Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Jonathan Neville has recently hit upon a new idea that he’s been repeating in the hopes that it will gain traction. The idea goes like this:
This is most recently seen in Neville’s June 17, 2019, blog post, “The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be.” In it, he comes to the following conclusion:
Circling lazily over Neville’s entire thesis, like a vulture waiting for an injured rodent to die, is the logical fallacy behind Neville’s unsubstantiated claim that teaching a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon leads to loss of faith in the Book of Mormon and therefore is the cause of declining Church growth rates.
This is the logical fallacy of the Questionable Cause, also known by its Latin name, post hoc ergo propter hoc (“after this, therefore because of this”). An example of this fallacy could be the following: “The sun comes up each morning. Roosters crow before the sun comes up. Therefore the sound of roosters crowing causes the sun to come up.”
Neville believes “teaching Mesoamerican Book of Mormon leads to loss of faith and declining Church growth rates.” He sees A and he sees B₁ and B₂ and he erroneously concludes that B₁ and B₂ are the cause of A—without presenting any evidence whatsoever that there is any connection between those things.
Since the Heartland hoax is, itself, an evidence-free zone, it’s not surprising that Neville would make this claim. And, since he has dismissed this blog with a snide remark and a wave of his hand, I’m not expecting that he’ll provide any evidence in the near future to back it up. Hopefully, he proves me wrong on this point.
—Peter Pan
* “M2C” is Jonathan Neville’s acronym for the theory that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica and that the hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not the same hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates of Mormon.
A: The growth rate of Church membership is declining.
B₁: An increasing number of members of the Church believe that the Book of Mormon is fictional, not historical.
B₂: The teaching that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica has been widespread in the Church since the 1980s.
C: Therefore, B₁ and B₂ are the cause of A.
B₁: An increasing number of members of the Church believe that the Book of Mormon is fictional, not historical.
B₂: The teaching that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica has been widespread in the Church since the 1980s.
C: Therefore, B₁ and B₂ are the cause of A.
This is most recently seen in Neville’s June 17, 2019, blog post, “The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be.” In it, he comes to the following conclusion:
We have leading intellectuals in the Church pushing M2C* in the hope that, by convincing people the prophets are wrong about Cumorah, they will persuade everyone that the Book of Mormon is a real history, set in Mesoamerica. They don’t see the irony that by undermining faith in the prophets, M2C undermines faith in the Book of Mormon, too.Neville here displays his singular talent for packing the maximum number of blatant falsehoods and logical fallacies into the fewest number of sentences. Captain Hook and I have responded numerous times to every claim in that quote, but let’s recap briefly anyway:
These same intellectuals are raising millions of dollars from Church members and then hiring fine young scholars to push these narratives out through social media.
The future is definitely not what it used to be.
Who knows? Maybe once the intellectuals manage to persuade everyone that the Book of Mormon is “pious fiction” the Church will grow faster than ever.
I find that unlikely, but the future is by its nature unpredictable.
- Those who believe in a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon do not “hope [to] convince people the prophets are wrong about Cumorah” because Neville and his associates have not provided a shred of evidence that the location of Cumorah has been revealed by the Lord.
- Those who believe in a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon are not “undermining faith in the prophets” because they loudly affirm that the Book of Mormon is history, that Joseph Smith translated it by the gift and power of God, and that the prophetic authority Joseph restored resides today in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Church leaders direct members with questions to Book of Mormon Central, The Interpreter Foundation, and FairMormon because they “provide insights to doctrinal, historical, and social questions”—not something one would expect if these organizations were “undermining faith in the prophets.”
- In a sudden and bizarre turn, Neville switches from claiming that “leading intellectuals in the Church pushing M2C in the hope that…they will persuade everyone that the Book of Mormon is a real history, set in Mesoamerica” to claiming that “the intellectuals [are trying to] to persuade everyone that the Book of Mormon is ‘pious fiction.’” So which one is it, Brother Neville? Are “the intellectuals” persuading people that the Book of Mormon is a “real history” or a “pious fiction”? It can’t be both; you have to choose one.
Circling lazily over Neville’s entire thesis, like a vulture waiting for an injured rodent to die, is the logical fallacy behind Neville’s unsubstantiated claim that teaching a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon leads to loss of faith in the Book of Mormon and therefore is the cause of declining Church growth rates.
This is the logical fallacy of the Questionable Cause, also known by its Latin name, post hoc ergo propter hoc (“after this, therefore because of this”). An example of this fallacy could be the following: “The sun comes up each morning. Roosters crow before the sun comes up. Therefore the sound of roosters crowing causes the sun to come up.”
Neville believes “teaching Mesoamerican Book of Mormon leads to loss of faith and declining Church growth rates.” He sees A and he sees B₁ and B₂ and he erroneously concludes that B₁ and B₂ are the cause of A—without presenting any evidence whatsoever that there is any connection between those things.
Since the Heartland hoax is, itself, an evidence-free zone, it’s not surprising that Neville would make this claim. And, since he has dismissed this blog with a snide remark and a wave of his hand, I’m not expecting that he’ll provide any evidence in the near future to back it up. Hopefully, he proves me wrong on this point.
—Peter Pan
* “M2C” is Jonathan Neville’s acronym for the theory that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica and that the hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not the same hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates of Mormon.
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I appreciate your dissecting these blogs, in the same way that I appreciate SciManDan taking on Flat-Earth and other conspiracy nonsense on his YouTube Channel; he dives in where I fear to wade. It's clear that [bright red?] tinfoil hats aren't just for moon landing deniers.
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