I quite liked this offering from Daniel Peterson on the distinction between proof and evidence, because it does irritate me that people so often confuse the two concepts. Critics of Mormonism often say that there is no evidence in favor of LDS claims, which I do not believe to be the case. The question has always been, "what is the value of the evidence, and is the case, when that evidence is evaluated fairly, convincing?"

Well, I don't believe that apologetic arguments generally are convincing, even though I would not dismiss the existence of evidence in favor of LDS claims. What makes all the difference to the believer is the witness of the Spirit. Once a person believes they have a witness, the rest flows from that, for most folks. Accepting a witness of the Spirit does not, in my mind, make a person an idiot or dupe. I once had a witness of the Spirit that Mormonism was true, a very powerful one. To this day I am not inclined to reject that utterly by saying it was all merely emotion and of no consequence or meaning.

On the other hand, it does not lead me, like it does Daniel Peterson and others, to say that the dots all connect neatly enough from there such that I have chosen my team in the debate and will now fight the good fight for the right cause. I happen to think things are a lot more complicated than that, and I have never been much of a joiner. It is, unfortunately, in the genes. My father is not a joiner; his father used to sit in Sunday School, when he bothered to go, and would say on occasion to the instructor, "I don't believe a word you just said," in a loud voice. Now, I don't support my grandfather's simple provocations, but I also understand the emotions and dissatisfaction with easy answers that prompted him to pipe up.

So, I actually do enjoy reading these kinds of thoughts from Daniel Peterson, as I genuinely do enjoy reading the better writings of apologists on a number of topics. They continue to give me food for thought that expands my vision and challenges me. Reading Louis Midgley's reminiscences about Hugh Nibley was an immensely enjoyable experience for me. I came to understand both men, and where they were coming from, quite a bit better, I thought.

While I feel I can understand the dissatisfaction that many feel with the LDS Church, and heaven knows I have my own criticisms of things, I also feel to say that I respect the learning and richness of thought that the LDS community produces, and I reject the notion that LDS scholars who engage in apologetics have nothing of value to say, but only weak defenses of bogus claims to forestall the inevitable conclusion that Mormonism is false.

I hate that way of thinking. Sorry, but I do. I get where it is coming from, and I do think these guys make their mistakes, but, while I disagree with some of what they do for my own reasons, I would say that on the whole the Church is really lucky to have men and women who take its claims seriously and think their thoughts through the lens of that worldview. Isolated quotes and board wars do not do justice to the full range of LDS thought. There are lots of interesting things going on in the Mormon world. I am happy they continue to develop.

But so many here will not see that, because they are mostly interested in whether Nephi really lived, or whether God told Joseph Smith to take many wives. It is also unfortunately the case that because these tend to be the kinds of questions that are the crucial ones in the apologetic enterprise, the discussion never goes far beyond that. How dull. It amazes me that these guys spend any time on either board. It seems like Louis Midgley finally got out of it for the most part, and it is no wonder to me why he did.

Anyway, those who know my vexing contradictions that drive everyone crazy will say, "there he goes again." I can't help myself though. There is something about the struggles, sufferings, joys, vulnerabilities, foolishness, wisdom, weakness, and strength of most people that makes it all fascinating to me. Just when I think I have had enough of some person, I am drawn back into a conversation with them again. I just can't write anybody off for good, though I am sure that I have said I have numerous times before.

I know the apologists view me as a silly minor enemy, but I want to thank them all the same for the many thoughts they have helped me think, the many challenges they have presented me, the wisdom I have encountered through them, and the opportunity to reflect on my own shortcomings and hypocrisies. I have, however, not changed my mind about the correctness of the NMI publishing biting criticisms of fellow LDS folk, with the support of BYU and under the name Neal A. Maxwell. It just seems so cosmically wrong and unchristian to me.

Thanks, Kish. I'm never sorry I read your posts.

Thanks so much, Morley. It is kind of you to say so.

As I've pointed out when DCP has brought this up before, it depends on your theory of evidence. There are ways to define what evidence is where it makes no sense to say there isn't evidence of Mormonism, but then there are ways where it does.

I particularly like this passage:

I guess I am inclined toward his way of looking at it in some ways, but I would be interested in what you have to say.

Suppose you say that S is only evidence of P if S is best explained by P. For instance, suppose I assert that that ripple in the water I saw is evidence that the loch ness monster exists. After all, the observation is consistent with nessie's existence and its manifestation conforms to observational expections. You, however, point out that the ripple in the water is better explained by some other mechanical process. If you were to say that the ripple in the water really wasn't evidence then, you'd be on board with this idea.

This, mind you, is not some outlier idea. This comparative principle has the potential to cut off most, if not all, of the sorts of things DCP would propose as evidence of Mormonism in the mind of someone who thinks an alternative theory provides a better account. I don't think DCP thinks of evidence this way. He'd say that S is evidence of P even if it is better evidence of P2.

Ahah! OK. Yes, very interesting. Indeed, when I am doing my work, I have to check against these possibilities all the time. You can really regret not thinking of these kinds of alternatives. It is very easy to give in to confirmation bias if you too eagerly accept that anything that looks like evidence for your case actually is, when it may actually fit another fact pattern much better.

I don't know if that is exactly what you are talking about, but this is what it made me think. Is it an alien spacecraft or a weather balloon?

Edited to add: so once you find the fact pattern that best fits, you would say that the evidence can no longer be evidence of P but only of P2, since logically speaking it cannot be evidence of both.

I haven't read the post in question and I probably won't have time to so please do not take these comments as addressing your source material in any way. EA's observations are worth commenting on as we've both gone down this route with various apologists. I entirely agree with EA, but I have to expand on one matter. The Mopologists are obsessed with one, Thomas Kuhn, and this screws them in 99 ways for the one lonely way it helps them. Kuhn taught "theory laden evidence." Evidence does not exist in abstract outside of a theory. Apologists use this to attack the "love affair" critics have with objectivity. So while, sure, an apologist could probably find a way to argue that evidence is evidence, and that a rock with NHM written on it must be admitted by critics to be evidence for the Book of Mormon even if they do not agree it is conclusive, they can't argue for this while simultaneously worshiping Kuhn. A critic does not need to have examples of the sort EA is coming up with that settle the argument, but merely show that examples like EA's fit with Kuhn's idea of theory-laden evidence and the apologist is forced to either abandon his demands of the critics or jettison Kuhn.

Likely, the apologist will do neither, as they only care about what gets Joseph Smith off the hook in any given instance.

Interesting thoughts Kish and thanks for sharing. This is one of those issues where I find myself taking different positions and so I haven't been consistent with it. EA sums up the issue brilliantly, for a long time I subscribed to a different theory of evidence.

Thanks,

Hasa Diga Eebowai

These Mopologist sermons on evidence invariably leave out two crucial concepts: foundation and relevance.

Foundation essentially means authenticating that a piece of evidence actually is what it purports to be. Relevance means that a proffered piece of evidence actually does tend to make a given claim more likely than it would be without that evidence.

The reason these concepts are invariably left out are that they do not seem to be well understood by most defenders of the faith, and when they are, issues of foundation and relevance are not helpful to the truth claims of the LDS Church.

For example, this Sic et Non post discussed in the OP refers to the supposed witnesses of the Book of Mormon:



We could do a whole thing on the Three Witnesses, but for simplicity I'll just talk about the Eight Witnesses. What did they actually witness?

They saw an object they were incapable of identifying and heard Joseph Smith make a representation of what that object supposedly was. That's it. They were not "witnesses to the Book of Mormon" at all, because they had no way to verify that the plates Joseph Smith showed them were an ancient Nephite record. They had no way to determine that the Book of Mormon was a translation of the inscriptions on those plates, because they could not decipher them. And to believing Latter-day Saints who think it's ridiculous that plates could be fabricated and claimed to be of ancient origin, let me direct your attention to two things: the Kinderhook Plates and the Voree Plates.

The testimony of the Eight Witnesses is not evidence that the Book of Mormon is true or that Joseph Smith's story about the golden plates is true. The Eight Witnesses had no independent knowledge of either of those things. But if your goal is simply to prove that Joseph Smith showed some of his close friends and relatives an object and told them a story about it, then hey, you've got evidence.

There is also this:



Joseph Smith's own account is not prima facie evidence. Prima facie evidence is when, unless there is evidence to refute it, the evidence presented is sufficient to establish a claim. Joseph Smith's own account is direct evidence, because he claims to have personal knowledge of the events at issue, but it is not prima facie evidence.

But Peterson is also begging the question of "Joseph Smith's own account." Own account of what? Of the First Vision? Which of his several and varied accounts of the First Vision is the evidence? It's not the version in the Pearl of Great Price, because that isn't Joseph Smith's own account. He didn't write it---someone else did and put it in the first person.

Mopologist sermons on evidence also omit any discussion of heuristics. It isn't true that we almost always accept first person accounts of an experience if we have no particular reason to reject them. What is true is that whether conscious of it or not, most people generally agree that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Very few of the readers of this board know who I really am or really know anything about me. Without even needing to know a lot about my life and whom I associate with, which of these claims are you more likely to accept at face value?

(A) I watched a DVD with my kids on Saturday night and we popped popcorn.
(B) I watched a DVD with Scarlett Johansson on Saturday night while she was sitting on my lap.

Now, claims like theophanies can't be falsified in the same way that most claims of fact can. But if I have nothing but a person's word for it, and that person changes his story over time in significant ways (when it happened, why it happened, what happened), then I'm pretty far along in being able to evaluate whether I can rely on his word. And when alleged supernatural experiences involve claims of fact about the tangible world, then those claims become falsifiable.

Supposed Book of Mormon evidences are not evidences of the Book of Mormon narrative. Evidence about the Olmecs, the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Moundbuilders, etc. are not relevant to the Book of Mormon. Contrary to the implication of Peterson's blog post, a reasonable person can say quite confidently that there is no evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon. That includes the NHM thing (either of them--the Ensign has talked about two different sites). The NHM idea suffers from both lack of foundation and lack of relevance.

Whether consciously or not, most people also accept Occam's Razor as a valid way to evaluate various claims. Or, put another way, if the Book of Mormon were a 19th-century hoax, it would look exactly the same as it already does. There is not a single proffered piece of evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon's alleged historicity that does not have a more cogent and likely explanation. In Mormon apologetics, however, we have Joseph's Razor: whatever explanation tends to leave the door open that the Church's truth claims could be accurate, no matter how contrived, implausible, or baseless, that explanation is probably true. Again, this is why heuristics are notably absent from Mopologist sermons about evidence. Mopologists are not trying to arrive at a conclusion on the basis of evidence. They are trying to explain away evidence that conflicts with their foregone conclusions.

(I've been talking about the Book of Mormon, but the foundation and relevance problems are applicable to the Pearl of Great Price as well.)

Then there's Peterson's theory that God is like the Riddler from Batman:



Okay, so what you're telling me is that God loves us so much that He'll send His Only Begotten Son to be tortured to death for us, but he'll still play Three-Card Monte with our salvation. He has set up this wonderful plan for us to return to His presence, and restored His church in these latter days so we can know about His plan, but also made sure to set things up so that it's a coin toss whether to believe in the One, True Church or not. (Yes, I'm aware of the mixed metaphors. It's late and I'm tired.)

But even assuming for argument's sake that Peterson is right, and the evidence is a draw, then the rational solution is not to maintain belief in the Church and ignore contrary evidence by "putting it on the shelf." The rational solution is to withhold belief because the burden of proof has not been met. Burden of proof is, of course, another concept that Mopologist "evidence" sermons omit. If the LDS Church's claims of fact regarding the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, etc. have not been proven, it is not the responsibility of the rest of the world to disprove those claims in order to justify non-belief. Nor is providing a counter-explanation the burden of unbelievers. Absence of evidence is a perfectly reasonable and intellectually honest basis for rejecting a claim about anything, Mormon-related or otherwise.

Oh, but wait! To paraphrase something Gadianton said one time (and I can't find now), the Mopologist strategy is to assert that the evidence for and evidence against the Church is at a stalemate, and then the Holy Ghost can be the trump card that resolves everything in the Church's favor. Moroni's Promise is a whole subject unto itself, but the short answer is this: there's no way to assess the validity of Moroni's Promise. You don't have a way to independently verify that your subjective emotional experience means what the LDS Church tells you it's supposed to mean. I read the Book of Mormon. I pray about it. I feel good. The missionaries tell me this means that the Holy Ghost is telling me that the Book of Mormon is true. In the LDS context, "true" doesn't just mean good principles or that there's a God or something else abstract and/or metaphysical. "True" in this instance means that the Book of Mormon is real history. So how do I know that I'm not being subjected to wishful thinking, to operant conditioning, that I'm delusional, or that I'm misinterpreting an otherwise legitimate spiritual experience? Well, the way to do that is by seeing how what the missionaries told me was an "answer" from the Holy Ghost comports with objective reality. And now we're right back to square one of the evidence problem that Moroni's Promise was supposed to solve.

Evidence never has been and never will be a building block that a Mopologist uses to construct something. Evidence is merely the pet name Mopologists give to the unicorn they are sending you off to hunt.

This post deserves to be forever pinned as its own closed thread. It should be required reading for anyone who visits MDB. It is, simply put, fantastic. You really should write something more formal on this and submit it to Sunstone or Dialogue. I kid you not.

Absolutely a brilliant post which I have saved in my personal archive.

I second this.

I've often wished there were some way to archive and separate substantive posts and threads on this board.


Line of the month:

"In Mormon apologetics, however, we have Joseph's Razor: whatever explanation tends to leave the door open that the Church's truth claims could be accurate, no matter how contrived, implausible, or baseless, that explanation is probably true."

I absolutely concur with Kish. I read this late last night on my phone and was thinking the exact same thing. Darth has a gift for putting into words so many things I struggle to communicate.

This whole thing about evidence is a favorite canard the apologists use. I remember in a debate with Bokovoy, I couldn't understand why he was using some things as "evidence." I told him he might as well write up an article about how the mentioning of Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon is "evidence" that the Book of Mormon is an ancient text. He said he disagreed, but he never explained why. Following the apologetic line of thought, this is "evidence" right?

The problem is they never address the fact that this evidence is more easily explained by a model that says Joseph Smith borrowed ideas and concepts from people and sources in his day. Asserting an ancient origin for something like this requires far more evidence than mere parallels that could have just as easily been transmitted into it from other sources contemporary to Joseph Smith.

I enjoy both Kish's post and DJ's post. I also liked DCP's post.

With that said, I have a disagreement with DJ's--and we went over this before. He says "The testimony of the Eight Witnesses is not evidence that the Book of Mormon is true or that Joseph Smith's story about the golden plates is true."

The 8 witnesses testimony answers the question of whether there is evidence that Joseph Smith had plates with engravings as he claimed. Evidence for claims is only directly related to that claim. You are attempting to suggest that claimed evidence can't be considered evidence because it doesn't support the ultimate claim, it seems. I don't know...there are more steps in evaluating claims then that. Its a case that's built. Its not a every piece of data must solve the question of whether the Church is inspired.

In that, you have plenty of work to do on your piece before it ought to be submitted, I'd say. Though, it is getting closer.

That is basically why, it is generally accepted that lack of belief is not an unreasonable position, I'd say. That is, of course belief, faith, personal inspiration and things like that are involved.

Gad, thanks for this, "The Mopologists are obsessed with one, Thomas Kuhn, and this screws them in 99 ways for the one lonely way it helps them. Kuhn taught "theory laden evidence." Evidence does not exist in abstract outside of a theory." Misuse of Kuhn is second only to any mention of Popper in my book of Things That Push My Buttons.

But, as others have said, well done DarthJ! That was a cogent rehearsal of evidentiary difficulties and like Kish, I think it could be expanded into an interesting conference paper or publication. Please think about this. I have some ideas about directions you could expand it into and I'm certain others do as well.

I find the demands for tactile, concrete proof and evidence unlikely to be satisfied in the present era. If the Book of Mormon is meant for all mankind, no matter their educational attainments and knowledge, it must be possible to receive sufficient evidence to believe it is true without a knowledge of these ancient American civilizations. The only way that is possible is if that evidence it is true comes from God. Without that, no amount of knowledge available in the current era will allow you to believe it. It is just the nature of the problem that our knowledge has distinct limits and gapping holes in it, whether the modern critics of the Book of Mormon acknowledge that or not.

Try again. He's not suggesting that claimed evidence can't be considered evidence. He's claiming that it's important to be clear about what claimed evidence is evidence for. In that respect, a lot of apologetics turns on not being precise or not disambiguating. See this:



The claimed evidence is evidence for something. It's evidence that Joseph Smith showed some of his close friends and relatives an object and told them a story about it. It isn't evidence that the story he told about the object is true. That it isn't evidence that the story he told about the object is true is strengthened by the further principles that DJ explained, like that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and Occam's Razor.

I feel like you are saying the same thing as I did, in a different way. The testimony of the 8 witnesses is evidence of an LDS truth claim--there were metal plates with engravings on them in Joseph Smith' possession, as he claimed. It's one piece.