Dr. James Penton - goin' up yonder dirt nap

by Nathan Natas 17 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  slimboyfat

  Plagiarism is not a matter of opinion and is pretty easy to confirm or refute. What part of “Apocalypse Delayed” is supposed to plagiarise what part of “A People for his Name”? Let’s have a look and see either way. If I recall correctly, “Apocalypse Delayed” does cite and reference “A People for his Name” a number of times, as well as offer a positive review of the book in the annotated bibliography. We’d be looking for significant wording or structural dependence outside direct quotes. It’s perhaps unfair that Penton’s book became much more popular than White’s book, considering how good White’s book was, but that’s not plagiarism. And if your major complaint against Penton is that he remained a Christian, then I have to point out that White’s book also appears to evaluate JWs through the lens lf someone who still has faith in the Bible, perhaps even more so than Penton’s book in fact. Maybe White changed his views in later years, but in the book itself he apparently took it within his remit to evaluate the scriptural arguments of JWs.
• 

  Las Malvinas son Argentinas

  I put Penton in a class adjacent to Juan Pinecone (he whose name must not be spoken).

  Not Juan Pinecone (Affectionately known as Jabba the Hutt). Penton was an academic who actually had his book published (as opposed to being self-published and crowdfunded grifted to the tune of $20,000 from exJWs). One wrote extensively about having “blue balls”, sexual fantasies about “girls” who served him food, getting visible erections during field service with a “shapely” pioneer sister, and climaxing in an MTS School shower. Penton’s book… well, was actually written in a manner that was professional and researched and as I recall, didn’t refer to his penis at all.

  I could go on but there’s another thread for that.
• 

  WingCommander

  If Penton had actually plagiarized something (and not merely cited works as he did, as Slim mentioned above) White would have absolutely sued the pants off Penton.

  Why wasn't this mentioned before? Sure is convenient to throw mud now after Penton's death, when he can't even defend himself. And to compare an actual academic scholar like Penton to a narcissistic hemorrhoid like Evans?

  Man, you really are a world-class DICK!

  Creating an entire thread to slam a guy who just died? I bet you're a real treat in person. SMH.
  
• 

  Nathan Natas

  Actually, Wingnut, 15 YEARS ago Farkel mentioned that The Reverend Professor Penton had used Farkel's work without attribution, and It was at about this same time on thins forum when I mentioned "Timothy White's" accusation against Penton and here where Penton denied it.

  But you didn't know that, did you?

  I think that one of Simon's projects for this site is to give it a world-class search capability that will make it far easier to find old posts. Once that is done, Wingnut, you be able to educate yourself.

  ...and I SO wanted you to admire me, Wingnut.
  
• 

  Gorb

  Natas, in the case of Jim Penton, you have to come with extreme valid proof. You accuse him for doing a serious academic crime.

  The man is a well respected scholar and did one of the most valued research and wrote a standard work.

  So come with argumented proof or stop the dirt and speaking shit.

  Gorby
• 

  slimboyfat

  You can’t plagiarise an idea. Farkel started a thread about Rutherford having mistresses and Penton mentioned Rutherford’s possible infidelities very briefly in his book on the Third Reich. Penton’s source for this was apparently Larc, who was also the source for Farkel. Maybe Farkel thought he should get some credit for writing an entertaining thread that brought up some things that many didn’t know but that some already did know. That’s a pretty tenuous basis for claiming plagiarism. In fact, tenuous is not the word. It simply isn’t plagiarism because you can plagiarise an idea, and in this case it isn’t even clear that Penton didn’t get his information from someone else, possibly the same source as Farkel. Farkel was a very entertaining and intelligent character. He was also quite eccentric and a bit of an egomaniac, if we are being real.

  Farkel seemed to think that because Larc told him a story about his aunt and Rutherford and Farkel wrote a thread about it, therefore Larc had no right to tell Penton about it and Penton had no right to reference it in his book. That’s pretty nutty, right?
• 

  slimboyfat

  Nathan Natas

  I note you haven’t given an example of plagiarism from Penton’s book. I’ve got Penton’s book and White/Wills’ book here. If there is any plagiarism it would be very easy to check. Can you give us the page numbers?
• 

  WingCommander

  Nathan can't come to the PC right now. He's drinking his Ensure and then has to take nap after changing his Depends.