I have been commenting on this article.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865624494/Proof-evidence-and-the-need-to-decide.html

My position is that if a person follows Moroni's promise and believes it, then I have no objection, but those who promote pseudo claims can and do damage the testimony of others.

My final comment has been put on hold by Deseret News and is not published. Perhaps it hits to close to the truth and they don't want it to be seen.

Here is what they won't approve:

@greatbam22
No mainstream scientist or credible scholar supports the position of linguistic evidence of Old World peoples in the New World during Biblical times. That was hashed out thoroughly in the 19th and 20th centuries. Only unreliable diffusionist theorists promote it today. Brian Stubbs is a credible scholar but DID NOT publish his theory in any credible journal of science, it is only in LDS oriented materials for LDS readers. That fact can and does damage testimonies when some members realize that if his claims were legitimate, as a scholar he could have and should have published them properly for appropriate scrutiny and review. His theory is not valid and is not considered to be credible by archaeologists, anthropologists and credible linguists. I am critical of all evidence claims that are outside of mainstream science and archaeology. Far too much being promoted by LDS members is in fact pseudo. If you believe Moroni's promise there is no need for anything else. Those who claim evidence is supportable with mainstream science are doing a terrible disservice. Some members realize they were misled, and had they stayed with Moroni's promise their testimonies might have remained intact.

Shame on Deseret News for sitting on your comment.

The Deseret News is owned by the LDS church, and it would have members believe pseudo claims, known hoax artifacts and conspiracy theories about scientists if it keeps the tithing dollars coming in. If members need that kind of BS to strengthen their testimonies, then perhaps Moroni's promise is not as strong as they claim it is.

Here is my comment on Brian Stubbs (from my article at http://packham.n4m.org/linguist.htm - "Linguistic Problems in Mormonism"):

Some Mormon apologists point to comments by Dr. Roger William Westcott, linguistics professor at Drew University, and Dr. Mary Ritchie Key, who have written on the similarities between many words in Native American languages and the languages of the Bible lands. Westcott and Key, however, did not base their comments on their own research, but rather on research by Mormon Brian Stubbs. Stubbs simply scoured vocabularies to compile his listing. However, similarities of vocabulary (as any real comparative linguist should know) are not enough to establish a connection between languages. There are far too many such similarities that are pure coincidence. For example, Greek 'ho' means "the" and Hebrew 'ha' means "the" Does that indicate that Greek and Hebrew are related? Absolutely not. Aztec 'pax' means "war" and Latin 'pax' means the opposite: "peace". Is that evidence that Aztec and Latin are related? No. Greek 'theos' and Latin 'deus' both mean "god". Striking similarity, but they are completely different roots, even though Latin and Greek ARE related.

I would guess that a careful search of Chinese and English would turn up a list of words with similar appearance and similar meaning. Would any linguist accept that as evidence that Chinese and English are related, or that one is derived from the other?

Mormon apologists defend Stubbs' work by pointing out that he also shows patterns of sound shifts, such as have been observed in known language families such as the Indo-European group (which includes most modern and ancient European languages), in addition to the similarities in individual vocabulary items. However, Stubbs does not present nearly the quantity of examples that support the Indo-European sound shifts (the most widespread IE shift is known as "Grimm's Law").

Stubbs is Mormon and writing for a Mormon audience. He has flummoxed two retired linguistic professors (Key is now dead, actually). What about the thousands of other reputable linguists who are not convinced? Only lay people are convinced by vocabulary lists such as Stubbs'. (For many more such vocabulary similarities, see http://web.archive.org/web/20060618231054/http://members.aol.com/yahyam/coincidence.html)

See also the article "Setting the Record Straight About Native Languages: Linguistic Relationships" at http://www.native-languages.org/iaq3.htm#4.

For another example of an attempt to use vocabulary similarities to support the Book of Mormon see the article "Lehi in the Pacific" by L. Dwayne Samuelson with my rebuttal: http://packham.n4m.org/pacific.htm .

Your writing is WAY over the heads of the average DesNews reader. The Deseret News is written for the lowest common denominator in Morgbotville. Try writing something stupid for airheads and watch how fast it gets approved.

It may have planted a seed of doubt.

It's a waste of time sending negative comments to the Deseret news and expecting them to be printed. I sent 3 such comments on the Tom Phillips fraud case to them, the first being a straight rebuttal of the LDS position, comments 2 and 3 were modified so as not to cause any problems. Every comment was rejected on the grounds that they did not comply with the 'rules' or some such rubbish. That of course was mormonspeak and what they really meant was that the comments, although accurate did not meet the deception levels required for publication.

I sent the stubbs paper to Lyle Campbell for comment (look him up). He wrote me a very detailed response basically calling it utter nonsense. He was polite and provided examples. It was clear that Stubbs is a bulls hit artist.

"Doctrines are not quantifiable objects.". Of course not! Maybe the doctrine of plural marriage is not quantifiable but how the doctrine came about can be examined to see if Jospeh Smiths actions were
1. Consistent with the edict from God found in the D&C ,
2, ethical,
3. Did not contradict previous doctrine found in the Bible and BofM ,
And 4. Self serving.
I don,t understand Petersen using the word quantifiable in regards to doctrine. The Monroe doctrine is also not quantifiable. But we can examine it to understand what ideas lead up to adopting it. It is not true or false, it is merely a philosophy, just like different Mormon doctrine.
Maybe the church should get away from proclaiming truth (from God)in all of it's philosophies and start looking at weather they
Benefit people.