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

[_Uncle Dale]

One occurrence of the "a-going" language falls smack dab in the middle of
the strongest signal for Oliver Cowdery's language in all of Alma. I wonder
why that would happen?
...

We would not expect these a-prefixed participles to crop up in the speech
of Cowdery or Spalding, as they were true Yankees -- and that particular linguistic
oddity is Appalachian (derived from early British Isles migrants, including the
Scots-Irish).

We do see that language in the writings of Rigdon's son John -- (and
in instances where John claims to be quoting his father). Browsing through
the father's own writings, we see Sidney lapsing into his childhood
Appalachian vernacular even in his twilight years, when composing a
letter that included the "a-going" language.

But why would Smith's vernacular include the Appalachian oddity? Perhaps
the answer lies in the fact that he was not exactly a Yankee, and that
his youthful vocabulary was still being formulated when the family moved
from New England to western New York.

My guess is that a careful study of Smith's 1820s-1830s vocabulary will
uncover a substantial percentage of non-Yankeeisms: that he provides
fewer examples of New Englandese than does his "Yankee" mother Lucy.

Joseph Smith was reportedly "the calf that sucked three cows," and we
should not be surprised to see him mouthing "peradventure" and
"numerority" right alongside "giddy-up" and "daddy's gone a-hunting."

UD

[_Dan Vogel]

Marg,

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.

To start off, where Dan does McCullagh ever say that one should choose as best explanation , “Historical interpretations with fewer ad hocs are given preference.”? He doesn't.

From the link to Wiki that I provided, Christopher Behan McCullagh’s discussion is summarized under “seven conditions for a successful argument to the best explanation”. Point five reads:

5.The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must include fewer new suppositions about the past which are not already implied to some extent by existing beliefs.

These same points are given on p. 19 of his book. In the quote you give, McCullagh recognizes some exceptions to the rule when it comes to theories that have great scope and explanatory power, which doesn’t apply to the Spalding theory (or to your use of ad hocs to save it from adverse evidence). Smith alone theory has far more scope and explanatory power than the Spalding theory—which originally had the appeal of explaining how an ignorant farm boy could produce the Book of Mormon. This explanation has become unnecessary in light of what we now know about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. The Spalding theory has no scope and explains nothing. This deals with McCullagh’s second point:

2.The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory scope than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must imply a greater variety of observation statements.

However, are you quoting this to show that your ad hocs do not mean the Spalding theory is false or just to say I don’t know what I’m talking about? If the former, I would be happy that you recognize that you have been inventing ad hoc defenses against adverse evidence. Nothing could be clearer. If the latter, I think you do not understand McCullagh’s discussion. But I think our concern is less with exceptions and what ad hocs prove or don’t prove and more with acknowledging that you have been using ad hocs as a major crutch in your debating style—which leads to a huge waste of time and band width trying to keep the discussion on more meaningful and fruitful paths.

Couple of things to note. Your say so, and opinion that many of the explanations of the S/R theory are ad hoc is simply that ..your opinion..they are not ad hoc. For example, the evidence indicates another manuscript existed besides the Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek. Your accusation that the hypothesis of another existing is "ad hoc" fallacious ..is nonsense. You have been using your own distorted fallacious reasoning throughout this entire thread.

This is no different than what you have already fallaciously asserted in the past. Here you pick what you think is the weakest example of what has been labeled ad hoc, when there have been several—some of your own invention.

Trick hat--to escape eyewitness testimony

Conspiracy of witnesses to lie-- to escape eyewitness testimony

Book of Mormon was originally about ten tribes—to escape implication that Spalding witnesses’ memories are unreliable

Passages in Book of Mormon about ten tribes in north added by Joseph Smith or SR—to escape implication that Spalding witnesses’ memories are unreliable

“lost tribes” can mean one tribe—to escape implication that Spalding witnesses’ memories are unreliable

Long scenario about Spalding having Lehi come from lost tribes and rejecting contemporary theory of lost tribes and Indian origins—to escape implication that Spalding witnesses’ memories are unreliable

Hurlbut sold the second MS to the Mormons—to save the thesis of a second MS from an obvious problem

Sidney Rigdon pretended to be converted to Mormonism in November 1830—to explain away SR’s denials

Parley P. Pratt only pretended to bring the Mormon gospel to Joseph Smith—to explain away corroboration of SR’s denial

Ad hoc is when counter evidence against a hypothesis, not mere opinion (such as your say so) refutes a hypothesis and then to rescue that hypothesis from the counter evidence an explanation (ad hoc)is thought up but is unjustified other than its purpose is to rescue the hypothesis.

Again, this is nothing new. You said this before, and you’re still wrong. As you can see in my quick summary, your ad hocs were invented to respond to adverse evidence—not simply my say so. Besides, in history ad hocs are also missing pieces of the story—“ suppositions about the past which are not already implied to some extent by existing beliefs”—not necessarily responses to adverse evidence. However, as you can see from my list, it’s quite clear that you tried to invent and speculate your way out of adverse evidence. We tried to tell you that you could not do that, but you would have nothing to do with it. I hope now you understand that you can’t do that without being called on it. Here is the part of McCullagh’s discussion you left out:

It can be seen that these three ways of neutralizing the effect of apparently disconfirming evidence have much in common. Each involves creating an explanation of the evidence which is compatible with the hypothesis being defended. It looks as though, with sufficient ingenuity, almost any hypothesis could be rendered immune from disconfirmation this way. … When are such saving hypotheses, as we might call them, acceptable? And at what point is it reasonable for an historian to abandon a hypothesis in the face of apparently disconfirming evidence, rather than continue to protect it? … [p. 31]

The ability of historians to defend their hypotheses by creating ad hoc explanations of evidence which appears to disconfirm them, is limited by the need to make those ad hoc hypotheses more acceptable, according to the recognized criteria, than the other interpretations given to the evidence. If this cannot be done, then historians are forced to admit that what had seemed to be a true hypothesis must be false. … [p. 32]

As I pointed out months ago, ad hocs don’t automatically disprove a theory, but the more a theory relies on them the less likely it is to be true and it become increasingly irrational to hold onto such a theory. Remember, I quoted Theodore Schick, Jr., and Lewis Vaughn, How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Pub. Co., 1999), 156-58, in this regard—“ When a scientific theory starts relying on ad hoc hypotheses to be saved from adverse data, it becomes unreasonable to maintain belief in that theory. …” However, none of the ad hocs you offered are more plausible or probable than what you were trying to overcome. Needless to say, none of them have greater scope and explanatory power either. This is why the Spalding theory has been abandoned—it explains nothing and creates a mess that needs continual ad hoc support. But, for now, I’ll settle for the recognition that you have been creating ad hoc responses to adverse evidence—which you seem to want to still resist.

Your say so that another manuscript didn’t exist…is not counter evidence. Your Book of Mormon witnesses are not reliable witnesses despite your reliance on apologist Anderson's say so. So let’s get that straight …

The burden is on you to prove another MS existed—one of the major problems with that theory is what Hurlbut did with it. Eyewitness testimony to the translation doesn’t rely on Anderson’s say so, but you’ll have to read the book to find out his evidence. I quoted an affidavit signed by many people who knew David Whitmer to counter your unsupported assertion that he was a liar—to which you gave no intelligible response. Your use of conspiracy theory to explain away eyewitness testimony is ad hoc because it has no evidence supporting it. You draw on it because you need to neutralize counter evidence. At the time, it seemed the only alternative to your hat trick theory.

you don’t even know what “ad hoc” is...or you do but deliberately are misusing it.

It’s use who doesn’t know what one is, which leads you into this error over and over.

You also didn’t know what Occam’s Razor was in past discussions because you didn’t appreciate that it was between hypotheses with equal explanatory power. This is a key concept you fail to acknowledge. You seem to not appreciate how explanatory power fits in and is necessary both for Occam’s Razor and for arguments to best explanation by McCullagh.

From the start, I told you I wasn’t using Occam’s Razor in the narrow sense, but in the way it is generally used. You keep bringing this up like you made some important point. I also told you I didn’t need to use the term since the concept of preferring theories that are less ad hoc is quite clear in historiography. MCCullagh doesn’t use the term, but is quite clear that ad hocness is an issue that historians are concerned about—“ The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject.”

Although I have criticism of McCullagh explanations, I’ll leave that because it’s not essential for our discussion.

Funny, I don’t find it necessary to criticize McCullagh. I can’t tell you how arrogant your statement sounds.

I find your analogy between McCullagh’s examples and the Book of Mormon/Spalding debate uninteresting and distracting from the main subject here—and that is your use of ad hoc escapes. However, the most important thing to note is how the scholar favoring the conspiracy theory didn’t believe he could make a convincing argument because of the ad hoc nature of his theory.

Explains
- Rigdon’s extraordinary immediate conversion and and quick rise to power
- just as the church explains how unlikely it was that Smith could or even would have written the Book of Mormon …a better explanation it that it involved input from different people, more knowledgable, more interested in writing such a book and more capable at the time than Smith
- the many and varied witnesses who recall a spalding manuscript which matches closely to historical parts in the Book of Mormon..credible witnesses with no motivation or benefit to lie
-why only small knit group essentially family were involved as witnesses during the writing process
-why a blanket was used to conceal smith from public view

(I could go on, but Roger or Dale would be much better in all describing all the things from evidence the S/R theory explains. It is the theory which has greatest explanatory power and therefore argument with best explanation.)

The Spalding theory explains nothing. Rigdon’s conversion was no more sudden than anyone else’s. His conversion (as also many others’) was due to their preparation in restoration doctrine. This was dealt with in my book Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism Mikwut also discussed this in detail. This information has greater explanatory power than the Spalding theory, which only attempts to explain Rigdon’s conversion.

The Spalding theory only has the potential to explain the production of the Book of Mormon, but it can’t explain Joseph Smith’s dictation of the Book of Moses, Book of Abraham, his many revelations, and his many sermons, given impromptu and captured by scribes. Joseph Smith liked to play up his lack of learning as evidence for his inspiration—but evidence supports the conclusion that he wasn’t as ignorant as he pretended and the Book of Mormon isn’t as literary as apologists claim. In fact, there are many aspects about the Book of Mormon that neither Spalding nor Rigdon could be responsible for.

The Spalding witnesses have nothing to do with the power and scope of the theory. In fact, their claims rely on a rather spectacular feat of memory. The lack of motivation is an assumption; they were voluntarily supplying information to Hurlbut in an attempt to destroy Mormonism. Regardless, this is not evidence of explanatory power.

The Spalding theory doesn’t explain why only a small group witnessed Joseph Smith dictating the Book of Mormon—it only claims similarity between two books. The rest is one ad hoc theory after another to explain how it happened.

The Spalding theory doesn’t explain why Joseph Smith used a blanket so that people coming to the Whitmer door couldn’t disturb his dictation.

Note, the 3rd theory, the conspiracy that King William was murdered has the most suppositions and according to your reasoning Dan it should be rejected and the simplest theory that the King was accidentally killed should be accepted as the best explanation. Fortunately though both Brooke and McCullagh are better critical thinkers than yourself. Thank goodness for that.

You are missing the point, Marg. McCullagh examines the three using the seven criteria, not just one, and he is using ad hoc for both supposition and explanation of counter evidence—meaning it has the least evidence but the greatest explanatory power. So under ad hocness, he states

(5) Ad hocness As none of the hypotheses is clearly rendered probable by the total available evidence, all must be regarded as ad hoc, specially created to account for reports of King William’s death. It is tempting to say that the second hypothesis is more ad hoc than the others because it is so implausible, and the third hypothesis is less ad hoc than the others because of its much greater explanatory scope. But that would be to confuse ad hocness with other characteristics of the hypothesis.

The first theory was also disconfirmed by Tirel’s denial of accidentally shooting the King, which Brooke explains as evidence for conspiracy in assassination. Not strong, but a defender of the first theory might claim Tirel denied it out of embarrassment. After all, who would want to go hunting with him for fear of being accidentally shot? Or the two histories were reporting rumor and Tirel didn’t shoot the kind, but it was some other unidentified person, who did it by accident. In this way, ad hocs would be multiplied in order to hold onto the theory and we would have a situation like the Spalding theory.

Theory 3, the conspiracy theory that the King was murdered, the one with the most suppositions is the one preferred by Oxford historian Brooke and although it is acknowledged as not being proven it is the one which best explains the evidence. McCullagh does not call those explanations for # 3 ad hoc, nor does he say it should be rejected on that basis. The simplist theory # 1 that the King was accidentally killed and the most straightforward most widely believed and accepted ..si not the one chosen as the theory to best explanation. # 1, doesn’t explain the evidence as well as # 3. McCullagh while acknowledging # 3 is not proven, argues it is the best explanation.

McCullagh is giving an example of how ad hoc in the form of filling gaps is less important than explanatory power. The same can’t be said for ad hoc defenses against adverse evidence. Note that Brooke took what looked like adverse evidence—Tirel’s denial—and made it supportive of his position. He actually increased the explanatory power of his thesis, which ad hoc escapes don’t do. They only exist to keep the main theory alive.

On this basis Dan, the reasoning in McCullagh’s book (he’s a philosopher of history not a historian) favors the S/R theory not the Smith Alone.

You are making only a superficial comparison by linking one conspiracy theory to another. First, we have a lot more evidence to consider than Brooke had with his subject. Second, the conspiracy McCullagh describes has explanatory power and some evidence supporting it, but the Spalding conspiracy theory has no evidence and explains nothing--but creates more problems than it attempts to answer. Moreover, the Spalding theory relies on twenty-year-old memories of non-independent witnesses about the contents of a MS, which is contradicted by more reliable independent testimony as well as many other known facts, which can only be overcome by ad hoc speculations. Look at McCullagh’s other criteria:

2.The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory scope than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must imply a greater variety of observation statements.

Smith alone is superior.

3.The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory power than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must make the observation statements it implies more probable than any other.

Smith alone is superior.

4.The hypothesis must be more plausible than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must be implied to some degree by a greater variety of accepted truths than any other, and be implied more strongly than any other; and its probable negation must be implied by fewer beliefs, and implied less strongly than any other.

Smith alone is superior.

5.The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must include fewer new suppositions about the past which are not already implied to some extent by existing beliefs.

Smith alone is superior.

6.It must be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, when conjoined with accepted truths it must imply fewer observation statements and other statements which are believed to be false.

Smith alone is superior.

7.It must exceed other incompatible hypotheses about the same subject by so much, in characteristics 2 to 6, that there is little chance of an incompatible hypothesis, after further investigation, soon exceeding it in these respects.

[/quote]

Smith alone is superior.

[_Roger]

Dan wrote:

Again, this is nothing new. You said this before, and you’re still wrong. As you can see in my quick summary, your ad hocs were invented to respond to adverse evidence—not simply my say so.

This is one area where we disagree: what qualifies as "adverse evidence" vs. just Dan's or Glenn's adverse opinion. So let's go over the list you provided:

Trick hat--to escape eyewitness testimony

What you disparagingly call "trick hat" was not invented by S/R advocates to escape eyewitness testimony. We simply acknowledge that multiple witnesses claim Joseph Smith buried his head in his hat on a few occasions and rattled off a few words--essentially the same as you do with the exception that you think he did it all the time, for hours on end, day after day and that while a blanket was put up to shelter him from public view, you speculate (without warrant) that he could have done it all out in the open if he had wanted to, no problem.

The official reason given, by those same witnesses, for placing his head in the hat is to reduce the light so he could read words that magically appear in a stone. That testimony works against your Book of Mormon production theory as much as it does ours. So, exactly like S/R, your Book of Mormon production theory rejects that element of their testimony.

A "trick hat" works as easily to help explain your thesis as ours. Therefore there is NO NEED for a trick hat to "salvage" S/R since S/R stands just as strong as your theory does without it. It is offered merely as one possible way of explaining where Joseph Smith--a con-man, juggler, magician--might have been concealing material. But our theory can live without the "trick hat" as easily as yours can. Therefore you are erroneously laying a false charge against S/R.

Conspiracy of witnesses to lie-- to escape eyewitness testimony

This is phrased with bias from the start. In the first place, the kind "conspiracy to lie" you want to paint by using that terminology is not what I think of with regard to your witnesses--as I have explained several times on this thread. They are religious fanatics, highly devoted to their cause. Of that there is no doubt. They demonstrate a willingness to embellish their testimonies in order to bolster the cause. That is not mere speculation, that is fact.

In the second place, if you're going to accuse S/R of trying to "escape eyewitness testimony" then you have to acknowledge that you do exactly the same thing with exactly the same witnesses. You attempt "to escape" elements of their testimony as well! The fact is, S/R proponents reject the same elements in the witness testimony that you reject! We simply reject more than you do and take the rest with a large grain of salt. When we provide clear evidence that a key witness, Emma Smith, was lying to bolster her husband's role in the Book of Mormon translation, you are reluctant to simply recognize lying when it's in front of you. This, then, becomes adverse evidence for you. Instead of the simplest most straightforward and logical explanation--that Emma was lying to bolster her husband--you invent an ad hoc explanation that then allows you to call it something other than lying!

Yet, despite your cherry picking, you want to believe that, except for the obvious supernatural elements, we should just believe the rest of what they tell us--and despite the fact that those same witnesses would unhesitatingly reject your meddling with their statements. They themselves would deny what you try to claim about them.

And in the third place, there is no need to "escape" the testimony of biased, unreliable, heavily invested witnesses to begin with. Unreliable testimony is just that, unreliable. It does not constitute "adverse evidence" except for your theory which wants to cherry pick nuggets of truth from unreliable testimony.

So in this case also you are laying a false charge against S/R.

Book of Mormon was originally about ten tribes—to escape implication that Spalding witnesses’ memories are unreliable.

This has been discussed ad nauseum. There is no "adverse evidence" here. Adverse evidence would occur when you discover Manuscript Found and note that there is nothing in it that has anything to do with lost tribes. Otherwise, the evidence we do have is not adverse, although Glenn has tried valiantly to paint it as though it is. You yourself acknowledge a possible avenue whereby the witness testimony could be accurate and fit nicely into the present evidence. Hence, the ten tribes element does not constitute adverse evidence for S/R. Once again, you are laying a false charge against S/R.

Passages in Book of Mormon about ten tribes in north added by Joseph Smith or SR—to escape implication that Spalding witnesses’ memories are unreliable

This doesn't even make sense. Instead of bringing up an ad hoc explanation to explain away adverse evidence, you are instead illustrating the explanatory scope of an S/R framework. Given your thesis, why does Smith mention lost tribes at all? And under your thesis, where would you propose the "north country" to be? And how is your explanation any less ad hoc than S/R in that regard?

By the way, I notice you mention ten tribes rather than lost tribes. Can you point to a Book of Mormon verse that specifically mentions "ten tribes"?

The fact is, you can speculate about where the "north country" is as easily as we can, but such speculation does not constitute "adverse evidence" for the S/R theory.

“lost tribes” can mean one tribe—to escape implication that Spalding witnesses’ memories are unreliable

This is not even an accurate rendition of what we actually have said. I stated (on more than one occasion) that if Lehi or even his ancestors came from Isreal at the time of the Assyrian captivity--or just before it--then the account of his family's escape could constitute a lost tribes account since his American descendants would have been lost to Europeans for centuries.

And this is not inventing something out of thin air in the face of adverse evidence. There is warrant for so speculating given the testimony of S/R witnesses coupled with the loss of the book of Lehi and the admitted changes by Smith. It's not the fault of S/R witnesses that one of your star witnesses lost the only manuscript pages that had the potential to either support or refute the claims you now want to make about them. The fact that you do not have the evidence you need to make the charges stick does not constitute "adverse evidence" for S/R!

Long scenario about Spalding having Lehi come from lost tribes and rejecting contemporary theory of lost tribes and Indian origins—to escape implication that Spalding witnesses’ memories are unreliable

Who's rejecting contemporary theory? See above. Again, there is no adverse evidence here. The essential manuscript you need to make your case was lost by one of the witnesses for your theory.

Hurlbut sold the second MS to the Mormons—to save the thesis of a second MS from an obvious problem

Nonsense! There is no adverse evidence for S/R either way! Sheesh. This should be obvious.

In the first place, Hurlbut did not have to find anything in the trunk. If Hurlbut would have found nothing in the trunk that would not have constituted adverse evidence! If there was a copy of MF in the trunk at one time, it would likely have been exactly that... a backup copy. But either way, not finding it in the trunk does not constitute adverse evidence. On the other hand, if he did find it along with MSCC, then subsequent actions and statements seem to make better sense if he did sell it. And again, there are good reasons to suspect he may have done so. But S/R is not in peril either way! That's what's so ridiculous about your charge. Ad hoc is when you come up with something in order to explain away what would otherwise be damaging evidence! There is no damaging evidence here either way!

You could attempt to make the case (as you do!) that MSCC is "adverse evidence" since it does not match the descriptions given by the S/R witnesses, and if Aron Wright could not have answered when it was placed in front of him or if MSCC had the names Lehi and Nephi in it, then it could be considered adverse evidence. As it is, it is adverse evidence for you precisely because it does not contain the names Lehi or Nephi, etc. and Aron Wright flatly denied that it was the manuscript to which they were referring. It becomes adverse for you because you have to reject Wright's direct assertion and come up with an ad hoc explanation that Wright and the others must be suffering from group memory confabulation(!) apparently induced by Hurlbut (with obvious motivation for Hurlbut but none for the witnesses themselves!) which was then (lucky for Hurlbut) reinforced by later witnesses without Hurlbut's prompting!

Sidney Rigdon pretended to be converted to Mormonism in November 1830—to explain away SR’s denials

This goes back to the testimony of unreliable witnesses. You yourself reject the notion that Joseph actually read words from a stone by coming up with some other explanation you think is more plausible, ie. that Smith had a great imagination. So your theory comes up with an ad hoc response--to explain away a portion of the testimony of the very witnesses you want to think of as being honest! The fact is, unreliable testimony does not constitute "adverse evidence."

Do you accept Sidney Rigdon's testimony when he claimed to know what was on the sealed Book of Mormon pages? Yes or No? If not, on what basis do you reject it? And would you then consider your own rejection of Rigdon's testimony ad hoc? Why not? It's the same Rigdon!

Parley P. Pratt only pretended to bring the Mormon gospel to Joseph Smith—to explain away corroboration of SR’s denial

Again, more nonsense. Again, this works either way. Neither way is "adverse" for S/R! Pratt may have known more than he admitted, or Pratt may have simply been honestly following Rigdon's instructions. Either way, it's not an ad hoc response to adverse evidence. Under your thesis you just have to accept that the whole Pratt story Mormons use to say that God was guiding Pratt must have been coincidental!

So here we see that in the list you presented, none of your charges actually pan out. None of this is adverse evidence for S/R--much less positive evidence for any competing theory!--whereas in some cases it can be adverse for S/A--at least if we're following your standards.

[_mikwut]

Roger,

You say,

This goes back to the testimony of unreliable witnesses. You yourself reject the notion that Joseph actually read words from a stone by coming up with some other explanation you think is more plausible, ie. that Smith had a great imagination. So your theory comes up with an ad hoc response--to explain away a portion of the testimony of the very witnesses you want to think of as being honest! The fact is, unreliable testimony does not constitute "adverse evidence."

Utilizing a supernatural explanation proffered by J.S. as the background to make any natural explanation an ad hoc or at least minimizing all theories to a supposed level playing field is clever. I suppose I would have to qualify any history of say, Jim Jones, or the Halebot comet followers as only an ad hoc theory because it isn't the background proffered by the lunatics themselves. Suicide from the wares of a charismatic leader and the natural unhealthy psychology that we could understand from that only seems the reasonable and natural explanation because we always have to keep in mind it is actually ad hoc relative to the supernatural nonsense that really they were just going through a wormhole entering through mystical quantum doors into another dimension of unparalleled joy or whatever nonsense is proffered by the leaders. In fact a conspiracy that the Governments of California and South Africa were really staging the events for population control reasons is just as reasonable, never mind its lack of explanatory power relative to the actual events and history its just as plausible as any other ad hoc theory relative to the mystical quantum and supernatural proffered histories because it really isn't ad hoc at all! At least not anymore than any other competing theory, even the mystical ones!

Sure, let's not define ad hoc against already defined logic, reason, and natural inferences from the evidence as the proper background and framework in which to form those properly - let's rather define it played off the supernatural explanation so that any theory or guess is just as good as another. Also, let's ignore the fact that Glenn himself and all believing Mormons don't believe they deduce their faithful belief in the historical resources Dan is utilizing alone, but rather are happy to admit that revelation and personal witness from the spirit of God are the means to their proper belief in the supernatural and that their historical deductions are based off consistency with that spiritual witness and the historical record, not a natural inference from thereof but consistent thereof. Change both Glenn and Dan's honest and admitted backgrounds and basic positions and presto ad hocs disappear. That's a cute hat trick you got yourself.

Forgive me if my history utilizes a natural backdrop from which ad hoc deductions are recognized as such. I'm sure Dan will be happy to apologize for the length of this thread that is largely due to his failure to recognize that ad hocs are defined against the metaphysical background of the faithful Mormons testimony. In fact, I announce my belief back to Mormonism and await Dan's as well because it is unassailable that once the Mormon faith story is accepted as the proper background it also includes, without question, the greatest explanatory power, because the supernatural explains everything! I am astonished not one of my professors pointed out this obvious deduction your razor sharp skills have illuminated.

For the love of pete will you start reasoning from proper logic and natural understanding, use a skepticism that isn't camouflaging as solipsistic history and get your head out of the creative artsy clouds and quit imaginative ways of thinking like, "O.K. how can I disrupt Dan's calls and inferences to logic?" or what can I quickly read that can appear that I am ahead of Dan in understanding this picture - rather than doing the reasonable and respecting and humbly incorporating sometimes as little as common sense or evidential weight and inference, from earth!

I await your name calling and continued lack of introspection regarding my posts.

my best, mikwut

[_mikwut]

Dan,

Although I have criticism of McCullagh explanations, I’ll leave that because it’s not essential for our discussion.

Funny, I don’t find it necessary to criticize McCullagh. I can’t tell you how arrogant your statement sounds.

The price to read the thread about S/R each day - the simple cost of a internet connection; reading Marg imply that she is smarter and a better critical thinker than the Senior lecturer on philosophy and history from Melbourne University, priceless.

mikwut

[_marg]

Dan,

Although I have criticism of McCullagh explanations, I’ll leave that because it’s not essential for our discussion.

Funny, I don’t find it necessary to criticize McCullagh. I can’t tell you how arrogant your statement sounds.

The price to read the thread about S/R each day - the simple cost of a internet connection; reading Marg imply that she is smarter and a better critical thinker than the Senior lecturer on philosophy and history from Melbourne University, priceless.

mikwut

I haven't read Dan's post, because I don't have time this weekend to get into any of this except very briefly.

Dan, some of the criticism I have is that McCullagh does not define technical words such as "ad hoc" clearly. For example he say: " # 5 The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is it must include fewer new suppositions about the past which are not already implied to some extent by beliefs." Well "beliefs" don't require any sort of evidence. One can believe even counter to evidence. One could assume anything one wishes..based upon one's "beliefs". The number of suppositions would be irrelevant if one's beliefs are completely irrational.

Later he says: "Thus the 3rd hypothesis is contradicted by no observable data. It certainly explains more than the first, and seems less ad hoc than the second, so it is the one preferred according to the present theory."

Note he doesn't explain why he thinks the 3rd is less ad hoc than the 2nd..on what basis has he concluded this? And given the rest of the chapter ..it's not clear why.

Then later he says: "It is tempting to say that the second is more ad hoc than the other because it is so implausible, and that the 3rd hypothesis is less ad hoc than the others because of its much greater explanatory scope. But that would confuse ad hocness with other characteristics of the hypotheses."

So which of the theories does he consider most and least ad hoc and why? I don't find he's clear in his explanations at all. My understanding of "ad hoc" is from other sources, not him...however I'm willing to use his example of the 3 scenarios for the King's death and his appreciation that explanatory power and scope over-rides other factors such as "ad hocness". I also am not convinced that he uses ad hoc...in the way others we've read and we've discussed in this thread have used it...that is it's considered employed solely without any other justification to "rescue a hypothesis against adverse evidence". When he talks about ad hoc it appears he is using it in a more common sense...as an added assumption for a particular theory ..but not necessary for that theory's acceptance.

And Mikwut please don't get back into this thread just to cheer lead Dan and dish out your ad hominems. Got to go.

[Guest]

Hi mikwut:

I await your name calling and continued lack of introspection regarding my posts.

lol! Talk about a set up! I have to hand it to you, mikwut, you have the "are you still beating your wife" strategy down to an art.

The problem is, after reading your post three times, I'm not convinced you actually understand my arguments, which, admittedly, aren't that difficult. You seem rarely to offer even the basic courtesy of responding on an intellectual level to something I actually say (which at least Dan does most of the time) but instead your characteristic approach is to simply react emotionally to some abstract general concept I'm not even sure I said. I can't figure out why that is, but that seems to be the case.

Frankly, if all I had to say to you was: "For the love of pete will you start reasoning from proper logic and natural understanding, use a skepticism that isn't camouflaging as solipsistic history and get your head out of the creative artsy clouds and quit imaginative ways of thinking like.... " I would consider it a waste of my time and everyone else's to post.

It's also interesting how you consistently seem to pop in at a point where Dan needs extra support because his logic is not standing up on it's own. Coincidence, I suppose. The fact is I used Dan's own logic against his conclusions. If you don't like the results, then you don't like Dan's logic which accepts the testimony of witnesses who are unreliable in the first place--except where he cannot and still remain even mildly credible. To make matters worse, in those specific cases he makes excuses or blames the contradictions on non-LDS reporters. Dress it up however you want, that's LDS apologetics.

[_MCB]

I have great difficulty even understanding Mikwut's posts, and generally skim over them. I also skip over Marg's, for different reasons.

[_marg]

and generally skim over them. I also skip over Marg's, for different reasons.

Who cares MCB...fortunately you aren't a mod in this thread.

[_mikwut]

Hi Roger,

lol! Talk about a set up! I have to hand it to you, mikwut, you have the "are you still beating your wife" strategy down to an art.

No, Roger, my statement is not a loaded statement, it is a correct observation of every response you have had to my previous posts, there is a big difference.

The problem is, after reading your post three times, I'm not convinced you actually understand my arguments, which, admittedly, aren't that difficult.

Your right there not. And my post was in regard to one argument you made, not plural. My post in response to one of your very bad arguments shows one of them for the goofiness it is. You can stomp your feet all you want, you can play the same game with me you play with Dan it won't change how egregiously unfounded your argument in this case is.

You seem rarely to offer even the basic courtesy of responding on an intellectual level to something I actually say (which at least Dan does most of the time) but instead your characteristic approach is to simply react emotionally to some abstract general concept I'm not even sure I said. I can't figure out why that is, but that seems to be the case.

I think the reasonable answers to your confusion are quite clear, your not paying attention or your stubbornly clinging to illogical arguments and don't want to admit their unfounded. But let's make sure I am not confused because I quite clearly focused on just one of your arguments for the specific purpose of not allowing you to wiggle by jumping from argument to argument or broaden the scope. I am narrowly focusing on one of your points in my post. Namely, what clearly seems to be an ad hoc escape to reasonable minds and your clear failure to recognize it for that. It is quite simple to understand what you wrote here:

You yourself reject the notion that Joseph actually read words from a stone by coming up with some other explanation you think is more plausible, ie. that Smith had a great imagination. So your theory comes up with an ad hoc response--to explain away a portion of the testimony of the very witnesses you want to think of as being honest! The fact is, unreliable testimony does not constitute "adverse evidence."

as an attempt to claim that Dan is committing an ad hoc fallacy because he doesn't accept the supernatural explanation that a believing Mormon does. Your attempt is either level the logical playing field with Dan that he is doing the same thing you are, or escape from your obvious ad hoc. You call his explanation an ad hoc which it clearly is not. You do this by utilizing the believing Mormons backdrop of belief as the rationale for calling the natural historians explanation based on the natural evidence we have an ad hoc because it "comes up with" something to explain that testimony away. Rather than understanding it as the reasonable inference from the myriad data historical present to us. Therefore making it not an ad hoc. I made great pains to make that point to you above.

Frankly, if all I had to say to you was: "For the love of pete will you start reasoning from proper logic and natural understanding, use a skepticism that isn't camouflaging as solipsistic history and get your head out of the creative artsy clouds and quit imaginative ways of thinking like.... " I would consider it a waste of my time and everyone else's to post.

It quite clearly was not all I had to say and the portion you quote is entertaining and for that I am grateful to you.

It's also interesting how you consistently seem to pop in at a point where Dan needs extra support because his logic is not standing up on it's own.

Oh dear. You don't have the foggiest idea how much of a thrashing Dan has been giving you and marg and how no help from me is needed by him. Oh dear.

The fact is I used Dan's own logic against his conclusions.

No you didn't and no you haven't. Dan is grounded in reason and a natural historians footing toward the evidence. He isn't playing every theory off itself to draw illusory logical conclusions. He doesn't rely on a weakness of Glenn's theory to bolster his or vice versa with the S/R - he has constructed his position based on the evidence regardless of whether S/R existed or the divine theory existed, he constructed the most coherent construction of the evidence that doesn't require the amount of speculation yours does. Its not even close.

If you don't like the results,

I am funny that way about evidence and logic.

then you don't like Dan's logic which accepts the testimony of witnesses who are unreliable in the first place-

Right I know you hit a real home run there, no rabbit hole if we accept your view on that. Disregards evidence but illuminates your focused evidence.

-except where he cannot and still remain evenly mildly credible.

I assure you Dan's credibility isn't in question.

To make matters worse, in those specific cases he makes excuses or blames the contradictions on non-LDS reporters. Dress it up however you want, that's LDS apologetics.

No its not its an ability to show objectivity and nuance and a proper balance towards all the evidence not just the narrow portion of the Conn. statements and then attempt to put a square peg in a round hole with all the rest. If a Mormon apologist believes in math, it doesn't make Dan an apologist to agree with the Mormon on that matter, that's silly and what your claiming is just as silly.

Anyway, can we get to some real entertainment and can you answer Dan's challenge of explanatory power in regards to the historical milieu of J.S., his family history as seekers and the theology of the Book of Mormon and Campbellism and then the D&C, Book of Abraham and Moses and his other revelations with the S/R theory, that's gonna be really great.

Best Roger, mikwut