In his analysis of a recent Supreme Court case, Jonathan Turley discussed Justice Thomas' concurring opinion. His observation reminds us of the self-appointed "experts" on the Book of Mormon who also "insulate" their M2C opinions as "self-evidently true."
The sentence bolded below applies to the M2Cers who continue to try to persuade Latter-day Saints to disbelieve the teachings of the prophets about the Hill Cumorah in New York.
In his concurrence in United States v. Skrmetti, a case upholding Tennessee’s ban on adolescent transgender treatments, Thomas called for his colleagues to stand against an “expert class” that has dictated both policy and legal conclusions in the United States.
The reference to “experts” is often used to insulate an opinion as self-evidently true on a given question when they speak as a group. It distinguishes the informed from the casual; the certifiably authoritative from the merely interested. Yet, what constitutes an “expert” can be little more than an advanced degree, and the “overwhelming opinion of experts” can be little more than groupthink.
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/06/26/the-icarian-gene-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-expert-class/
Turley went on to briefly review the reasons why the public generally has lost trust in these "experts." I can relate to that.
For decades, I trusted the LDS "experts" at BYU, such as John Sorenson and Jack Welch, regarding the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon. Life was busy, and we all defer to experts in various aspects of our lives.
But then I noticed some inconsistencies and delved into the topic. I discovered the fundamental fallacy of M2C and the rhetorical devices used by the M2C scholars to circumvent and repudiate the teachings of the prophets.
In my experience, Latter-day Saints who take the responsibility for making their own informed decisions find, like I have, that the "experts" have not been open, transparent, and candid about these topics. Now that the Internet has made authentic Church history sources readily available, the premise of M2C is less credible than ever.
Here's how Turley explained it:
Over the years, the mystique took on a more menacing aspect for many in the country as they watched academic and scientific groups become more advocates than experts. ...
The result has been a dramatic change in trust for higher education and, by extension, the supremacy of the expert class. According to Gallup, only a third of Americans today have great confidence in higher education and roughly the same number have little or no confidence. That is a drop of over twenty percent in the last ten years.
Turley concluded with an important caveat that also applies in the LDS context. If/when such groups as the Interpreter, FAIRLDS, and Scripture Central decide to value open inquiry and a diversity of faithful viewpoints, Latter-day Saints generally will have more confidence in their work.
None of this means that courts or the public should disregard science or experts. Indeed, many experts still follow core principles of unbiased inquiry and discourse. However, good science requires open inquiry and a diversity of viewpoints. Citizens are rejecting science by plebiscite, the self-authenticating petitions where academics purported to speak for an expert class.