Spin-off from the Spalding-Rigdon Thread

[noel00]

Maybe Craig does not want to put up with the snarkiness ("come on Craig...) and publish their response in a Journal to Bruce's paper when it is published.

[Uncle Dale]

...

Any thoughts about my challenges?

...

A dozen eye-witnesses testify under oath that I was the

man who robbed the bank. The newspapers say that the

missing money has been found in my home. My next door

neighbor swears that I've confessed to the crime.

Then DNA testing is done on the bloody handkerchief

left at the crime scene by the fleeing, injured robber.

It's not mine. The jury finds me "not guilty;" and I

can never again be tried for that alleged crime.

Case closed.

If your "challenge" amounts to the certainty of courtroom

DNA proof, then the S-R authorship case is truly closed.

All you would need to do thereafter is to prepare a pca chart

showing Joseph Smith's textual excerpts clustered in the

lower left quad, and all the BoM chapters spread through

the other three quads.

Case closed, -- again. *

Uncle Dale

-------

* Oh yes, one BoM text section should plot with the Smith

texts -- his "Preface" to the 1830 edition.

[Bruce Schaalje]

Maybe Craig does not want to put up with the snarkiness ("come on Craig...) and publish their response in a Journal to Bruce's paper when it is published.

Being new to this, I'm not sure what snarkiness is? Is it snarky for Craig to say "When my lab group does experiments and we get unexpected results, we do not invoke fairies or vampires or angels"? Or is it snarky to say "For his part, Bruce is obliged to dismiss all historical evidence contrary to the supernatural explanation with a wave of the hand"?

Bruce

[wenglund]

Are you categorizing the journalist's interview with

Leffingwell as "hearsay," or Leffingwell's actual assertions,

(of having been a school teacher at Conneaut, etc.) as "hearsay?"

Do you notice no common point in the Leffingwell source and

the Robert Patterson, Sr. source?

UD

It has been nearly a decade since I did my research, and when I clicked on the Leffingwell link I made to your old web site, it no longer works, and I have little or no recollection of the Patterson statement (which is interesting given that after 10 years my recollection of these two brief writings is so poor whereas the more than 18-year-old recollections of the Conneuatt witness of an entire book was so detailed and clear). So, at this point I can't say. If you would be so kind as to provide a workable link to both statements, I would be happy to review them and answer your question.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[noel00]

When R L Anderson uses the Kelly interviews of Saunders and other JS neighbours to examine Smith's NY reputation how old were they then and were their recollections accurate?

[wenglund]

When R L Anderson uses the Kelly interviews of Saunders and other JS neighbours to examine Smith's NY reputation how old were they then and were their recollections accurate?

They were quite old, and thus, like all distant recollection, reasonably open to doubts about complete accuracy.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[noel00]

So why does R L Anderson use the Kelly interviews to bolster his case for a positive Smith reputation as against the arguments used by Roger Anderson?

[Uncle Dale]

So why does R L Anderson use the Kelly interviews to bolster his case for a positive Smith reputation as against the arguments used by Roger Anderson?

Evidently a case of cherry-picking the evidence. The Kelley brothers

took notes in and around Palmyra and then published polished versions

of those interview notes, emphasizing the fact that some of the Smiths'

neighbors had a good opinion of them.

This comes as no surprise -- The Rockwells seemed to like the Smiths,

and a bit farther away, the Bemans, Knights, Stowell, etc. had a good

opinion of them -- as did Martin Harris, the Whitmers, and others.

So it is not strange that the Kelleys were able to locate people like

Saunders, who had something good to say about the Smiths.

What is problematic is that the Kelleys evidently cherry-picked their

interview results. Some of the people quoted in the RLDS published

reports even challenged that publication, saying that their statements

as published, were not as originally given.

When Anderson cherry-picks already cherry-picked interview reports, we

may well expect sanitized results. For example, the Kelleys' interview

with Dr. John Stafford can be compared to other recollections provided

by Stafford, in which the Smiths do not come out looking quite so good.

Rather than arguing that the Smiths enjoyed a good neighborhood reputation,

until they were "persecuted" for upholding the true religion, I'd say that

they had both friends and critics in the Manchester-Palmyra area, and that

the expressed views of those critics need to be taken seriously. My guess

is that an unfavorable local opinion of the Smiths prevailed, interspersed

with a few friendly opinions.

UD

[Glenn101]

When R L Anderson uses the Kelly interviews of Saunders and other JS neighbours to examine Smith's NY reputation how old were they then and were their recollections accurate?

They would have to be rather old for the time. I think the interviews were in 1881, which gives an interval of over 60 years. Unless there was something that stuck out prominently in their minds, particular events would probably be pretty hazy. General impressions would still probably be pretty good.

After more years than I care to admit, but less than the sixty in the Kelley interview case, I can still remember specific neighbors in a little town where I lived for several years. I remember mostly general impressions, but yet a few fairly vivid memories also still linger. Some are still vivid back to the time I was four and five years old because of the acuteness of the event.

Glenn

[Glenn101]

Rather than arguing that the Smiths enjoyed a good neighborhood reputation,

until they were "persecuted" for upholding the true religion, I'd say that

they had both friends and critics in the Manchester-Palmyra area, and that

the expressed views of those critics need to be taken seriously. My guess

is that an unfavorable local opinion of the Smiths prevailed, interspersed

with a few friendly opinions.

UD

It is difficult to ascertain just what their reputation was in the area because all of the information we have is coming after the fact of Joseph's claims of seeing an angel and his vision in the grove. I think your "few friendly opinions" is a little pessimistic. I don't have the reference handy right now but there is the story about the impending foreclosure on their property in Manchester where Hyrum went about the town of Palmyra seeking affidavits attesting to the integrity of the Smith family and was able to gather an impressive number in one hour's time in the hope of convincing the creditors to forgo the foreclosure (all to no avail).

But that is getting a bit off the topic of this thread. And maybe we should start a new thread for the discussion of the wordprint studies as it is a bit off topic for this thread also, and might get lost between this thread and the "Two Voices" thread.

Glenn

[Bruce Schaalje]

A dozen eye-witnesses testify under oath that I was the

man who robbed the bank. The newspapers say that the

missing money has been found in my home. My next door

neighbor swears that I've confessed to the crime.

Then DNA testing is done on the bloody handkerchief

left at the crime scene by the fleeing, injured robber.

It's not mine. The jury finds me "not guilty;" and I

can never again be tried for that alleged crime.

Case closed.

If your "challenge" amounts to the certainty of courtroom

DNA proof, then the S-R authorship case is truly closed.

All you would need to do thereafter is to prepare a pca chart

showing Joseph Smith's textual excerpts clustered in the

lower left quad, and all the BoM chapters spread through

the other three quads.

Case closed, -- again. *

Uncle Dale

-------

* Oh yes, one BoM text section should plot with the Smith

texts -- his "Preface" to the 1830 edition.

???????

I was referring to 1. my challenge to Craig to show his stuff to a statistician at Stanford, without context, and get their reaction, and 2. my challenge to Craig to formally use Bayes updating formula (rather than just pay lip service to it) as a way to answer the original question you posed in this post regarding the statement "the extant manuscript is what the Conneautt and other witnesses had, in part, read themslves, or had read to them, by Solomon Spalding, more than a decade prior to hearing about the Book of Mormon

[noel00]

Noel and Dale,

Daniela is not going to get involved in an on-line forum. She's made that clear, and I respect her decision.

Before we did the Delta and NSC analyses, Daniela prepared a lot of different PCA plots. One plot shows projections onto the 2nd and 3rd Principal Components. In this view of the data, the 19th century authors texts overlap those of the Book of Mormon chapters, and the Isaiah/Malachi chapters are only close to some of the Book of Mormon chapters.

I have that plot, but am not sending it because it is Daniela's work, and she has not authorized its publication on-line. I mention it because her work illustrates that how you look at the data --especially which principal coordinates are visualized-- can change the perception of the data.

Craig

[noel00]

Noel and Dale,

In addition to the test I just mentioned, Daniela also ran a test called "k-means clustering". Here is a description of that statistical method:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-means_clustering

Using k-means clustering, Rigdon's texts plotted close to many Book of Mormon chapters for the PC1 and PC2 plots..

So both the k-means PC1 and PC2 plots and the PCA analysis using PC2 and PC3 gave results that appear consistent with S-R theory.

Both of these tests were performed with the 50 most frequently used words in the Book of Mormon before we ever tried Delta and NSC.

Craig

PS Noel speaking (from Australia)- I'll now go to bed and wake up to more debate

[MCB]

.

[Uncle Dale]

..

I was referring to 1. my challenge to Craig to show his stuff...

Perhaps so -- but as a Latter Day Saint, I must look at your pca chart

and say to myself, "So, The Book of Mormon is True -- This Proves It!"

At least, I believe that will be the impact of such evidence when

published by the Maxwell Institute and circulated among its faithful

subscribers.

It is like the DNA evidence in a court case, which overturns all

other witness statements, and makes them irrelevant to the jury's

consideration. It is a "case closed" sort of defender's proof.

Whatever your minor squabbles with the Stanford team might be,

those "challenges" will be forgotten and the pca chart challenge

remembered wherever Mormon scholars congregate, for generations

to come.

That is... if your next pca chart also exonerates Joseph Smith.

If none of the accused 19th century potential authors' word-prints

can be made to match the "Nephite" word-prints, then the Divine

origin of the text will be even more firmly established in future

LDS testimonies.

Your pca charts will tell the scientists that it does not matter

whether or not NSC and Delta methods are appropriate for examining

either an open or closed set of potential authors -- that sort of

quibbling is moot. The charts themselves already say that there

is no need for any additional examination.

At least, I suspect that will be the informal discussion in the

elders' and high priests' classes, around the world, in a few months.

THIS is the challenge I'm referring to -- when your charts are

reproduced as documentation in the CEP manuals of the next 50 years.

That is.... if your discovery truly does amount to the sort of

evidence that stops a court trial dead in its tracks.

We shall see.

UD

[Bruce Schaalje]

Before we did the Delta and NSC analyses, Daniela prepared a lot of different PCA plots. One plot shows projections onto the 2nd and 3rd Principal Components. In this view of the data, the 19th century authors texts overlap those of the Book of Mormon chapters, and the Isaiah/Malachi chapters are only close to some of the Book of Mormon chapters.

Thanks for continuing the discussion Craig. We're getting into some important stuff now. Let's go back to the ovehead projector. Say you put a q-tip over the projector. You can find an orientation for which the projection looks like one blob of fuzz. That doesn't prove that there is only one blob of fuzz on a q-tip. However, if you can find even one orientation for which you see two blobs of fuzz, there are at least two blobs of fuzz.

As I mentioned on the other thread, if the plot of the first two principal components shows a separation of the point clouds for the various authors (and in particular for the various candidate authors from the Book of Mormon chapters), you are not being mislead. The separation is real. It can only get more pronounced as you look at more components (or views of the data), but it cannot be negated.

Bruce

[mfbukowski]

Craig's latest comments

"If you are committed to a supernatural explanation --as Bruce is-- then no naturalistic explanation is acceptable. The contrary is also true, and it is a basic assumption of science. Science does not admit supernatural explanations: naturalistic explanations are considered far more probable and, in fact, have repeatedly defeated supernatural explanations. When my lab group does experiments and we get unexpected results, we do not invoke fairies or vampires or angels. We assume that natural explanations exist, and we perform experiments to identify the likely causal agents.

For his part, Bruce is obliged to dismiss all historical evidence contrary to the supernatural explanation with a wave of the hand (or in this case, a plea to Matthew Roper) and to claim that his statistical analyses trump all historical or additional statistical evidence supportive of a naturalistic explanation.

We have tested historically plausible candidate authors consistent with the historical and linguistic evidence and have detected patterns consistent with the theory that the Book of Mormon was a 19th century collaboration."

"Naturalistic explanations" include theories like the sun orbiting the earth, and the transformation of lead into gold through alchemy.

Unfortunately they is no longer much evidence for these theories either.

Of course one could keep trying to make lead into gold and spend a lifetime at it, or perhaps one could come up with another way of looking at the problem.

I suppose it depends on how you want to spend your life.

[Uncle Dale]

...

I suppose it depends on how you want to spend your life.

I recall a classroom conversation while I was in college in

Utah -- over aging and human life expectancy. If I recall

correctly, all of the participants, other than myself, were

LDS. After a lengthy discussion of the subject, considering

only what was knowable to medical science, one of the group

introduced the "fact" that human beings back in Father Noah's

day lived for hundreds of years.

Another Mormon remarked that the Three Nephites had been

living for almost 2000 years.

Nobody (other than myself) seemed to notice that the conversation

had drifted off into the supernatural.

While a proper scientific report might mention the patriarchs

of Noah's day, in passing, as sort of a folklorish introduction

to the subject of human longevity, such "evidence" would not be

admissible in the actual reporting of observed data, etc.

And reference to the lifespans of the Three Nephites would probably

render a scientific paper unpublishable in the professional literature.

But, as I said, my LDS friends did not even notice that we had

slipped into the unscientific practice of referring to supernatural

events as "authority" in discussing human aging.

What would have happened, had I then told that discussion group:

"Sorry boys, you'll have to set aside your religious testimonies,

before we can continue a scientific discussion here!"

They would have either laughed me out of the conversation, or

thrown me out. No way those folks were going to set aside their

testimonies for the duration of a scientific examination.....

Am I the only person in the world who has encountered this problem?

UD

[mfbukowski]

Am I the only person in the world who has encountered this problem?

Nope.

Happens to me all the time, but more like the converse I guess, when people try to pretend that history has something to do with religion.

Literalism is literalism.

[Uncle Dale]

Nope.

Happens to me all the time, but more like the converse I guess, when people try to pretend that history has something to do with religion.

It was the sort of thing that I met with daily,

when I was active in Community of Christ.

Everybody had a testimony of Joseph Smith being a monogamist.

It was practically impossible to discuss the subject of marriage,

without everybody pitching in to say that the Reorganization

and Joseph Smith III were "true," because God had told us so.

Other than some very quiet, educated leaders (who knew full well

that the RLDS Church was founded on a misunderstanding of Smith's

perceived monogamy), I seemed to be the only one who was willing

to take an objective look at the issue.

For all the others, to even entertain the possibility of Smith's

polygamy, would have amounted to separation from the Church.

Luckily I did not encounter such a strong group-think in the

case of Book of Mormon origins there. The members had already

thrown out the BoA as Smith's fabrication, and so a member

could logically likewise question Book of Mormon authorship.

But that unshakable peer pressure, of everybody having to agree

to a particular religious tenet (or no longer be a member) was

a phenomenon directly transferable to inserting the supernatural

into Science (and thus polluting Science).

I know the Church is true.

Therefore, even as a scientist, I must confess that truth first of all.

Whatever science can be made to fit within the bounds of my testimony

is admissible -- whatever scientific inquiry requires my abandoning

that God-given profession of the supernatural is not admissible....

(sigh!)

UD

[wenglund]

So why does R L Anderson use the Kelly interviews to bolster his case for a positive Smith reputation as against the arguments used by Roger Anderson?

Because, while the recollections are dated and thus worthy of some measure of doubt, they aren't entirely devoid of value. He used them because they help corroborate less datated or dubious evidence. That is how historians tend to work.

Are you of the opinion that all dated recolletions ought to be ruled out? If so, that would wipe out most all of the "cherry-picked" evidence the Spaldingists have in support of their tenuous theory.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[mfbukowski]

....Other than some very quiet, educated leaders (who knew full well

that the RLDS Church was founded on a misunderstanding of Smith's

perceived monogamy), I seemed to be the only one who was willing

to take an objective look at the issue....

Luckily I did not encounter such a strong group-think in the

case of Book of Mormon origins there. The members had already

thrown out the BoA as Smith's fabrication, and so a member

could logically likewise question Book of Mormon authorship.

Odd that on one hand he was a "fallen prophet" who would fabricate the BOA while during the same period still maintain supposed monogamy despite evidence to the contrary. One would think they would lump polygamy and the BOA into one set of "evidence" for the idea that he went off the deep end.

Again, to me, this just shows that mixing literalism with the spirit just doesn't ultimately work. You can't mix them; either he was a prophet and a flawed human as we all are, and this is confirmed by the spirit and nothing else matters, or he was a fraudulent cult leader -- there is no middle ground.

I think that the very existence of ex-Mormons indicate that those who leave do not understand this distinction. Certainly our buddies in the Gehenna First Ward (Shady Acres) don't understand this.

[Glenn101]

Perhaps so -- but as a Latter Day Saint, I must look at your pca chart

and say to myself, "So, The Book of Mormon is True -- This Proves It!"

At least, I believe that will be the impact of such evidence when

published by the Maxwell Institute and circulated among its faithful

subscribers.

It is like the DNA evidence in a court case, which overturns all

other witness statements, and makes them irrelevant to the jury's

consideration. It is a "case closed" sort of defender's proof.

Whatever your minor squabbles with the Stanford team might be,

those "challenges" will be forgotten and the pca chart challenge

remembered wherever Mormon scholars congregate, for generations

to come.

That is... if your next pca chart also exonerates Joseph Smith.

If none of the accused 19th century potential authors' word-prints

can be made to match the "Nephite" word-prints, then the Divine

origin of the text will be even more firmly established in future

LDS testimonies.

Your pca charts will tell the scientists that it does not matter

whether or not NSC and Delta methods are appropriate for examining

either an open or closed set of potential authors -- that sort of

quibbling is moot. The charts themselves already say that there

is no need for any additional examination.

At least, I suspect that will be the informal discussion in the

elders' and high priests' classes, around the world, in a few months.

THIS is the challenge I'm referring to -- when your charts are

reproduced as documentation in the CEP manuals of the next 50 years.

That is.... if your discovery truly does amount to the sort of

evidence that stops a court trial dead in its tracks.

We shall see.

UD

Dale, Bruce has already addressed the points about NSC that you are are bringing up in a paper he has submitted for publication. I think I mentioned that already. Most faithful LDS will not be able to make heads or tails of Bruce's pca charts. I doubt very much that we will ever hear of those in any elders or high priests classes (unless maybe Consiglieri is teaching said class). They will not be in any church instruction manuals. Well, they will be in as many as the Larsen and Berkley Group studies (which is none). The instruction manuals are designed for faith promoting scripture study.

Glenn

[Uncle Dale]

...

I doubt very much that we will ever hear of those in any elders or high priests classes

...

Oh, I think that the word will travel like a viral video on a 3g net.

"Prominent Scientist proves Nephite BoM origin!

So simple that a child can understand the picture!"

All the true Nephite writings are on the right side of the picture

and all the false anti-Mormon allegations are on the left -- just

like the division of the righteous and wicked at the Last Judgment.

Next time somebody tells you the Book of Mormon was written by

modern men, just pull up that scientifically verified picture

on your mobile device.

Case closed.

UD

[Uncle Dale]

...

the "cherry-picked" evidence the Spaldingists

...

OK, I admit that the following 1830s items were selected

out of several hundred different mentions of the Book of

Mormon in the first decade after its publication.

But I don't have room in a single MB-posting to link all

of those hundreds of sources. Sorry about the "cherry-picking"

1. The 1st known documentation of Spalding authorship

claims for the BoM says that "he wrote in the old style"

http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1834howf.htm#pg278b

2. The 2nd document, in order, also mentions that Spalding

wrote historical fiction in "The old, obsolete style..."

http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1834howf.htm#pg280

3. the 3rd document, in order, does not mention it:

http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1834howf.htm#pg284

4. The 4th document, in order, does not mention it:

http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1834howf.htm#pg284b

5. The 5th document, in order, does not mention it:

http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1834howf.htm#pg285b

6. The 6th document, in order, does not mention old style

English specifically, but gives some examples of it:

http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1834howf.htm#pg281b

7. The 7th document, in order, does not mention it:

http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1834howf.htm#pg282c

8. The 8th document, in probable order, does mention it:

"the ancient or scripture style of writing"

http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1834howf.htm#pg286b

9. The 9th document, in probable order, does not mention it:

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/NY/wayn1832.htm#122033

10. The 10th document, in probable order, does not mention it:

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/saga2/Ashtab3.htm#1833text

11. The 11th document, in probable order, does not mention it:

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/OH/paintel4.htm#013134

12. The 12th document, in probable order, does not mention it:

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/OH/miscoh02.htm#061234

13. The 13th source, in probable order, says: "writing in the

old scripture style, in order that it might appear more ancient"

http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1834howf.htm#pg288

14. The 14th source, in probable order, says: "...lead him to

write in the most ancient style, and as the Old Testament is

the most ancient book in the world, he imitated its style as

nearly as possible."

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/NE/miscne01.htm#041939

15. The 15th source, in probable order, does not mention it:

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/IL/whig1839.htm#haven

16.? An anonymous source of questionable usefulness does

not mention writings in the old scriptural style:

http://sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/NE/miscne01.htm#122436

That brings up up to the end of 1839 -- the first decade.

It might be argued by some, that these references to Solomon Spalding

having written fiction in the old fashioned, scriptural style, are

too few and too far apart to be relied upon -- that, had he really done such

a thing, more of these early sources would be in agreement on that point.

It might also be argued by some, that these references to the old

fashioned, scriptural style, are merely examples of false memories,

implanted in witnesses' brains by the cunning and hypnotic D. P. Hurlbut.

However they might be dismissed or explained away, these assertions of

Spalding writings the old fashioned, scriptural style, set the

stage for subsequent corroborative testimony -- including that of

Mr. Patterson and Mr. Leffingwell.

Their statements will follow anon.

UD

.