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

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_Roger
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Re: Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

Post by _Roger »

marg:

Correct and that is why I have a hard time accepting that Dan is a skeptic of Mormon claims....to the point..that it almost appears to me he's a "plant" by the LDS church. Sorry Dan if that is offensive but that's the perception I have because I've never seen a self-proclaimed skeptic be so non-skeptical of claims in this case supporting the church which should warrant high skepticism, not just average skepticism.


Well Mikwut thinks that charge is ridiculous and Dan thinks it's an indication he's doing something right. Hmmm. I doubt he is a "plant" for the Mormon church, but I presume his book sales are mostly to Mormons, Jack Mormons or Ex-mos.

But I wholly concur about the lack of skepticism. As I said, it was a shock to me at first. It took a while to sink in that he was actually claiming the discrepancies in Whitmer's statements are the fault of his interviewers rather than simply contradictory statements. Once I realized that is Dan's position it began to clear things up. He really wants to believe the Book of Mormon witnesses and give them every conceivable benefit of the doubt. And again, I don't see any rational basis for doing that. It would be like taking the word of Benny Hinn's followers uncritically and at face value except when they claim they saw angels. Its so patently obvious that followers of Benny Hinn are not going to be the most reliable source of information about Benny Hinn--especially when the investigation could reveal a fraud--that it should go without saying.

Dan applies virtually no skepticism against Mormon claims that I can make out.


He seems only to apply skepticism to Joseph Smith's claims, but I haven't read his Smith bio yet so I don't know how far he goes even with that.

The only skepticism he applies in this issue is against the S/R theory and in that case he goes overboard above and beyond the call of duty..to the point of being unreasonable. He even resorts to applying logical fallacies against S/R when they aren't even applicable.


Agreed. It's certainly odd.
"...a pious lie, you know, has a great deal more influence with an ignorant people than a profane one."

- Sidney Rigdon, as quoted in the Quincy Whig, June 8, 1839, vol 2 #6.
_GlennThigpen
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Re: Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

Post by _GlennThigpen »

Roger wrote:Well the loss of the 116 pages had to be replaced, Glenn, so I agree with the S/A proponents on the sequence of "translation" beginning with Mosiah. But from your point of view, which also seems to be Skousen's, what difference does it make? You can see the pattern in the chart Dale posted regardless of whether Mosiah represents the earliest extant portion or not. Why would word use patterns and error patterns fall so dramatically uneven across the entire Book of Mormon text resulting in a clear beginning and ending pattern that are similar to each other but radically different from the middle? How would S/D (or S/A for that matter) explain the data?


If Nephi 1 and 2 were translated first, the pattern is entirely different.

How does any of the theories explain the data without some type of ad hoc explanation?

Glenn
In order to give character to their lies, they dress them up with a great deal of piety; for a pious lie, you know, has a good deal more influence with an ignorant people than a profane one. Hence their lies came signed by the pious wife of a pious deceased priest. Sidney Rigdon QW J8-39
_Dan Vogel
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Re: Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

Post by _Dan Vogel »

Marg,

Responding to your post of 21 May on ad hoc hypotheses.

Changes in background assumptions are defenses against adverse evidence, but they’re not ad hocs


Predictions can be derived from a hypothesis only in conjunction
with a background theory. This background theory provides
information about the objects under study as well as the apparatus
used to study them. If a prediction turns out to be false, we can always
save the hypothesis by modifying the background theory.
>>
and In general, any hypothesis can be maintained in the face of
seemingly adverse evidence if we're willing to make enough alterations
in our background beliefs. Consequently, no hypothesis can be
conclusively confuted.


I don’t see “ad hoc” in this quote, but after reviewing Schick’s and Vaughn’s discussion, I will modify my point. This statement is based on philosopher Philip Kitcher’s analysis of what an ad hoc move or invention does, that is, by implication. It deals with a larger philosophical discussion on disproving hypotheses in general (see their discussion of the Quine-Duhem hypothsis on p. 155, as well as the problem of underdeterminism), not just with ad hocs. This is why Copi says:

The general situation seems to be that it is not necessary to invoke ad hoc hypotheses—in either the second or third senses of the term, which are the derogatory ones—to prevent experiments from being crucial. Even if we confine our attention to theoretically significant hypotheses, and never invoke any ad hoc hypotheses at all, no experiments are ever crucial for individual hypotheses, since hypotheses are testable only in groups. (p. 454 in 1972 ed.).


My focus is less theoretical and more on the construction of the argument in the avoidance of adverse evidence, which is why the quote of me above continues:

… but let’s focus on a legitimate ad hoc and the wrong kind


I was responding to your assertion that

There is “faulty reasoning” with after the fact changes of assumptions which is ad hoc fallacy and then there is after the fact reasoning/ ad hoc, which is reasonable and plausible and has nothing to do with faulty reasoning. My ad hocs which you accuse of being fallacious are reasonable and plausible and have nothing to do with the ad hoc fallacy.


There aren’t two groups of ad hocs—one that adjusts background theories using “faulty reasoning” and others that are “reasonable and plausible” that don’t change background assumptions and therefore are legitimate. Copi distinguishes three kinds of ad hocs (p. 452-53):

1. An after-the-fact explanation with empirically testable consequences, which haven’t been done at time of formulation—which may or may not be confirmed.
2. An after-the-fact hypothesis which accounts only for the particular fact or facts it was invented to explain and has no other explanatory power, that is, no testable consequences.
3. A descriptive generalization that has no explanatory power or theoretical scope.

It’s not always which category of ad hoc that matters—it’s the amount and a disposition to use them that weigh a theory down. This is why Wiki on “ad hoc hypotheses” states:

Naturally, some gaps in knowledge, and even falsifying observations must be temporarily tolerated while research continues. To temper ad hoc hypothesizing in science, common practice includes Falsificationism (somewhat in the philosophy of Occam's Razor). Falsificationism means scientists become more likely to reject a theory as it becomes increasingly burdened by ignored falsifying observations and ad hoc hypotheses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis


Another source attempts to distinguish between science and pseudo-science:

You call something ad hoc when it's introduced for a particular purpose, instead of for some general, antecedently motivated reason. So, for instance, an ad hoc decision is a decision you make when there's no general rule or precedent telling you what to do.
Philosophers sometimes accuse their opponents of making ad hoc hypotheses (or ad hoc stipulations, or ad hoc amendments to their analyses, etc.). These are hypotheses (or stipulations or amendments) adopted purely for the purpose of saving a theory from difficulty or refutation, without any independent motivation or rationale. They will usually strike the reader as artificial or "cheating."
http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/vocab/glossary.html

Not all illegitimate ad hocs are irrational—it has more to do with the irrational use of them. Often blatant examples are used from pseudo-science to make the point more clear, but they also happen in less clear-cut situations. As one source discussing ad hocs explained:

Often enough, the decisive experiments and observations ringing the death knell of a theory are only to be identified in retrospect. However, even if the distinction between ad hoc moves and the legitimate introduction of auxiliaries may be vague in a technical sense, or difficult to distinguish in historical cases, some examples are so blatantly ad hoc that they cannot be regarded as legitimate by any stretch of reasoning. Indeed, by having a look at such blatant examples of ad hoc reasoning from the hinterland of pseudoscience, we may be better able to make sense of charges of adhocness in more complicated cases.

-- The Hypothesis that Saves the Day. Ad hoc Reasoning in Pseudoscience
(draft version - to appear in Logique et Analyse)
http://sites.google.com/site/maartenboudry/teksten-1/ad-hoc


This same source goes on to use examples from pseudo-science to illuminate general principles:

Or similarly, consider the defender of biorhythm theory who resorts to the hypothesis that some people are “arrhythmic” some of the time when his predictions do not fit the observed patterns. (Carroll 2003, p. 7) Why are we entitled to reject these moves of ad hoc? Because we realize that, by the same token, any failed prediction can be explained away, and hence that there are no constraints on the use of the (type of) auxiliary hypothesis in question. …

As is clear from these examples, the broader context of a theoretical move is fundamental with regard to its being ad hoc. Although the presumption of ad hoc reasoning is strongest when we have actually witnessed several instances of opportunistic and inconsequential use of an auxiliary hypothesis, suspicion can also be warranted on the basis of a single case, provided that the lack of constraints is immediately transparent, and that it is clear that the hypothesis can yield nothing beyond explaining away particular failures.


In historiography, ad hocs are “suppositions about the past which are not already implied to some extent by existing beliefs” (McCullagh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method). That is, suppositions that have no evidentiary basis. They are quite rational, although they are unfalsifiable. Historical interpretations with fewer ad hocs are given preference.

NOW BACK TO YOUR RESPONSES--

Ad hoc come into play when a claimant is attempting to save their claim or theory from recalcitrant evidence by making changes to background assumptions..it's fallacious when the changes are irrational and done to prevent recalcitrant evidence in order to maintain the theory.


An illegitimate move isn’t always obvious and “irrational”—some can be quite reasonable and beguiling. NOTE YOU HAVE GIVEN NO SOURCE FOR THIS CLAIM AND HAVE IGNORED MY REFERENCES TO DEFINITIONS.

The background assumptions include other scientific theories and known facts which a new hypothesis is dependent upon. To make a new hypothesis work sometimes scientists change or remove accepted scientific theories. Look at your Intro to Logic by Copi which gives an example of Watson and Crick changing background assumptions “known facts and accepted theories” in order to make their theory work. As it turned out they were correct in doing so P 512

“If all those suppositions had indeed been correct, their double helix could not have been the structure of the filament. In the actual case, however, Watson and Crick, having confidence in their hypothesis, came to suspect that the accepted theory describing the ways in which the basis (A, G, C, and T) bond to each other was not entirely correct. By relinquishing that element in the set, and replacing it with a different account, one that supposed hydrogen bonds instead, the newly hypothesized double helix (with its allied theories) could be confirmed.”


You must have a later edition than mine. I did not locate this quote in my copy, which is the 1972 edition. Regardless, the adjustments in background theory may or may not be legitimate until independently tested. In historiography, testing and verification can’t happen the way it does in science, so pointing to Watson’s and Crick’s ad hoc that turned out to be right isn’t applicable with historical ad hocs. Note the example Schick and Vaughn give (which is also in Copi):

Theory 1: The earth is flat.

Theory 2: The earth is round.

Evidence from observation: If earth were flat all parts of ship would shrink from view at same rate; instead the bottom parts disappear before top—therefore earth is round.

Ad hoc hypothesis: What makes the lower part disappear first is atmospheric refraction called the zetetic law of perspective.

This move in response to adverse evidence was ad hoc, not simply because it was after the fact, but because it introduced a new concept that had no support outside defending the flat-earth theory and was untestable and unfalsifiable in that day. By implication it challenged a background theory that light travels in a straight line, but the ad hoc part was the invention of an untestable and unfalsifiable theory or explanation (although Copi says it was potentially testable and therefore should be placed in the first category mentioned above).

Note also that at the time this ad hoc was issued, the inventor (Parallax) had a degree of plausibility. To Parallax, common sense said the earth was flat and, since that is so obviously true, there had to be another explanation for the observations. This is also true of vitamin C analogy you quoted. The assumption that vitamin C works justified the ad hoc explanation—no matter how unlikely the explanation seemed to those not sharing the assumption. This is also true for the ad hocs you have invented in response to adverse evidence for the S/R theory. Also note that round-earth advocates could not immediately disprove Parallax’s theory, which allowed the flat-earth theory to live longer than it needed to.

You quote the following from Schick’s and Vaughn’s discussion of legitimate and illegitimate ad hocs:

A hypothesis threatened by recalcitrant data can often be saved by postulating entities or properties that account for the data. Such a move is legitimate if there's an independent means of verifying their existence. If there is no such means, the hypothesis is ad hoc.

Ad hoc literally means "for this case only." It's not simply that a hypothesis is designed to account for a particular phenomenon that makes it ad hoc (if that were the case, all hypotheses would be ad hoc). What makes a hypothesis ad hoc is that it can't be verified independently of the phenomenon it's supposed to explain.


Then comment--

They are talking about a scientific hypothesis which is warranted by evidence and reasoning and is open to verification. It’s not merely an opinion. Let’s call that Hypothesis A.


Of course they are not talking about opinion. They are talking about scientific hypotheses—good and bad. The bad one’s that no longer have any force or basis might be called opinions in a loose way. But once an opinion is formulated into a hypothesis or argument, it’s no longer just an opinion. T. Edward Damer explains:

Many people have difficulty understanding the difference between an argument and the expression of a personal opinion. They use the words “argument” and “opinion” interchangeably. … When students criticize an argument by saying of its conclusion something like, “Well, that’s just his (or her) opinion,” I remind them that an opinion expressed as the conclusion of an argument is no longer “just an opinion.” It may not be a very good argument, but it is no longer “just an opinion”; it is just a bad argument. All claims, even those that are the conclusions of arguments, are, of course, still opinions. The question is whether they are supported opinions or unsupported ones. An argument is a supported opinion. (Attacking Faulty Reasoning, 12)


Hypothesis A is then challenged with counter evidence which is open to verification also..that's very important, otherwise the counter would simply be an opinion. Let’s call that Counter B. Usually that’s where you come in... you counter with what you perceive as evidence but it’s not evidence open to verification. It’s your subjective opinion for example that the Book of Mormon witnesses are credible. It’s your subjective opinion that to refer to the concept “lost tribes” one must include the myth, it’s your subjective opinion that M.F. never existed, and the list goes on.

The next step a counter is made to counter B in order to maintain Hypothesis A. It is fallacious ad hoc if that counter argues irrationally (without evidence or good reasoning) by changing the background assumptions so that counter B’s evidence can no longer be rationally employed against the Hypothesis A.


This is nearly unintelligible. (by the way, I put a lot of unnecessary time in just deciphering your crabbed prose.) You now seem to change your approach. It’s not about legitimate and illegitimate ad hocs; it’s now about subjective opinion. Your position is really getting convoluted. Let me finish this thought for you, because all you have done is insinuate such is the case without actually going through the steps. If you recall, I already did this in a previous post:

Step 1 – S/R theory postulates MS was used in production of the Book of Mormon, which is open to falsification.
Step 2 – Mormon witnesses, both friendly and unfriendly, testify that no MS was used and that the translation was performed with Joseph Smith’s head in hat.
Step 3- The witnesses either lied, or were part of the conspiracy, or didn’t want to know the truth, or were fooled by Joseph Smith’s occasional demonstrations, or all the time with a trick hat. These can be seen as unfalsifiable ad hoc responses to counter-evidence, or as adjustments in background theory that once assumed a rewrite of Spalding’s MS without witnesses.
Step 4- I’m therefore justified in accusing a certain Spalding advocate of inventing ad hocs to escape adverse evidence.

Note that Step two is not unsupported opinion, but unlike your trick hat response is supported by evidence. Verification has no meaning in this context. It’s not my opinion, it’s based on evidence—eyewitness testimony--analysis of the evidence (which we went through), and argument. The same is true for “lost tribes”, to which you responded with ad hoc definitions and extended speculation about what Spalding could have written. I told you fantasy is not evidence. Ben’s and Glenn’s interpretation was grounded in defining the term according to the cultural lexicon of the day in which the statements were given; your definition was idiosyncratic and unsupported. You can go through the same steps above if you like, and it will show that your claim that the Spalding witnesses’ memories can be relied on is challenged by their mention of “ten tribes”, and that your attempt to save them is ad hoc and without foundation.

Looking at what happens in the case between S/R advocates and you Dan, is that you object to a claim or hypothesis that we make. The evidence is often open to subjective interpretation..because that's the nature of historical evidence..it's not the fault of S/R advocates or Smith alone. Then you counter, but not with objective verifiable evidence which confutes, no instead you counter with evidence or reasoning that you assert should be accepted as fact. When we don’t accept what you assert …you resort to an accusation of ad hoc fallacy.


That’s not a true characterization of what’s been going. The initial Spalding claim is founded on testimony, which by itself is incomplete, so immediately speculation and conspiracy theory began to proliferate into a complex theory. The way the conspiracy theory has been managed (without actual evidence), it’s a magical agent explaining and explaining away major portions of the evidence. That’s verges on the irrational, and conspiracy in this instance substitutes for gods and ghosts. This is not the normal situation in historiography. Nonetheless, you state that historical evidence is “open to subjective interpretation”, then attempt to diminish counter-evidence by implying that it’s not “objective verifiable evidence which confutes.” This betrays a basic ignorance of what happens in historical analysis. It also implies that all historical interpretations are mere opinions and carry the same warrant and historical weight. I hope that’s not what you mean, because that would be relativism. I’m not accusing anyone of ad hoc fallacy because they don’t accept my counter-evidence, but because they actually are committing it. I’m attempting to get them to deal more honestly with the sources. If you can’t use the trick-hat theory, then you will have to face the full force of eyewitness testimony.

In short in this discussion the rules according to Dan are that only Dan gets to decide what is true and what isn’t. What Dan says is true must be accepted as evidence and any counter to that is labeled ad hoc fallacy.


Why the ad hominem? Don’t be silly. You know I didn’t invent this discussion of ad hoc maneuvering against counter-evidence.

Let’s look at an example...the missing M.F. You accuse S/R advocates of ad hoc fallacy to suggest that Hurlbut ever had M.F. and may have sold it.

[1] S/R claim: MF existed

[2] Dan: The Book of Mormon witnesses say Smith didn’t use any manuscript so their say so should be accepted as fact and their say so overrules S/R witnesses. MF doesn’t physically exist therefore it never existed.

[3] S/R position: While MF. does not exist physically there are still plenty of good warrants to assume it did. MF hasn't simply been fabricated absent evidence. For example Hurlbut stopped in Palmyra to request the newspaper editor to print that he had obtained what he had set out for and they did print that information. The Conneaut witnesses testimony, R. Patterson testimony, Amity witnesses testimony, are all evidence. That spalding was a known writere writer, that he had brought a manuscript to a printer written in biblical style..are some of the warrants.

[4] Dan: You are committing an ad hoc fallacy, you have no verifiable evidence and you are simply making the argument to save your theory.


This is kind of a comical reconstruction of the debate, which makes me question if you understand the issues involved. You have more than one thread of argument mixed together, and no clearly developed idea. I numbered the steps for comment, with the strands of argument labeled [a], [b].

[1a] To make sense with the next step, this should read--“S/R claim: MF was used in the production of the Book of Mormon.”

[1b] “S/R claim: MF existed” is vague and packed with several complicating issues, which S/R advocates have the burden to prove. This should be reworded.

[Second Amendment] “Dan: The Book of Mormon witnesses say Smith didn’t use any manuscript.” The rest (“so their say so should be accepted as fact”) is hyperbole and violates the rule of charity, which stipulates that “if a participant’s argument is reformatted by an opponent, it should be in the strongest possible version that is consistent with the original intention of the arguer” (Damer, 5). You know that my handling of the eyewitness testimony is not naïve or uncritical. Your use of the Spalding witnesses, however, is. This is legitimate counter-evidence to [1a]. The part about “and their say so overrules S/R witnesses” is better stated as—“Since Mormon testimony is less problematic than the 20-year-old memories of the Spalding witnesses, explanations involving memory studies are relevant.”

[2b] “Dan: MF doesn’t physically exist therefore it never existed.” The last sentence is a misrepresentation of my position. While a missing MS is consistent with there never having been a MF, it’s not proof of it. However, it is a problem for those who suggest Hurlbut recovered two MSS, which leads them to speculate ad hoc that Hurlbut sold MF to the Mormons.

[3a] Nothing.

[3b] “S/R position: While MF. does not exist physically there are still plenty of good warrants to assume it did. MF hasn't simply been fabricated absent evidence. For example Hurlbut stopped in Palmyra to request the newspaper editor to print that he had obtained what he had set out for and they did print that information. The Conneaut witnesses testimony, R. Patterson testimony, Amity witnesses testimony, are all evidence. That spalding was a known writere writer, that he had brought a manuscript to a printer written in biblical style..are some of the warrants.” I never made the argument above [2b], and I never said there weren’t warrants for believing MF existed. Each piece of evidence has to be examined and given relative historical weight. That’s a different discussion than the one you are formulating here. This isn’t in response to [2b], but rather should be the beginning of the discussion in [1b], as part of the burden of proof. To which opponents can respond. None of which is reflected in step [2].

[4] “Dan: You are committing an ad hoc fallacy, you have no verifiable evidence and you are simply making the argument to save your theory.” This is a non sequitur. This conclusion doesn’t follow from the preceding.

Notice it’s Dan who gets to decide which evidence gets accepted or not.


As I said, I didn’t invent ad hoc fallacy or logic or historical methodology.

But the facts are Dan that you are not offering verifiable evidence yourself. The nature of historical claims is that much is open to subjective interpretation..and it's no surprise that both theories have evidence non verifiable. Your counters to S/R claims/theory/speculation is not the sort of counter the authors you cite were talking about. They are talking about counters which are verifable evidence, not merely opinion or subjective interpretation of evidence. So you haven’t falsified a thing.


Your statement about “verifiable” is an attempt to apply scientific language to historiography. This is a red herring. Everyone knows history isn’t science, but that doesn’t mean that some historical reconstructions are not better than others. It’s not just people expressing opinions; it’s the marshalling of arguments and evidence, according to certain standards. Historians talk about ad hocs too, not just scientists. You have only shown that you don’t know what an ad hoc is, and therefore are doomed to repeat this mistake. You mentioned warrants above; we are attempting to determine who has the best. Both can’t be right. That can’t be done when you want to short-circuit the process by avoiding counter-evidence with ad hoc rationalizations.

So, because there are good warrants to assume M.F existed, any speculation on what Hurlbut might have done with it is not ad hoc fallacy in light of the fact that your counter was not evidence which objectively proved MF didn't exist.


I never made such an argument. You postulated the MS existed and was recovered by Hurlbut. This begged the question of what happened to the MS, and why Hurlbut didn’t use it? The question was so obvious no one had to ask it. This forced S/R advocates to invent an ad hoc about selling it to the Mormons. So don’t blame me for a problem you created.

This whole business with ad hoc fallacy is an illogical means you are employing to justify your assertions and declarations of what you think should be accepted as true and what shouldn’t.


As I keep saying, I didn’t invent ad hoc fallacy. Historians talk about it all the time.

That you bring up the trick hat thing as an ad hoc fallacy is ridiculous.


It’s ridiculous that you even brought up the trick-hat theory to distract and delay consideration of the eyewitness testimony.

The initial claim Dan doesn’t come from me it's from you. You are the claimant who is saying Smith truly dictated with his head in the hat to all the scribes the whole time. And your justification is ..' the Book of Mormon witnesses said so'. Then you like to add you’ve got some hostile witnesses for further proof.


No, Marg. As I showed time and again, the initial claim is that a MS was used by Joseph Smith to produce the Book of Mormon. The counter-evidence is the eyewitness testimony about the head in a hat. Your counter to that is the trick-hat theory, which is ad hoc—plainly and simply.

This is not the kind of hypothesis the authors were talking about. This is not a claim supported by verifiable evidence. This is a claim which is unverifiable and in addition extraordinary. So this claim of yours can simply be countered it is too weak in light of the extraordinariness of the claim. It's too weak, because these witnesses had a vested interested, were motivated for personal gain, were closely related to one another..therefore their say so is insufficient evidence in order to accept an extraordinary claim that Smith for the whole process likely did as they said ‘.dictated with head in hat, elbows on knees and no other material present’.


You are repeating yourself, and still not making any sense whatsoever. You are desperately trying to find a quibble-point. You are missing a chance to improve your historical skills. We have gone over the witnesses already and found that you are hypercritical and biased against them due to their beliefs and religious experiences and your own over-commitment to a theory. You sense the weakness in your handling of the witnesses, which is the reason you resorted to the trick-hat theory. You are attempting to dismiss the witnesses categorically when they represent a myriad of situations.

So, I’m not trying to to save the S/R theory...by speculating on how on a few occasions such as with Emma he might have employed a trick hat. It is you Dan trying to maintain your theory by irrationally using ad hoc fallacy to dismiss the S/R theory.


Gibberish. It’s irrational of you to make such a ludicrous statement. The trick hat would have been employed more than a few times for Emma, but for all the witnesses if we dismiss your other ad hoc theory that most of the witnesses were part of the conspiracy. Of course, your trick-hat theory was designed to save S/R theory from the implications of eyewitness testimony. I’m not irrationally using ad hoc fallacy to dismiss the S/R theory—it can’t do that. What it can do is limit the kinds of responses you can make to adverse evidence, or at the very least recognize their weakness, especially as responses in debate.

In essence you are employing faulty reasoning of the sort like ad hoc fallacy when you use the accusation of ad hoc fallacy against S/R advocates. Essentially in order to prevent counter claims to your theory you are dismissing S/R evidence and reasoning as ad hoc fallacy..when it isn't. So you are using an irrational argument to dismiss the S/R theory, for the sole purpose of saving the Smith alone theory. That sounds pretty much like ad hoc fallacy to me.

In short you are using “the accusation of ad hoc fallacy” fallaciously to save your theory.


This kind of conclusion is why it hard to take you seriously. You are saying things that sound dismissive, but in fact have no meaning at all.
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Re: Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

Post by _Dan Vogel »

Mikwut,

I thought your contrast between Rigdon and the Book of Mormon was very well done, as well as your list of things that don’t fit.
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Re: Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

Post by _Dan Vogel »

Marg,

Correct and that is why I have a hard time accepting that Dan is a skeptic of Mormon claims....to the point..that it almost appears to me he's a "plant" by the LDS church. Sorry Dan if that is offensive but that's the perception I have because I've never seen a self-proclaimed skeptic be so non-skeptical of claims in this case supporting the church which should warrant high skepticism, not just average skepticism.


This is just one more demonstration of your incompetence in understanding the issues being discussed, and how far you go in speculating on such thin evidence. It’s one thing to run fast and loose over historical sources, it’s quite another to use that faulty reasoning against my character and reputation. Shame on you!

Dan applies virtually no skepticism against Mormon claims that I can make out. The only skepticism he applies in this issue is against the S/R theory and in that case he goes overboard above and beyond the call of duty..to the point of being unreasonable. He even resorts to applying logical fallacies against S/R when they aren't even applicable.


My theory doesn’t require calling multiple witnesses liars without cause—yours does. Historians want evidence and sound arguments—not hunches. My references against ad hocs are not against S/R theory, but rather against your faulty reasoning and useless speculations. It's quite clear you don't know what an ad hoc is.
Last edited by Guest on Wed May 25, 2011 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

Post by _Uncle Dale »

Roger wrote:...I haven't read his Smith bio yet...


It is both readable and useful, up through chapter nine. I picked up
a used copy and ripped out all of the pages after that, save for
the endnotes for chaps 1-9. Then I scribbled in a poor substitute for
a bibliography on a couple of retained blank pages at the end.

The source material is essentially taken from the EMD 5-volume set;
so you'd need those on your shelf in order to make much sense of
the critical apparatus. I rate the results a notch below Brodie and
a couple of notches below Riley. It's on my shelf between my old
Joseph Fielding Smith Essentials in Church History and my
copy of George Q. Cannon's Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet.

But the perusal of this "biography" did serve to convince me of
one particular conclusion -- that the S/R authorship theory is
best presented within the context of Book of Mormon multiple
authorship explanations, and NOT as a stand-alone hypothesis,
derived from the details supplied by the Conneaut witnesses.

At most, the Conneaut witness testimony should be condensed
down to a sentence or two -- Orson Hyde and Samuel H. Smith
preached from the Nephite record at Conneaut, and were met
there with claims that parts of that book resembled the writings
of a third author (beyond Smith or a Nephite).

Beyond that simple assertion, I believe that the Conneaut claims
are best filed away as footnotes -- which may or may not prove
useful, if and when the question of multiple authorship itself has
been solved to most scholars' satisfaction.

Thus -- I'd structure the multiple authorship theory thusly:

1. Early claims were advanced for authors other than Smith.

2. Those claims should be investigated within the context of
whatever reliable historical background material we are able
to collect and study.

3. The historical evidence (both pro and con) should then be
compared with the results of multiple literary-critical studies,
including computerized textual analysis.

4. Only AFTER such progress has been made, should we attempt
to locate those sections of the book which most resemble the
known writings of potential author-candidates whose pre-1830
textual contributions have been asserted or theorized.

We might even go as far afield in our theory-making as did the
Rev. Dr. William H. Whitsitt, when he declared that he would
have rather studied the Rigdon authorship claims independently
of Spalding -- had that been a practical possibility for him.

Finally -- if all I have suggested above leads to the conclusion
that the book was written by a single author, then we should be
prepared in advance to accept whatever the final analysis may
end up telling us. That may mean toning down any S/R advocacy
until more facts have been brought into the common consensus.

UD
-- the discovery never seems to stop --
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Re: Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

Post by _Dan Vogel »

Marg and Roger,

Dan makes a very weak case when he suggests there was no reason for them to mention that a Bible was used. On the contrary, there was every reason to avoid mentioning it because the text itself implies the copying was done by ancient Nephite authors! The evidence shows otherwise.


This is a good point.
Their lack of mentioning a Bible indicates he either concealed a Bible, if not then it is a good indication some acted as accomplices keeping silent on information they appreciated was detrimental to reveal. They made it known that Smith used nothing to copy from, so if they were all honest, one or more of them should have mentioned the use of a Bible. But of course, they couldn't because to do so would expose the con of existence of Nephites..so the likelihood, contrary to Dan's position that they were all duped, is that some at the very least were accomplices..willing to lie by omission of obvious important information.


This is not a good point. It’s now an argument from silence.

First you have to show that all the witnesses knew this information and intentionally withheld it. The long passages from Isaiah would have been done at the Whitmer home in late June 1829, and would have occupied about two days of the approximately thirty days of dictating. The only possible witnesses who left statements would have been David Whitmer and his sister, but were they in the room on those days? And even if they saw the Bible being used, the question they were responding to was pertaining to the Spalding MS. Assuming Whitmer saw use of a Bible, he would not have deemed it important information in the context in which he made his statement. Mentioning the use of the Bible would not “expose the con of existence of Nephites”—it would have only made description of the “translation” more complicated, which was counterproductive to his main concern—no Spalding MS was used because the method of translation didn’t allow it.

Contrary to Roger’s simplistic assertion, the use of the Bible is more complex than mere copying. Variant readings in the Book of Mormon’s version of Isaiah indicate that use of the Bible was accompanied with some method of changing the text by inspiration. If the Bible was used as a translation aid, it would not have been viewed as a departure from the principle that the entire Book of Mormon was translated by the gift from God.

Now you are turning the silence into an either/or argument for a trick hat or conspiracy. You can’t decide? Is this a display of your keen logic powers? In my view, both are unnecessary hypotheses—Joseph Smith didn’t need to hide a Bible and he didn’t need Whitmer as a co-conspirator. You are the only one who needs Whitmer as a conspirator to neutralize his testimony.
I do not want you to think that I am very righteous, for I am not.
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Re: Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

Post by _Uncle Dale »

marg wrote:...
This is a good point.
Their lack of mentioning a Bible indicates he either concealed a Bible, if not then it is a good indication some acted as accomplices keeping silent on information they appreciated was detrimental to reveal.
...


There is a third possibility, and that one involves Smith's
powers of memorization. Given what has been reported of those
extraordinary powers, I do not think it impossible that Smith
was able to reproduce a few chapters of Isaiah at a time,
while being scrutinized almost around the clock by members
of the Whitmer family.

The more important question would be -- Could Smith have
also memorized the changes to the italicized words, made
to the KJV text that he copied into the Nephite record? I'm
not sure that is a viable possibility. Perhaps we need to
conduct some relevant experiments with contemporary
subjects who possess a "photographic memory."

I suggest that Smith and Cowdery would have been careful
enough NOT to have displayed an open KJV Bible on the
table, while the "translation" progress was ongoing at the
Hale and/or Whitmer households. Such a complication to
the purported "magical" means of "translation" would have
been both an unwanted distraction and a possible faith
demoter -- for those deluded followers who believed that
magical words were appearing on/in/through a magic stone.

My best guess goes back to a few small pages, torn from a
pocket Bible, on which the italicized "corrections" to the KJV
could be easily concealed, if any Hales or Whitmers came
into the room. Probably such a deception was not needed
during the "translation" at Harmony -- but only at Fayette.

The final possibility is that Smith was able to construct that
series of italicized "corrections" on-the-fly, as he dictated.
That (in my estimation) would have been a feat far beyond
even the memorization of "corrected" KJV pages. However,
CoC theologian Tony Chvala-Smith is fully convinced that
Smith was able to compose and dictate the entire Nephite
record as a stream of consciousness mental production. I
was astounded when he presented me with that conclusion.
But then he also related his epiphany in the Auditorium in
Independence, when God evidently assured him that the
book is "true," even though "not historical."

In my final months with CoC I saw some of the topmost
priesthood leaders moving in that direction -- believing that
God "gave" the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith in a series
of mental revelations, which were nevertheless a pious fraud.

That is part of the reason that I left them.

UD
-- the discovery never seems to stop --
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Re: Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

Post by _Dan Vogel »

Marg,

CONSPIRACY THEORY

Well this is my speculation. I think the Smiths having had a significant amount of their assets stolen from them ..probably about $100,000 in today's money and the entire family had few opportunities and few prospects open for to obtain minimal financial security ..that they were highly motivated to find something which would support the family..just in their basic needs. Having significant assets stolen may have made them bitter and think that God doesn't punish those who steal and and reward those who work hard. In addition there were many start up religions at the time. Such an enterprise would be suitable for their family who all need to find work, it wouldn't require technical training or a large financial investment. The main requirement would be sales ability.

To them, it was not as if they'd be hurting or stealing from anyone. People would be joining of their own free will and if they didn't belong to their religious group then they'd be members of some other religious group. A start up religion could potentially financially support the family.

So this idea of starting a religion was likely in Rigdon's mind. He probably was the catalyst to get the Smith's thinking about it. By subtle questioning and in his line of work he met many people he could put feelers out to find suitable co-workers in the venture. He may have lucked out, perhaps one person was a people connector who recognized the smith family as being ideal candidates and connected Rigdon to them.

None of those involved would look upon this enterprise as being dishonest because in their minds they weren't taking advantage of anyone, they were merely taking individuals away from other religious groups and they could convince themselves that those religious groups took advantage of people in ways they wouldn't. If their goals are well intended, if they convinced themselves that God really exists but doesn't care or look over each religious group then they'd look upon establishing a religion which they intended with good goals as an honest enterprise and justified.


Marg--the storyteller. Of course, this story has no evidence and no logical reason supporting it. It’s fiction! Not history.

What reason would Rigdon have for entering into conspiracy with Joseph Smith, and then let him control, lead, and benefit from the conspiracy? If Joseph Smith was in conspiracy with Rigdon, it would have been extremely reckless for Joseph Smith to attempt to polygamously marry one of his daughters and otherwise mistreat Rigdon in Nauvoo. Other proposed conspirators—Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, David Whitmer, Martin Harris—have no reason belonging in the conspiracy other than explaining away their testimonies. Joseph Smith couldn’t even keep polygamy a secret. Cowdery, Whitmer, and Harris were excommunicated and abused by Mormon leadership, yet not a peep about conspiracy.

Michael Shermer’s new book---i]The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies, How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths[/i] (New York, NY: Times Books, 2011), has a chapter on conspiracy theories. He distinguishes real conspiracy and “conspiracy theory”. (pp. 208-9), the latter of which he describes as irrational because it uses conspiracy as an agent akin to belief in gods and ghosts. The following are some of the attributes of conspiracy theory Shermer gives, which seem pertinent to the present discussion:

1. There is an obvious pattern of connected dots that may or may not be connected in a causal way. … But when there is no forthcoming evidence to support a causal connection between the dots in the pattern, or when the evidence is equally well explained through some other causal chain—or through randomness—the conspiracy theory is likely false.

2. The agents behind the pattern of the conspiracy are elevated to near superhuman power to pull it off. …

3. The more complex the conspiracy, and the more elements involved for it to unfold successfully, the less likely it is to be true.

4. The more people involved in the conspiracy, the less likely they will all be able to keep silent about their secret goings-on.

5. …

6. …

7. The more the conspiracy assigns portentous and sinister meanings and interpretations to what are most likely innocuous or insignificant events, the less likely it is to be true.

8. The tendency to commingle facts and speculation without distinguishing between the two and without assigning degrees of probability of factuality, the less likely the conspiracy theory represents reality.

9. Extreme hostility about and strong suspicions of any and all government agencies or private organizations in an indiscriminate manner indicates that the conspiracy theorist is unable to differentiate between true and false conspiracies.

10. If the conspiracy theorist defends the conspiracy theory tenaciously to the point of refusing to consider alternative explanations for the events in question, rejecting all disconfirming evidence for his theory and blatantly seeking only confirmatory evidence to support what he has already determined is the truth, he is likely wrong and the conspiracy is probably a figment of his imagination.


Under “Why People Believe Conspiracies,” Shermer says: “Conspiracy theorists connect the dots of random events into meaningful patterns, and then infuse those patterns with intentional agency. Add to those propensities the confirmation bias and the hindsight bias (in which we tailor after-the-fact explanations to what we already know happened), and we have the foundation for conspiratorial cognition” (p. 209). Regarding this aspect of conspiracy theory, consider the following from Wiki about confirmation bias:

Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.[Note 1][1] As a result, people gather evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way. The biases appear in particular for emotionally significant issues and for established beliefs. …

They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and/or recall have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a stronger weighting for data encountered early in an arbitrary series) and illusory correlation (in which people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations). …

Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Hence they can lead to disastrous decisions, especially in organizational, military, political and social contexts. …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias


The following is also from Wiki under Hindsight bias, and because it’s not only pertinent to conspiracy theory but also has relevance to the Spalding witnesses, I will quote a large portion with underlining added:
Hindsight bias, or alternatively the knew-it-all-along effect and creeping determinism, is the inclination to see events that have already occurred as being more predictable than they were before they took place.[1] It is a multifaceted phenomenon that can affect different stages of designs, processes, contexts, and situations.[2] Hindsight bias may cause memory distortion, where the recollection and reconstruction of content can lead to false theoretical outcomes. It has been suggested that the effect can cause extreme methodological problems while trying to analyze, understand, and interpret results in experimental studies. A basic example of the hindsight bias is when a person believes that after viewing the outcome of a potentially unforeseeable event that they "knew it all along". Such examples are present in the writings of historians describing outcomes of battles, physicians recalling clinical trials, and in judicial systems trying to attribute responsibility and predictability of accidents.[3]

… This study is frequently referred to in definitions of the hindsight bias, and the title of the paper, “I knew it would happen”, may have contributed to the hindsight bias being interchangeable with the term “knew it all along” hypothesis. …

The hindsight bias is defined as a tendency to change an opinion from an original thought to something different because of newly provided information [10]. Since 1973, when Fischhoff started the hindsight bias research, there has been a focus on two main explanations of the bias: distorted event probabilities and distorted memory for judgments of factual knowledge [11]. In tests for hindsight bias a person is asked to remember a specific event from the past or recall some descriptive information that they had been tested on earlier. In between the first test and final test they are given the correct information about the event or knowledge. At the final test he or she will report that they knew the answer all along when they truly have changed their answer to fit with the correct information they were given after the initial test. Hindsight bias has been found to take place in both memory for experienced situations (events that the person is familiar with) and hypothetical situations (made up events where the person must imagine being involved). More recently it has been found that Hindsight Bias also exists in recall with visual material [11]. When tested on initially blurry images the subjects learn what the true image was after the fact and they would then remember a clear recognizable picture. …

To understand how a person can so easily change the foundation of knowledge and belief for events after receiving new information three cognitive models of hindsight bias have been reviewed [12] . The three models are SARA (Selective Activation and Reconstructive Anchoring), RAFT (Reconstruction After Feedback with Take the Best) and CMT (Causal Model Theory). SARA and RAFT focus on distortions or changes in a memory process while CMT focuses on probability judgments of hindsight bias.

The SARA model explains hindsight bias for descriptive information in memory and hypothetical situations and was created by Rüdiger Pohl and associates [13] [12]. SARA assumes that people have a set of images to draw their memories from. They suffer from the hindsight bias due to selective activation or biased sampling of that set of images. Basically, people only remember small select amounts of information and when asked to recall it at a later time they will use that biased image to support their own opinions about the situation. The set of images is originally processed in the brain when first experienced. When remembered this image is reactivated, and the ability for editing and alteration of the memory is possible which takes place in hindsight bias when new and correct information in presented. Leading one to believe that this new information when remembered at a later time is the persons original memory. Due to this reactivation in the brain a more permanent memory trace can be created. The new information acts as a memory anchor causing retrieval impairment [14]. …

Hindsight bias has similarities to other memory distortions such as misinformation effect and false autobiographical memory [10]. Misinformation effect occurs after an event is witnessed new information received after the fact influences how the person remembers the event, and can be called post-event misinformation. This is an important issue with eyewitness testimony. False autobiographical memory takes place when suggestions or additional outside information is provided to distort and change memory of events, this can also lead to False memory syndrome. At times this can lead to creation of new memories that are completely false and have not taken place. All three of these memory distortions contain a three stage procedure[10]. The details of each procedure are different but can result in some psychological manipulation and alteration of memory. Stage one is different between the three paradigms although all involve an event, an event that has taken place (misinformation effect), an event that has not taken place (False autobiographical memory), and a judgment made by a person about an event that must be remembered (hindsight bias). Stage two consists of more information that is received by the person after the event has taken place. The new information given in hindsight bias is correct and presented up front to the person, while the extra information for the other two memory distortions is wrong and presented in a indirect and possibly manipulative way. The third stage consists of recalling the starting information. The person must recall the original information with hindsight bias and misinformation effect while a person that has a false autobiographical memory is expected to remember the incorrect information as a true memory[10].

For a false autobiographical memory to be created the person must believe a memory that is not real. To seem real the information given must be influenced by their own personal judgments. There is no real episode of an event to remember, so this memory construction must be logical to that person's knowledge base. Hindsight bias and misinformation effect recall a specific time and event this is called an episodic memory processes [10]. These two memory distortions both use memory based mechanisms that involve a memory trace that has be changed. Hippocampus activation takes place when an episodic memory is recalled [17]. The memory is then available for alteration by new information. The person believes that the remembered information is the original memory trace not an altered memory. This new memory is made from accurate information and therefore the person does not have much motivation to admit they were wrong originally by remembering the original memory. This can lead to motivated forgetting. One must then ask: Can we learn from our mistakes if we ignore that they happened?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias


Hindwight bias is essentially what I have previously described as begging the question, which consists in assuming the Spalding theory is right and then inventing ad hoc theories and speculations that conform to the theory no matter how unsupported, contradicted, and convoluted. New information about the Book of Mormon and the suggestion by Nehimiah King, who was first to make the claim in early 1832 in Conneaut and, according to Dale, “took on a life of their own and traveled by word of mouth to adjacent Erie County, Pennsylvania by the time Elder D. P. Hurlbut served his LDS mission there in the spring of 1833” (http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/MO/sain1922.htm).
I do not want you to think that I am very righteous, for I am not.
Joseph Smith (History of the Church 5:401)
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Re: Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

Post by _marg »

Dale, Roger, Glenn, (and anyone else interested)

If I continue to respond to Dan on this ad hoc fallacy issue it's going to continue to take lots of MB space in this thread.

Do you think anything productive will be accomplished by continuing? If yes do you think this discussion on ad hoc fallacy is taking away from the discussion on the theories S/A & S/R.? Is it okay to continue in this thread or would you prefer this ad hoc fallacy discussion be in a separate thread?

thanks
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