From Bruce C. & Marie K. Hafen and their book “Faith is Not Blind”. . .
. . . . Before popular web sites took charge of both our research and our reasoning, most educated people knew that scholars often quibble over nuanced issues in old events. They are trained to do that because of the social value of being open to any new discoveries. But prior to the internet, the socially perceived burden of proof was always on those who challenged established, reasonably well-documented interpretations.
Yet today, somehow, as we found, running across any criticism or complicated difference of historical opinion can seem to shift the burden of proof to the traditional source—as if merely raising an apparently legitimate question is enough to win a conviction in the court of public opinion. But most of today’s readers aren’t prepared to understand criteria for shifting the burden of proof, let alone to know how to evaluate the qualification and motives of witnesses.
In addition, prior to the internet, a teacher who wanted to teach kids about Benjamin Franklin —(of discovering electricity fame) and Betsy Ross or Washington or Jefferson could go to the library and find a source that fit the teacher’s preparation. But if you use the web which can’t discriminate among its readers by age or otherwise, we end up with what one scholar called “The disappearance of Childhood.”15
Unfortunately, some people aren’t mature enough to weigh conflicting evidence and evaluate its sources. But sites like Wikipedia understandably want to earn and keep the respect of their most sophisticated and critical readers. So they let “it all hang out,” inviting everybody on the planet to send in their differing evidence and their inexperienced readers (and their families and society) just suffer the consequences. When our children or others learn more than they can possibly comprehend about some highly charged subject (like history, religion, or sex) from internet browsing, we must all deal with the personal and social implications.
Peter and Emma are normal, healthy kids who just wanted to know if Benjamin Franklin discovered something important about electricity or Betsy Ross made the first flag. And if an official looking-website says we’re not sure, they might interpret that as —they didn’t. So those children lost confidence in Ben and Betsy, and their school teachers—even though a well-informed reading of the stories provides more experienced people with a high enough probability that we’re not going to remove Betsy’s name from the Philadelphia bridge or Ben Franklin’s portrait off the $100 bill.
“Myth-busters” -style research tends to show that the versions of nearly all major founding stories (political, religious, or otherwise) contain inaccuracies or overstatements, or leave out details or nuances, and unsettled questions. As LDS Church Historian Leonard Harrington once quipped about stories of hardship in settling the Western American deserts, “The remembered desolation of the great Great Basin before the arrival of the Mormons became more formidable with each subsequent telling.16
Yet even after the myth-busters do their research, the bottom line of both the myth and its criticism typically remains. The criticism may clarify some detail, or prove that the folklore version is exaggerated, or show that some part of the evidence could use more credible sources. But the essential core of a well-established founding story that has been around and celebrated (and attacked) for a long time is usually still true.
Our point here is that well-known stories about people or events like Ben and Betsy have usually been told with Stage One simplicity—innocent, uncomplicated, widely believed. And apparently authoritative criticisms of those stories represent Stage Two—casting doubt on stage one assumptions. Such criticism can propel readers from simplicity to complexity so fast that they no longer believe what they once did. This reality can make internet research an invitation to confusion.
For example, a friend who is a young single adult ward bishop often hears from ward members who have been rattled by a phrase or story that has been taken out of context in some event or statement in Church history. And they lack the experience to sense the need for more context; or they don’t know how to find the context; or, despite feeling shattered, they sometimes don’t care enough to look for it. The problem is not that they know too much about Church history, but that they don’t know nearly enough. And that they have been conditioned by oversimplifications of social media to expect a short answer to any question. They often aren’t interested in a long answer to anything—even if the true, complete story is very complex.
This makes it easy for Church critics, or someone unknowingly quoting a critic, to present some negative inference as a fact when it is not all settled in the reliable research. The inference can appear deceptively negative when, as often is the case, some part of the claim is based on a true historical sliver—which makes the overall context crucial. But when listeners hear only negative half-truth, they sometimes shift the burden of proof, so that (perhaps egged on by critics who don’t disclose their motives) they put the Church on the defensive and in the wrong, until the Church can explain the more nuanced reality—and they may not keep listening to take in the nuanced explanation. The tendency, like the evidence questions about Ben and Betsy, easily allows people with a dark motive to discredit those they want to discredit. ~~~Bruce C. & Marie K. Hafen, Faith is Not Blind (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 2018), p. 31-34
