Talk:Linguistics and the Book of Mormon

Stubbs

The addition of material cited to Brian Stubbs is not reliably sourced. I can find no indication that anything published by this author is taken seriously by academic linguists, but more specifically, the three sources cited all fall short of WP:IRS. The two books are both published by incredibly small presses, and the paper hosted on the BYU website doesn't appear to have ever even been seen by the academic linguistics community, being published in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. This is not the first time this material has been challenged. Continuing to re-insert it without discussion is disruptive. Pinging @Doug Weller, TaivoLinguist, and RDWinmill:.

Re-inclusion may be appropriate if the author can be shown to be notable, and the passage is re-worded so that attribution is clearer. The final sentence, however, was WP:OR. The author only expressed their own views in the provided quote. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:52, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Stubbs' comparison of Uto-Aztecan with Near Eastern languages is not taken seriously by any academic linguist, either within or without the community of Uto-Aztecan specialists. His methodology is unsound for these comparisons and the places where he has published are highly unreliable since they exist for the express purpose of using science to support the claims of the Book of Mormon. This academic doubt does not apply to his book on comparative Uto-Aztecan, which is sound and regularly cited, only to his work comparing UA with Semitic and Egyptian languages which is never cited in scholarly works, only in LDS propaganda. It should be clear that just because a scholar has produced one work which is widely respected doesn't mean that everything else he or she ever produces is of equal quality. Stubbs uses different methodologies for his UA work and for his Mormon comparative work. They are apples and oranges as far as scholarly acceptance goes. --Taivo (talk) 01:44, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

The person citing the UA comparative dictionary as an example of Stubbs' scholarship doesn't seem to have ever seen it and may assume that it contains the comparisons between UA and the Semitic and Egyptian languages that are featured in his Mormon work. That is not the case. The UA comparative dictionary contains not a word of Egyptian or Semitic languages and not a single hint of the Mormon "science" which is found in the other works. That's why scholars respect it and not the Mormon publications. Most UA scholars who use the UA dictionary still bemoan the fact that he has never published it, or even offered it, to a solid academic press. He still feels like it is unfinished. --Taivo (talk) 01:56, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Not being familiar with the author, I'll take your word that's he's done some positive work, but as you said; there's nothing about the actual sources used that lend themselves to the notion of reliability. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:39, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Here is a book review of Stubbs 2012 work: Kenneth C. Hill, "Uto-aztecan: a comparative vocabulary. By Brian D. Stubbs," International Journal of American Linguistics 78, no. 4 (October 2012): 591-592.

([1]) I think this qualifies. Alexis Manaster Ramer and Wick Miller encouraged Stubbs to complete a three decades efforts to produce a comprehensive reference book which became "Uto-Aztecan: A Comparative Vocabulary." — Preceding unsigned comment added by RDWinmill (talk • contribs) 14:15, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

That's what Taivo said. It's immaterial. His fringe work is not reliably published. Heck, I pointed out that one book of his could hardly be called published, it's printed by a printing company. But ok, we'll call it self-published. See WP:SPS. He is not an acknowledged exert in the field of Egyptian or Semitic languages let alone their relationship to US. Doug Weller talk 14:32, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Doug and Taivo. Having published one good work doesn't make all of his work reliable. The circumstances surrounding the publication of the cited works is incredibly suspicious, and in direct conflict with WP:IRS. And again, that last sentence was not what the source said. I understand that it was added to "balance out" the claims of Stubbs, but we can't balance out unreliable sources with OR. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:52, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Okay fair enough. Will you apply the same criteria to everything else on this page? Starting with foot note [8] Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism-Shadow or Reality? (1972, Modern Microfilm Company) as historians. and [10] Richard Packham as a linguist, A Linguist Looks at Mormonism http://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/1480167 RDWinmill (talk) 15:54, 25 January 2018 (UTC)RDWinmill talk

First: Will you please be sure to sign your comments? Use four tildes's (~) to generate a signature at the end of your comments, like this: ~~~~

I'll take a look at that reference later, but in general: yes, the same standard applies to all sources for this article. However, please don't make any pointy edits. If you disagree with the standard the other three of us agree on, don't make an edit to show how you think applying that standard to a different source would harm the article. If, however, you see a reference that legitimately falls afoul of WP:IRS, then by all means, remove it and the claim it's attached to, and post a diff here (see WP:D&L for how to do this). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:40, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, MPants at work. I am new at this as you can plainly see and need the help. I do appreciate and regularly donated to Wikipedia. I have made few random changes when NPOV is clearly lacking in other areas. This is my first foray into Wikipedia religious entries. This is inherently fraught with opportunity for bias and difficult to remain objective. Any suggestions on where to go to better understand how to be helpful to Wikipedia and not make more work for moderators? RDWinmill (talk) 15:54, 25 January 2018 (UTC)RDWinmill

Well, your missteps haven't really been all that bad, so I don't think I'm ready to suggest you shy away from religious articles. As long as you're willing to work with others who have different points of view than yours, any topic is germane. And let me offer you one bit of advice: always use the talk page when there's any disagreement. It's possible to discuss things with edit summaries, but when the disagreement is over whether or not to include something, that usually results in an edit war, which is something we tend to take a very dim view of.

But if you want to avoid in-depth discussions and frequent disagreements, you can always go to WP:TAFI, which lists articles for improvement. Many of those articles will be relatively uncontroversial. And feel free to use my talk page (the text "Tell me all about it" in my signature is a link to it) to ask any questions or for input in any discussions. I'm always happy to help. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:03, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

OK, what I'm about to point out is a long-standing problem with articles about religions, especially the pseudo-science that many of the devout think passes for proof of their unfounded beliefs. (According to the Apostle Paul, "belief" is, by definition, unfounded, but few devout are willing to live with that simple fact.) What I write may sound contradictory, but it's not really.

• Pseudo articles on religions, like this one, rely on two things to exist. First, the false claims of historical fact to substantiate religious fiction. Second, the pseudo-scientific works published in the religion's propaganda outlets that support the false claims with misrepresentation of facts. On the "pro" side of the argument, that's what passes for reliable sources. They are reliable sources according to the devout and baloney according to everyone else.
• Real scientists don't waste their valuable research time and money studying the pseudo-science of religious devotion because it does nothing to promote their careers.
• Real research presses and the publishers of that which we at Wikipedia consider to be the most reliable sources don't waste their scarce production money on works that are good science, but devoted to destroying the pseudo-science that might prop up the devotion of a segment of their customer base. They avoid religion like the plague unless they are scientific studies about theology, history, etc. They don't publish on the details of the pseudo-science that props up the belief of the devout. (And see the point above, that real scientists aren't writing about the pseudo-science anyway.)
• So the "con" side of the arguments are based on works by experts in the con side, not necessarily the best scientists.
• So there you have it. These articles have no reliable sources. They are pseudo-science from beginning to end.
• If we exclude all the "con" sources, then we have an article that becomes nothing more than a missionary tract for conversion--a mirror to lds.org. Converting people to a religion is not a function of Wikipedia.
• If we exclude all the "pro" sources, then we have an LDS-bashing page, which isn't the function of Wikipedia either.
• If we exclude both the "pro" and the "con" sources, then we have nothing and the page has no reason to exist. It's a desperate balancing act.

The key, IMHO, is to not overstress either the arguments or the qualifications of the devout or the critic. Describe what they have produced, but don't try to win either the pro or the con argument. Statements like "Mormon linguist Stubbs compared Uto-Aztecan with ancient Near Eastern languages in X, Y publications, but his conclusions are not accepted by mainstream linguists" are perfectly valid. Statements like "Mormon scholars have proposed that X is proof, but critics like the Tanners counterargue that Y." are perfectly valid. The Tanners are, indeed, reliable sources for criticism of Mormonism because that's what they do professionally and they are recognized in the critical community as the foremost critics of LDS belief and practice. Are they scientists? No, but they are expert critics.

So there you have it. I don't oppose using Stubbs or others on this page, but I do oppose verbiage that exaggerates the importance of what they have produced. --Taivo (talk) 16:32, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Statements like "Mormon linguist Stubbs compared Uto-Aztecan with ancient Near Eastern languages in X, Y publications, but his conclusions are not accepted by mainstream linguists" are perfectly valid. The problem there is that we need an RS that says that, and we didn't have that. Instead, we had Stubbs' primary sources and WP:SELFPUB work, used to support a statement similar to that one, but which avoided identifying Stubbs. It became an issue of due weight. Do Stubbs' self-published works deserve mention? Well, if they've made a big impact on the Mormon community, then yeah. So we need a reliable source that says that Stubbs' works have made such an impact. Incidentally, such a source would almost certain support the example text you gave.

As to the rest of your post: I agree completely, except to say that we would probably find one or two sources for most of these pages. Just enough to make a stub (no pun intended), but nowhere near enough for a real article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:46, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Actually, Stubbs' works as they relate to this article are not self-published, they are found in the Journal of Mormon Studies and FARMS publications. It's the one work that linguists actually value--the comparative UA dictionary--that is self-published, but that is irrelevant to this article. --Taivo (talk) 17:10, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Actually, Stubbs' works as they relate to this article are not self-published, they are found in the Journal of Mormon Studies and FARMS publications. One of them was, yes. The other two were published by outfits which are apparently too small to even have a web presence (aside from a facebook page in one case). And while that one is a perfectly acceptable source for Stubbs' views, we still haven't established that his views are WP:DUE. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:17, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I came here just now to remind others that earlier we had two self-published works used as sources, but you beat me to it. Doug Weller talk 17:33, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

ha HA! My cat-like, ninja reflexes strike again! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:39, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree about the self-published sources. The only works related to this topic that I even think about are the Journal of Mormon Studies and FARMS works. Neither are self-published. --Taivo (talk) 20:17, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

You have given me a lot to think about. I am studying Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources Back later. Thanks to you all. RDWinmill (talk) 21:12, 25 January 2018 (UTC)RDWinmill

Okay, I am back after some study. I would like to stay with this topic for a while to help me get some experience in Wikipedia commenting and discussing Wikipedia articles. I have lately come to understand that more is edits are better for wikipedia. from Forbes JAN 20, 2015: Wikipedia Or Encyclopædia Britannica: Which Has More Bias? "The number of revisions required to start showing this effect...is quite large—at least 2,000 edits—and the articles most read by users aren't necessarily those most revised by editors. "To some extent, we are not seeing the scenario where too many cooks spoil the broth, we are mostly seeing an insufficient number of cooks." re: Shane Greenstein and Feng Zhu wrote in "Do Experts or Collective Intelligence Write with More Bias? Evidence from Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia." Still studying this... Thanks for your patience and willingness to help a newbie. RDWinmill (talk) 13:56, 26 January 2018 (UTC)RDWinmill

False balance

This post is concerning this edit. It reintroduces WP:FALSEBALANCE and WP:YESPOV issues by misrepresenting scientific consensus as the opinion of particular critics and suggesting that some legitimate science is apparently being done on the topic by "Mormon scientists and historians": ("rejected by non-Latter Day Saint historians and scientists", "Critics of the Book of Mormon"), etc. —PaleoNeonate – 14:21, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

The new language seems accurate. It seems more NPOV to say "these people think this language shows this book is fake" than "this language shows this book is fake" when that dispute is the whole subject of the article. I think if you want to convince the reader of the legitimacy of the critiques, just make sure the article represents all the evidence and explanations of that POV fairly. -- Beland (talk) 03:08, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Stylometry

The below for discussion and reference creation to the stylometry "word print" parts of the article.

To sum everything up simply, the Book of Nephi and the Book or Alma have distinctive character voices. Since the dawn of writing, authors have been able to write stories, plays, etc with distinctive voices for each character. Obviously, an author can use the phrase “and it came to pass” repeatedly for Nephi and only a couple of times for Alma, which is what occurs. Different character or different author? Nearly impossible to say with the limited data we have. Statistics and math will produce results according to the assumptions you input to them.

LDS (Mormon) scholars performed the first stylometry studies of the Book of Mormon. They sought to prove their worldview by demonstrating multiple authors of the Book of Mormon. The idea being if there were multiple authors, then Joseph Smith could not have been THE author. Therefore divinity actually beamed the various author translations to his head, or so goes the predetermined conclusion.

Almost immediately, there was a retort study showing a single author to the Book of Mormon and that author was also the author of the the Doctrine and Covenants. Since those two studies followed constant back and forth stylometry studies. Why the constant contradicting studies? Stylometry is just another form of pattern matching. All pattern matching can be tuned for false positives and false negatives.

Undoubtedly all parties agree the Book of Mormon was written in the style of the King James Version Bible. Undoubtedly all parties agree there are multiple character voices in the Book of Mormon. Therefore, if a 19th century person (or multiple persons) wrote the Book of Mormon, everyone agrees that person would be hiding their voice behind at least two masks, one of the KJV style and the other of the multiple fictitious characters.

Think of Dana Carvey impersonating real people like George Bush (41) or Mr. Rogers and then his fictional creation the Church Lady. Currently, there is no statistical method to identify the underlying voice of Dana Carvey conclusively or without pre-knowledge of the voice you are looking for, so anyone that attempts to state that stylometry proves this or that, is wrong. Furthermore, whenever Mormons find a stylometry study unfavorable they readily reject it as voice of the translator, creating a falsifiability problem. Creating a scenario where stylometry studies cannot falsify therefore creates one they cannot verify either, capitulating on the stylometry game they started.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/ig6h80/analysis_of_authorship_in_each_book_in_the_book/g2u1nwg/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/vocal-disguises-and-impersonations-may-fool-voice-recognition-authentication/

https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/IAAI/IAAI09/paper/viewFile/257/1017

“Our results showing that stylometry methods are weak against trivial attacks [which] should have an impact on how such evidence is weighed.”

Summary: “when an author attempts to imitate another author, accuracy for identification drops dramatically. From this, I conclude that because the Book of Mormon was written in a KJV-style biblical English, standard wordprint methodology would likely not find matches with the possible 19th century candidates, even if they did write it.”

This all goes to the bigger question of identity. There is no, and probably never will be, a rigorous mathematical definition of identity. Best methods for identity verification is to use multiple variables of statistical closeness to compared to prior samples 65.210.47.163 (talk) 01:40, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

...or never existed

Jan 3, 2024 - How is the statement "...or never existed" allowed to remain on this page? In October 1841, Joseph Smith placed the original manuscript in the southeast cornerstone of the Nauvoo House. 40 years later, 28 percent of the original manuscript was recovered, (the rest was water damaged) scanned at high resolution and published early in 2022 [2] --- Considering the amount of time/ink invested on Mr. Stubb's publication credentials... the disregard for this obvious"oversight" seems, at best, highly questionable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.52.4.156 (talk) 23:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

If you read the next sentence following that statement you'll see the "claimed original text" existence of which is not established refers to the source text supposed translation of which the extant "original manuscript" is. – MwGamera (talk) 20:36, 4 January 2024 (UTC)