-

Given the importance of the letter, and the fact that its absence raises suspicion, why wouldn't anyone request a new copy from Michael Watson?

Indeed. You're the only person I'm aware of (although perhaps Rollo Tomasi will back you up) who has raised any "suspicion" on this issue. Nobody else has.

This isn't true. The poster called "Ref," in fact, was banned from MAD/FAIR for asking after the letter.

-2-

It becomes apparent that Scratch's real objection to the Review is to its content.

This is scarcely surprising. His exceedingly silly objections to its peer-review process were always transparently agenda-driven, and too obviously insubstantial to represent his true complaint, for which they served as rather ridiculous surrogates.

Since the content comes about as a result of the finagled peer-review process, why wouldn't I object to the content? It has been tainted, after all.

[_James Clifford Miller]

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.

I do, rcrocket. And so should you. And so, I would guess, will lots of the readers here (something you should also know, based on the high intelligence and accomplishment reflected by the high level of writing in your post).

You and I both know there is some bias in all peer-reviewed academic journals. But even with that bias, genuinely peer-reviewed journals will allow the publication of articles on opposing sides of any argument. I've read essentially everything published in LDS publications, including those claiming to be academic (and "peer reviewed") and not once have I seen a single piece on the opposing side of any argument.

What I have seen, though, are articles and reviews riddled with an excessively level of gratuitous ad hominem attacks (now a signature element of LDS apologetics), and (with few exceptions) real problems with parallelomania run wild and extremely poorly supported conclusions. A good example is Clark's now famous claims of Book of Mormon parallels based on Mesoamerican societies which engaged in warfare ("How could Joseph Smith have known?" the apologist asks). Well, what societies in the real world don't engage in warfare? Many of Clark's "parallels" are ludicrous on their face. For your information, the level found in LDS so-called "peer-reviewed" journals of ad hominem attacks, parallelomania run wild, and extremely poorly supported conclusions is simply not normally found in actual peer-reviewed academic journals because they would be rejected for poor quality. The difference in quality between the vast majority of LDS "scholarly" articles and reviews and those in real peer-reviewed academic journals outside LDS circles is spectacular.

It is clear to me that the LDS articles and reviews were not designed to further the pursuit of truth, but to placate and reassure believing members that some effort was being spent to defend the faith. If you ask the average lay LDS, they will tell you that there is mounting archeological evidence to support Book of Mormon claims, but if you ask the average non-LDS archaeologist, they will tell you there is not one shred of such evidence. The persuasion as clearly been on the LDS layperson side and not on the non-LDS expert side. If LDS apologetic claims had actual validity and persuasive power, you'd see LDS apologetic claims seriously considered in non-LDS peer-reviewed academic journals.

I am uncomfortable with apologetic claims like yours that any LDS publication practices anything like true peer-review, because they are made in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary. This suggests you have grotesquely underestimated my intelligence and that of the other critical readers here and effectively slapped us in our collective faces. As a practical matter, I suggest that slapping us in the face with self-evidently incorrect statements like your claim above is counterproductive. You would do better to assume some intelligence on our part.

The next time you wish to make claims about the validity of so-called "peer-reviewed" LDS scholarly work, you need to be prepared to show a drop in the level of amateur apologetics (no more ad hominal attacks, etc), and the presence of opposing viewpoint articles. If you can't do that, perhaps you need to resign yourself to the view that LDS apologetics are just that and NOT scholarly.

James Clifford Miller
millerjamesc@cox.net

[_Mister Scratch]

You're the only person I'm aware of (although perhaps Rollo Tomasi will back you up) who has raised any "suspicion" on this issue. Nobody else has. Nobody else has suggested that Bill Hamblin and I would forge a First Presidency letter and publish our forgery in order to score a polemical point.

I have not accused you of forging anything. I just find it odd that a particular document is cited/quoted in a journal (and continues to be relied upon by apologists), yet no one (including the author) apparently has a copy.

I cannot recall ever outrightly accusing him of forgery, either. I *do*, however, remember him using that accusation as a kind of preemptive defense. When (I believe) Ref asked him where the letter went, he immediately went into Defcon-5 Mode, flailing about and saying, "Well, then I must be lying! There can't be any other possibility!" Certainly, that the letter was a contrivance of the one or more of the apologists *is* a possibility. It is also possible, just as DCP says, that this very, very important and historically significant letter just vanished into thin air (or the catacombs of Bill Hamblin's messy office), and that, in the intervening ten or so years since Prof. Hamblin published his article, no one---not even one single graduate assistant, secretary, or high-ranking Mopologist---has bothered to look for it in Hamblin's office. The level of activity (or lack thereof) in order to try and procure a real copy of the letter is, I would agree, Rollo, quite odd. They seem content to huff and puff and to use their own sloppy work as a tool for bashing away at critics---i.e., via labeling us as name-callers, conspiracy theorists, etc.

[_Daniel Peterson]

You're the only person I'm aware of (although perhaps Rollo Tomasi will back you up) who has raised any "suspicion" on this issue. Nobody else has. Nobody else has suggested that Bill Hamblin and I would forge a First Presidency letter and publish our forgery in order to score a polemical point.

I have not accused you of forging anything.

I'm pleased to hear it. That's why I said "perhaps."

I just find it odd that a particular document is cited/quoted in a journal (and continues to be relied upon by apologists), yet no one (including the author) apparently has a copy.

It's unfortunate that Bill mislaid it.