To TheOldHippie:
The difference is that a true scholar usually tries to remain unbiased and work from evidence towards conclusions. Pseudo-scholars by definition are biased and usually work from conclusions towards selecting evidence that supports the conclusions and ignoring or simply dismissing evidence that doesn't fit. Unbiased people distinguish one from the other, not by what conclusions the claimed scholar agrees or disagrees with, but by how he presents evidence and arguments.
It is a simple matter of observation that most defenders of Watchtower teachings and policies fall into the "pseudo-scholar" category. They have no choice, really, because to support many such teachings and policies they can only point to the opinion of JW leaders presented in WTS literature. They can't admit that, of course, but they still must support WTS teaching or be booted out. Thus the usual JW defender starts out with the 'knowledge' that some point is 'right', then proceeds to search through piles of evidence for bits that seem to support the desired conclusion. Often, a large pile of discarded evidence results, and only a small pile of supportive evidence, or none at all, remains.
Furuli showed his true colors this past spring during a series of online discussions about blood transfusions in a discussion forum related to the British Medical Journal. He distinguished himself by refusing to answer pertinent questions, misrepresenting other questions, and generally failing to prove the Society's claims about blood. Furuli has also misrepresented himself in several online forums, giving the impression to a number of posters that he was not even a Jehovah's Witness so that he could appear religiously unbiased. Furuli distinguished himself some years ago by writing a lame and thoroughly dishonest 'refutation' of a small number of arguments presented by Carl Olof Jonsson in The Gentile Times Reconsidered. The few JWs who were allowed to get copies were instructed not to allow anyone else to see them. Of course, someone sent Jonsson a copy, who quickly debunked all of Furuli's claims. Furuli then announced a recall of his piece, rewrote parts of it, and re-released it with the same instructions.
Stafford distinguished himself as horribly biased in his defense of the Watchtower Society's actions with regard to 1975, in his book Jehovah's Witnesses Defended. Several people have commented on this board about this the past couple of days. Oddly enough, his defense of the Society's blood policy in that book was almost apologetically lame.
AlanF
