John Sorenson on Mesoamerica and the Ancient Near East

[_Daniel Peterson]

Just for the record, I have to spike the notion of Professor Sorenson's supposed overall "lack of peer-reviewed publication" before it becomes settled dogma -- assuming it hasn't already -- on this board.

Who, here, has his complete vita and is therefore in a position to actually substantiate such a claim?

[_Kishkumen]

Who, here, has his complete vita and is therefore in a position to actually substantiate such a claim?

Feel free to provide it.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Feel free to provide it.

I don't have it.

Some people here seem much more confident in talking about Professor Sorenson's overall academic output than I'm in a position to be. I was simply curious about the basis for their confidence.

Anyway, if folks here want to paw over and critique Professor Sorenson's scholarly life, helping them do so isn't super high on my personal priority list.

[_floatingboy]

not sure if any of this is directed at my comments. i just saw that you posted the link so i read it out of curiosity. then i posted some impressions of it to see if anyone had anything to say about his actual writings (not him or his career). anyone?

[_NorthboundZax]

Just for the record, I have to spike the notion of Professor Sorenson's supposed overall "lack of peer-reviewed publication" before it becomes settled dogma -- assuming it hasn't already -- on this board.

Who, here, has his complete vita and is therefore in a position to actually substantiate such a claim?

I don't have it.

Some people here seem much more confident in talking about Professor Sorenson's overall academic output than I'm in a position to be. I was simply curious about the basis for their confidence.

Huh? "Spiking" the notion by providing no information? There must be a better way. Pointing to relevance of his 1976 Katunob publication beyond FARMS/MI and Dialogue would be a good place to start. Google Scholar regularly misses some citations, but the truly limited scope of what it did turn up is eyebrow raising.

@ FloatingBoy: I doubt it was aimed at you. More likely, your bumping it to the top made a response to Joey more imperative.

[_Kishkumen]

I don't have it.

Some people here seem much more confident in talking about Professor Sorenson's overall academic output than I'm in a position to be. I was simply curious about the basis for their confidence.

Anyway, if folks here want to paw over and critique Professor Sorenson's scholarly life, helping them do so isn't super high on my personal priority list.

Evidently disabusing them of their ignorance is not high on your list, but declaring them to be ignorant is.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Huh? "Spiking" the notion by providing no information?

Spiking the notion by expressing skepticism that anybody here has any basis for advocating it.

Pointing to relevance of his 1976 Katunob publication beyond FARMS/MI and Dialogue would be a good place to start.

The readership of Katunob, whether large or small, has precisely zero relevance to the question of whether or not Katunob was peer-reviewed, so it would be no place to start at all.

Katunob, by the way, was published by neither FARMS, the Maxwell Institute, nor Dialogue. Nor, for that matter, by any LDS-related entity.

FloatingBoy: I doubt it was aimed at you. More likely, your bumping it to the top made a response to Joey more imperative.

Nope.

Responding to Joey isn't even slightly imperative.

Evidently disabusing them of their ignorance is not high on your list, but declaring them to be ignorant is.

Disabusing people here of their ignorance is, you're correct, not one of my highest priorities in life.

But declaring them to be ignorant? What a marvelous illustration of eisegesis! I, of course, questioned whether anybody here has John Sorenson's full curriculum vitae so as to be able to declare, on any actual basis of fact, his lack peer-reviewed scholarship. Does anybody here have it? I certainly don't. And I said so. Thus, if, by raising that question, I suggested that people here are ignorant, I flatly declared myself to be ignorant of precisely the same thing.

I declared nobody "ignorant." I said nothing of the sort. But I can certainly be made to look bad if your accusation sticks!

[_Joey]

Just for the record, I have to spike the notion of Professor Sorenson's supposed overall "lack of peer-reviewed publication" before it becomes settled dogma -- assuming it hasn't already -- on this board.

Who, here, has his complete vita and is therefore in a position to actually substantiate such a claim?

I don't believe it's a matter of Sorenson's works, w respect to providing "scholarship" supporting the Book of Mormon historicity, being peer reviewed is really an issue here. I have no doubt many at the MI will provide that function without even considering the applicable definition of the word "peer"!
  
I believe the real issue is has been and continues to be, which of his non LDS peers find any legitamacy, credibility or academic acceptance in this particular "scholarship"? Peer review is totally irrelevant if academic interest, acceptance or credibility amongs true peers hasn't been met. There first has to be an interest from the academic and professional world before "peer" review will even be a meaningful quality filtering issue.  But is these works by LDS "scholars" continue to be ignored. and find their only audience at some church sponsored fireside, may as well let the local bishop provide the peer review. It's as meaningful as what is proclaimed today!

[_NorthboundZax]

Spiking the notion by expressing skepticism that anybody here has any basis for advocating it.

It isn't much of a spike to express skepticism while being unwilling to provide information to buttress that skepticism. I don't even think it is very good criticism to begin with, but your posted rebuttal is striking in that has even less to go on than the criticism.

The readership of Katunob, whether large or small, has precisely zero relevance to the question of whether or not Katunob was peer-reviewed, so it would be no place to start at all.

Not so. The Katunob article is the best place to start of all the Sorenson works you posted in this thread for combatting the charge you want to spike. This work is likely the most required to meet more rigorous scholarly standards (I'm sure his books on Amazon contain lots of good information, but not exactly the same scholarly level that is being argued about). That it went through scholarly peer-review is the reason to look more closely at it, not to just declare it so. You have even rightly made that particular case for the Jocker et al. publication. Of course peer review is a very useful initial filter for research quality, but we both know it is not the ending point. That is why I looked elsewhere to see what influence the Katunob paper had in the field - and came up empty. If you have more, I'd like to hear it. Currently, I'm guessing no.

Nope.

Responding to Joey isn't even slightly imperative.

Okay, maybe you were aiming that at FloatingBoy then. Or maybe me. Joey has been the loudest (and only) on this thread to make the accusation, so I really can't tell who you were responding to, if not Joey.

[_Daniel Peterson]

It isn't much of a spike to express skepticism while being unwilling to provide information to buttress that skepticism.

Sure it is.

X makes sweeping statement.

Y expresses doubt that X or anybody in X's set of likely sympathizers has enough information to make such a generalization, saying that he himself does not. The doubt seems intuitively obvious, in any event..

Nobody -- neither X nor anybody else -- steps forward to claim possession of the information necessary to support X's generalization.

The Katunob article is the best place to start of all the Sorenson works you posted in this thread for combatting the charge you want to spike.

How would showing that the Katunob article had a large readership and was enormously influential demonstrate anything about whether or not it was peer reviewed? The New York Times has a large readership and is enormously influential, but it is not peer reviewed.

And why would the Katunob article be a better place to judge whether or not Professor Sorenson's work was peer reviewed, than, say, his chapters in books published by the universities of Texas and Hawaii?

Of course peer review is a very useful initial filter for research quality, but we both know it is not the ending point.

Quite so.