contention

The prevalence of a spirit of contention amongst a people is a certain sign of deadness with respect to the things of religion. When men's spirits are hot with contention, they are cold to religion. - Jonathan Edwards “The Book of Mormon does not supplant the Bible. It expands, extends, clarifies, and amplifies our knowledge of the Savior. Surely, this second witness should be cause for great rejoicing by all Christians.” - Joseph B. Wirthlin

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Blogs are higher quality than journal articles

Daniel Lakens, an experimental psychologist at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, offers five reasons why blog posts are of higher scientific quality than journal articles.

Here is the link:

http://daniellakens.blogspot.nl/2017/04/five-reasons-blog-posts-are-of-higher.html

I agree with all of his points, and I think they apply to LDS topics as well. Here is a summary:

1. Blogs have Open Data, Code, and Materials [This is important for scientific topics, but it should also be important for LDS topics when relevant. The most notorious example I'm aware of are the so-called "stylometry" studies published in the Interpreter, in which the authors give no data, code, or assumptions. That kind of "black box" study is worse than no study at all, IMO, because it opens the door for anyone to publish anything that confirms their biases, without any possibility of analysis or replication.]

2. Blogs have Open Peer Review [This alludes to the practice of using "peer review" as a sham appeal to authority as well as to the practice of using phony peer reviews, both of which I think occur in many LDS academic journals. As Lakens explains, "Scientific journal articles use peer review as quality control. The quality of the peer review process is as high as the quality of the peers that were involved in the review process. The peer review process was as biased as the biases of the peers that were involved in the review process." These points apply to the publications of the LDS citation cartel, which never disclose the identity of peer reviewers or even whether the material was actually peer reviewed. Of course, a "peer" is someone who shares the same assumptions, so peer review is illusory in most cases. At best, it is really nothing more than "peer approval," as I've noted many times. Blogs tend to be more honest about peer review. My blog, for example, is not peer reviewed at all, so I don't use "peer review" as a phony appeal to authority. You can accept, modify, or reject my ideas and the facts I offer, but I'm not going to try to persuade you with a fake appeal to the authority of some anonymous "peer review" process.]

3. Blogs have no Eminence Filter [This alludes to the elitism characteristic of scientific publications, which also exists in the world of LDS intellectuals. The citation cartel that controls LDS publications filters out alternative voices to maintain their dogmatic hold on their own ideas.]

4. Blogs have Better Error Correction [This one refers to the comments feature that allows readers to point out mistakes within a matter of minutes in many cases. When I started my blogs, I left them open for comments. But as readership increased, I started getting a lot of spam (people selling junk) that I didn't have time to delete, so I had to close comments. It's unfortunate. Some of the most productive interactions were with people who disagree with points I've made. Now people contact me by email to point out errors, which I then promptly correct or address one way or another. I welcome any and all relevant comments on my blogs, books, presentations, etc. I just want to get things right, using accurate and complete data and rational analysis. Lately, the citation cartel has published a lot of stuff that is easily rebutted, but they don't allow comment or rebuttal, which suggests they aren't confident about what they're publishing. I may open the blogs to comments again and see if the spam has been blocked by Google.]

5. Blogs are Open Access (and might be read more). [With no paywalls, blogs have broader distribution. Most LDS material doesn't have paywalls anyway, so it's not a big issue in this community. But it's not the paywall that is the biggest impediment to distribution, anyway. It's people's time, and the long-held, well-established dogma drive by Mesomania. The promoters of the Mesoamerican geography and related Church history lore have cleverly (but falsely) framed their position as the position of the Church. This makes Church members feel guilty of questioning the scholars and educators. That's the paywall that needs to be broken down more than it has so far. It could easily be remedied if the citation cartel offered more open access. To be specific, if the Interpreter, Book of Mormon Central, BYU Studies, etc., were willing to publish articles about the new paradigms in Church history and Book of Mormon geography, they would have more credibility and, I think, long-term viability. But because they refuse, the Internet is the place for open access.]

1 comment:

  1. Jonathan, this has got to be one of the best things I've read for several months. It so aptly describes the citation cartel!

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