Texas Instruments and Seiko thought differently and the rest is watch history. The Mormon church faces a dilemma. In the face of mounting, indisputable, historical and scientific evidence, they must continuously change, modify, disallow, ignore, and create new explanations and doctrine to fit the old paradigm originally set forth by Joseph Smith. The native American was not the descendant of European man as claimed by Joseph Smith, the Egyptian papyrus was not the Book of Abraham as claimed by Joseph Smith, lions did not roam the forests of early America as claimed by Joseph Smith, etc. Because the Mormon church understands the losing battle they are fighting in holding on to a treasured but flawed belief, they promote the use of social proof.
Social proof is group hypnosis.
The most susceptible victims of social proof are the young and the ignorant, which explains the youthful age of the elders and the volume of flame mail from the ignorant. How nice it would be to be a low level god on my own planet with lots and lots of eternal wives for my own enjoyment. Unfortunately, Scripture just does not support this. I was amused and astonished when speaking with four young missionaries in the course of my studies. Wrong in the first instance, a pompous assumption in the second.