361 thoughts on “Excilience and Contextomy”

1. William J. Murray: That doesn’t make them quote-mines, petrushka.

   They’re all quotes that are commonly used by Creationists in their dishonest quote-mining William.

   Your inability to show a Creationist using one of those quotes in a pro-creationism argument that’s not dishonest quote mining is rather conclusive.

2. It is fairly standard to illustrate a case with examples. Having laid down some general case about when an X is, or isn’t, a particular kind of X, ‘for example’ is so often seen that it’s noticeable by its absence. And in writing habits, a real example is probably better than a hypothetical one.

   Each case turns on its own merits, because it is all about context.

   The dispute is the relative distribution between the two classes in Creationist writing. One can hardly disagree that there are occasions when quoting a passage is not a quote mine. One can hardly disagree that there are occasions when quoting a passage is a quote mine. But it would be interesting to compare and contrast actual examples of both, as perceived by the two sides.

3. William J. Murray: Anyone wiling to step up and correct Flint? Or is the IDist the only one willing to do so?

   When will you be providing that example of a honest usage of a quote by a creationist?

4. Allan Miller:
   It is fairly standard to illustrate a case with examples. Having laid down some general case about when an X is, or isn’t, a particular kind of X, ‘for example’ is so often seen that it’s noticeable by its absence. And in writing habits, a real example is probably better than a hypothetical one.

   Each case turns on its own merits, because it is all about context.

   The dispute is the relative distribution between the two classes in Creationist writing. One can hardly disagree that there are occasions when quoting a passage is not a quote mine. One can hardly disagree that there are occasions when quoting a passage is a quote mine. But it would be interesting to compare and contrast actual examples of both, as perceived by the two sides.

   And the exact same can be said when materialists present quotes from people. So why is one side claiming some ethical highground here?

5. William J. Murray:
   Flint,

   Anyone wiling to step up and correct Flint? Or is the IDist the only one willing to do so?

   I am with Flint, where he says:

   
   If the person you quote is making argument A, then his quote must be used in the context of argument A. It is DISHONEST to use a quote made to support argument A, AS THOUGH it is a quote in support of argument B.

   To put it in different words, if you DO NOT use the quote in the context of the argument where it was made, you are quote mining.

   (But it’s ambiguous because you MIGHT be using the quote to establish background facts. But again, in that case, why quote anyone? Why not simply cite the primary source?)

   Context is everything, as I said in my very first response.

   The reason creationists quote Gould is not to establish a ‘common baseline’. It is to make evolution look stupid because “hey, even famous biologists say things that go against evolution! See, evolution can’t be true!”. We all know this, so why pretend it isn’t so?

   If creationists want to pretend that they are discussing science, they should adopt the methods of scientific debate. That is, you build an argument on facts and data that are referenced to the original sources. That is how you establish a common baseline. Not by appealing to authority.

   Creationists very, very rarely use this approach, and that is why they are engaging in politics, not science (I am actually not fussed by quote-mining in politics. After all, politics is dishonesty raised to professional levels).

   Oh, and maybe I disagree with Petrushka. Or maybe I don’t. I’m not going to tell you, because it is so much fun to see you blow your top 🙂

   fG

6. phoodoo: And the exact same can be said when materialists present quotes from people.

   “people” huh? What sort of “people” could you possibly mean? And who is quoting creationists in support of anything scientific? Care to share?

7. Allan Miller: But it would be interesting to compare and contrast actual examples of both, as perceived by the two sides.

   I have 13,000 examples available. I have not sorted them by fair use or quote mine uses. It should be easy to sample them and come up with some statistics.

8. Some contradicting arguments I’ve seen creationists make:

   “Fine tuning of the fundamental constants of the universe” vs “the speed of light decayed so the universe is 6000 years old.”

   “Actual infinities can’t exist” vs “Ontological argument”

   This one goes like this: the OA bases it’s nonsense on the idea that actuality is a necessary property of greatness, so if one can conceive a maximally great being, it must exist because one that is actual is greater than one that is not.
   So if actual infinities are impossible there must be a limit to what that being can actualize. Whatever that limit is, one can always conceive a being that can actualize one more… hence that MGB should be able to actualize infinities

9. Well, that’s probably about as much intellectual honest as we can expect when it comes to calling out your own. I really didn’t even expect this much.

10. William J. Murray:
    Well, that’s probably about as much intellectual honest as we can expect when it comes to calling out your own.I really didn’t even expect this much.

    Where’s your examples of a Creationist quoting a mainstream scientist to support a pro-creation position that isn’t quote-mining?

    A person with any intellectual honesty would just admit he can’t find an example.

11. Adapa: Where’s your examples of a Creationist quoting a mainstream scientist to support a pro-creation position that isn’t quote-mining?

    A person with any intellectual honesty would just admit he can’t find an example.

    If you want to be further boggled, I defy you to even imagine a scientist quoting a creationist, in OR out of context, in support of any scientific argument. What could the creationist possibly contribute?

    And when you ponder this, you get a better insight into why creationists are always quoting scientists, but never the other way around.

12. Adapa: Where’s your examples of a Creationist quoting a mainstream scientist to support a pro-creation position that isn’t quote-mining?

    A person with any intellectual honesty would just admit he can’t find an example.

    I’ve never looked because (1) I made no claims about it, and (2) it is completely irrelevant to my argument about what constitutes quote-mining.

13. William J. Murray: I’ve never looked because (1) I made no claims about it, and (2) it is completely irrelevant to my argument about what constitutes quote-mining.

    You never looked because 3) you know no such examples exist 4) No examples means Petrushka is right and you’re too much of an egotistical coward to admit you were wrong.

14. William J. Murray: I’ve never looked because (1) I made no claims about it, and (2) it is completely irrelevant to my argument about what constitutes quote-mining.

    You really need to think about why creationists feel the need to quote scientists so often, while scientists NEVER have the slightest need to quote creationists, and the thought would never even cross their minds. What this ought to tell you is that quoting someone only supports an argument if you are citing primary sources. In which case, just state the fact, and reference a footnote.

    (And as hundreds of reviews of creationist books will attest, the diligent reader will ALWAYS check any reference footnotes, since typically the footnote either doesn’t address the topic at all, or says the opposite!)

15. Flint: You really need to think about why creationists feel the need to quote scientists so often, while scientists NEVER have the slightest need to quote creationists, and the thought would never even cross their minds.

    Brown University biologist Ken Miller quotes Behe often in this article:
    http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html so your claim of “Never” is proven false.

    If you consider ID “creationism”, I’ve seen IDists quoted by mainstream scientists when they have attempted to refute various claims made in books and papers by Axe, Behe, Meyers and Dembski. So, I’m not sure what you mean here. I’m relatively sure that other creationists have been quoted quite often when their claims are being refuted by mainstream scientists. Your claim here that mainstream scientists would never quote creationists is baffling because it is so obviously untrue.

    I would suspect that creationists quote mainstream scientists for the same reason that mainstream scientists quote creationists – to “prove them wrong”, so to speak, or at least argue against their conclusions.

16. Adapa: You never looked because 3) you know no such examples exist4) No examples means Petrushka is right and you’re too much of an egotistical coward to admit you were wrong.

    Even if 100% of all quotes used by creationists were factually quote-mines, that would not make me wrong or petrushka right. Which is why I don’t bother looking.

17. William J. Murray: Brown University biologist Ken Miller quotes Behe often in this article

    And Is Miller misrepresenting Behe when quoting him?

18. Adapa: You never looked because 3) you know no such examples exist 4) No examples means Petrushka is right and you’re too much of an egotistical coward to admit you were wrong.

    Here’s a typical creationist web page. There is one remark that is sort of a disclaimer. But that is followed by the undocumented assertion that the situation is even worse for evolution than the quote suggests.

    http://www.genesispark.com/exhibits/fossils/cambrian/

    “The Cambrian explosion in animal evolution during which all the diverse body plans appear to have emerged almost in a geological instant is a highly publicized enigma. Although molecular clock analysis has been invoked to propose that the Cambrian explosion is an artifact of the fossil record whereas the actual divergence occurred much earlier, the reliability of these estimates appears to be questionable. In an already familiar pattern, the relationship between the animal phyla remains controversial and elusive.” (Koonin, Eugene, “The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution,” Biology Direct, 2007, 2:21.)

    “The most remarkable pattern to emerge from any analysis of early Cambrian metazoan diversification is the extraordinary breadth of morphologic innovation. It is evident at many different scales, from the obvious generation of morphologically distinctive groups to diversity in anatomical details. For instance, one might expect that complexity and sophistication of eyes improved through the Phanerozoic, but the recent discovery of exquisitely preserved eyes from arthropods in the early Cambrian Emu Bay Shale in Australia illustrates that highly advanced, compound eyes with more than 3,000 ommatidial lenses had evolved very early in the history of the clade.” (Erwin and Valentine, The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity, 2013, p. 216.)

    “The beginning of the Cambrian period, some 545 million years ago, saw the sudden appearance in the fossil record of almost all the main types of animals (phyla) that still dominate the biota today.” (Richard Fortey, “The Cambrian Explosion Exploded?,” Science, vol. 293, No 5529, 20 July 2001, pp. 438-439.)

    “The paleontological data is consistent with the view that all of the currently recognized phyla had evolved by about 525 Ma. Despite half a billion years of evolutionary exploration generated in Cambrian time, no new phylum level designs have appeared since then.” (“Developmental Evolution of Metazoan Body Plans: The Fossil Evidence,” Valentine, Erwin, and Jablonski, Developmental Biology 173, Article No. 0033, 1996, p. 376.)

    “Modern multicellular animals make their first uncontested appearance in the fossil record some 570 million years ago – and with a bang, not a protracted crescendo. This ‘Cambrian explosion’ marks the advent (at least into direct evidence) of virtually all major groups of modern animals – and all within the minuscule span, geologically speaking, of a few million years.” (Gould, Stephen J., Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, 1989, pp. 23-24.)

    “The fossil record had caused Darwin more grief than joy. Nothing distressed him more than the Cambrian explosion, the coincident appearance of almost all complex organic designs…” (Gould, Stephen Jay., The Panda’s Thumb, 1980, pp. 238-239.) The Cambrian period (thought to have started 540 million years ago) is a huge evolutionary enigma. Scientists at one time postulated that evolution of phyla took more than 75 million years. Even that period of time was vastly insufficient for this major evolutionary step. Now Darwinists believe that this happened in a few million years. Supposedly nothing but blue-green algae and bacteria lived for billions of years and then in a geologic instant all of the major types of animals sprung into existence! This has been called the Big Bang of Biology. No real progress has been made by evolutionists since Darwin’s day and “The Cambrian evolutionary explosion is still shrouded in mystery.” (Eldredge, N., The Monkey Business, 1982, p. 46.)

    “The introduction of a variety of organisms in the early Cambrian, including such complex forms of the arthropods as the trilobites, is surprising…. The introduction of abundant organisms in the record would not be so surprising if they were simple. Why should such complex organic forms be in rocks about six hundred million years old and be absent or unrecognized in the records of the preceding two billion years? …If there has been evolution of life, the absence of the requisite fossils in the rocks older than the Cambrian is puzzling.” (Kay, Marshall, and Edwin H. Colbert, Stratigraphy and Life History, 1965, 736 pp.102-103, as cited in Morris, 1974)

    “Before the Cambrian period, almost all life was microscopic, except for some enigmatic soft-bodied organisms. At the start of the Cambrian, about 544 million years ago, animals burst forth in a rash of evolutionary activity never since equaled. Ocean creatures acquired the ability to grow hard shells, and a broad range of new body plans emerged within the geologically short span of 10 million years. Paleontologists have proposed many theories to explain this revolution but have agreed on none.” (Monastersky, R., “When Earth Tipped, Life Went Wild,” Science News, vol. 152, 1997, p. 52.) The problem has become more acute as recent studies in developmental biology make clear that mutations expressed early in development typically have severely deleterious effects, including mutations in crucially important “master regulator” or hox genes. The problem has led to what geneticist John F. MacDonald has called “a great Darwinian paradox.” He notes that genes that vary within a populations affect only minor aspects of form and function, while genes that govern major changes – the very stuff of macroevolution – apparently do not vary, or vary only to the detriment of the organism. (McDonald, “The Molecular Basis of Adaption: A Critical Review of Relevant Ideas and Observations,” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematic, 1983 14:93)

    “Eldredge and Gould certainly would agree that some very important gaps really are due to imperfections in the fossil record. Very big gaps, too. For example the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists.” (Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker,” 1986, p.229).

    While many of scientists have commented about the “missing links” in the fossil record, H.S. Ladd of UCLA observes, “Most paleontologists today give little thought to fossiliferous rocks older than the Cambrian, thus ignoring the most important missing link of all. Indeed the missing Pre-Cambrian record cannot properly be described as a link for it is in reality, about nine-tenths of the chain of life: the first nine-tenths.” (Geological Society of America Memoir, vol. II, 1967, p.7.)

    Dr. Paul Chien is chairman of the biology department at the University of San Francisco. He has extensively explored the mysteries of the marvelous Cambrian fossils in Chengjiang, China. Moreover, Chien possesses the largest collection of Chinese Cambrian fossils in North America. In an interview with Real Issue he remarked, “A simple way of putting it is that currently we have about 38 phyla of different groups of animals, but the total number of phyla discovered during that period of time (including those in China, Canada, and elsewhere) adds up to over 50 phyla. That means [there are] more phyla in the very, very beginning, where we found the first fossils [of animal life], than exist now. Stephen J. Gould, [a Harvard University evolutionary biologist], has referred to this as the reverse cone of diversity. The theory of evolution implies that things get more and more complex and get more and more diverse from one single origin. But the whole thing turns out to be reversed. We have more diverse groups in the very beginning, and in fact more and more of them die off over time, and we have less and less now.”

    “The pattern of disparity observed during the Cambrian pose two unresolved questions. First, what evolutionary processes produced the gaps between the morphologies of major clades? Second, why have the morphological boundaries of these body plans remained relatively stable over the past half a billion years?” (Erwin and Valentine, The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity, 2013, p. 340.)

    Some modern Darwinists have suggested that the absence of primitive lifeforms below the Cambrian is not a problem for evolution. However, this difficulty was fully appreciated by Darwin and it has only become more acute since his days. “Nevertheless, the difficulty of assigning any good reason for the absence of vast piles of strata rich in fossils beneath the Cambrian system is very great. …The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained.” (Darwin, C., The Origin of Species, 1872, pp. 316-317.) Gould writes, “The Cambrian Explosion occurred in a geological moment, and we have reason to think that all major anatomical designs may have made their evolutionary appearance at that time. …not only the phylum Chordata itself, but also all its major divisions, arose within the Cambrian Explosion. So much for chordate uniqueness… Contrary to Darwin’s expectation that new data would reveal gradualistic continuity with slow and steady expansion, all major discoveries of the past century have only heightened the massiveness and geological abruptness of this formative event…” (Gould, Stephen J., Nature, vol. 377, October 1995, p.682.) “The Cambrian explosion was the most remarkable and puzzling event in the history of life.” (Gould, Stephen J., “The Evolution of Life,” in Schopf, Evolution: Facts and Fallacies, 1999, p. 9.)

19. Adapa: …you’re too much of an egotistical coward to admit you were wrong.

    Please Adapa. Remember the rules.

20. William J. Murray: Even if 100% of all quotes used by creationists were factually quote-mines, that would not make me wrong or petrushka right.Which is why I don’t bother looking.

    We know WJM. You’re right because you say you’re right. Pity you haven’t convinced a single person using that method and your lack of effort in supporting your claims looks like intellectual cowardice. It is what it is.

21. But, an easy answer to the challenge would be the Idea Center page Glen linked to. There are lots of quotes there presumably put up by creationists that are not examples of quote mines. Petrushka himself said that a lot of his examples were of pages of quotes put up bereft of any context at all. If they are lists of quotes truly without any context at all (original or at the site they are placed), then those quotes are not quote-mines.

    That would be thousands of quotes used by creationists that wouldn’t be quote-mines.

22. Adapa: We know WJM.You’re right because you say you’re right.Pity you haven’t convinced a single person using that method and your lack of effort in supporting your claims looks like intellectual cowardice.It is what it is.

    I don’t know that I convinced anyone here, but I at least got a couple of people to admit that petrushka is wrong, which was more than I thought would admit it. I’m sure several others know it, but simply won’t publicly admit it.

23. William J. Murray:If you consider ID “creationism”, I’ve seen IDists quoted by mainstream scientists when they have attempted to refute various claims made in books and papers by Axe, Behe, Meyers and Dembski.So, I’m not sure what you mean here.I’m relatively sure that other creationists have been quoted quite often when their claims are being refuted by mainstream scientists.Your claim here that mainstream scientists would never quote creationists is baffling because it is so obviously untrue.

    I should have qualified that. No scientist would think to quote a creationist when forwarding a scientific argument. Yes, of course scientists cite and quote creationists when refuting those selfsame creationists. What they do NOT do, ever, is use a creationist quote in support of a scientific argument.

    And I note that when creationists are being refuted, their quotes are NOT represented as supporting any scientific argument. When creationists quote scientists, the quotes are ALWAYS represented as agreement with the creationist.

24. Three intellectually honest people. Wow.

    I have an idea, let’s assume everyone is posting in good faith!

25. William J. Murray:
    But, an easy answer to the challenge would be the Idea Center page Glen linked to.

    LOL! You mean this page? The whole list is supplied as a reference for Creationists to use as quote-mined quotes when arguing against evolution. 😀 😀 😀

    You manage to make yourself look worse with every squirm WJM.

26. William J. Murray:
    But, an easy answer to the challenge would be the Idea Center page Glen linked to.There are lots of quotes there presumably put up by creationists that are not examples of quote mines.Petrushka himself said that a lot of his examples were of pages of quotes put up bereft of any context at all.If they are lists of quotes truly without any context at all (original or at the site they are placed), then those quotes are not quote-mines.

    That would be thousands of quotes used by creationists that wouldn’t be quote-mines.

    Are you serious here? Omitting the context of a quote does NOT mean that there WAS no context from which it was extracted. Taking something out of context is taking something out of context whether or not you know what the context originally was.

    I personally would be ashamed to use any quote if I didn’t know what context that quote was found in, because I might guess the context wrong. In which case I would be quote-mining.

27. Flint: No scientist would think to quote a creationist when forwarding a scientific argument.

    You see, William, there has never been a scientist worth quoting that was a creationist. Not one. Ever.

28. Mung: You see, William, there has never been a scientist worth quoting that was a creationist. Not one. Ever.

    Not one who ever used his Creationist beliefs to further advance our knowledge of the biological sciences anyway.

29. William J. Murray: But, an easy answer to the challenge would be the Idea Center page Glen linked to.

    That page is a poster child for quote mining. It’s nothing but a list of quote mines.

30. William J. Murray: I don’t know that I convinced anyone here, but I at least got a couple of people to admit that petrushka is wrong, which was more than I thought would admit it. I’m sure several others know it, but simply won’t publicly admit it.

    Of course you are quote mining when you say that.

31. Flint: If you want to be further boggled, I defy you to even imagine a scientist quoting a creationist, in OR out of context, in support of any scientific argument.

    I can easily imagine a social scientist quoting a creationist as part of a study of religion.

32. William J. Murray: I don’t know that I convinced anyone here, but I at least got a couple of people to admit that petrushka is wrong, which was more than I thought would admit it. I’m sure several others know it, but simply won’t publicly admit it.

    For the lurkers, what is it precisely you think Petrushka is wrong about?

33. Neil Rickert: I can easily imagine a social scientist quoting a creationist as part of a study of religion.

    Good point. I agree. I can also imagine a social scientist producing an impressively long presentation of creationist quotes as part of an argument that religion-gone-wrong rots the brain beyond redemption.

    But as an aside, I’ve always regarded the science of social science as being akin to the engineering of the janitorial engineer.

34. William J. Murray:
    Well, to be fair, I think several of them are posting in good faith, but they’re just hopelessly stupid.

    Let’s see if we can provide WJM with some concrete examples, to help him understand the issue here.

    Here is an example of a quote mine:
    Transitions between species are at best extremely rare. Even noted evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould wrote that “transitions between species are very rarely seen…this is the dirty secret of paleontology.” Clearly, Gould agrees that such transitions are rare and probably misinterpretations where seen…

    Here is an example of an “honest creationist” approach:
    Transitions between species are at best extremely rare. Noted evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould even wrote that “transitions between species are very rarely seen.” And while Gould was specifically addressing the fossil record of such transitions, and claimed non-fossilized transitions are common, the fact remains that even Gould can’t provide physical documentation. It doesn’t exist BECAUSE such transitions almost never happen….

    I wonder if WJM can see any difference between these examples.

35. Alan Fox: For the lurkers, what is it precisely you think Petrushka is wrong about?

    Let me give my understanding of the error.

    I have said (since qualified) that quoting a scientist out of context to support creationism will be quote mining. I think this is almost always true, but there can be exceptions. The following Dawkins quote might be considered a fair quote. It comes from the Idea Center page.

    “Before we come to the sort of sudden bursts that they [Eldredge and Gould] had in mind, there are some conceivable meanings of `sudden bursts’ that they most definitely did not have in mind. These must be cleared out of the way because they have been the subject of serious misunderstandings. Eldredge and Gould certainly would agree that some very important gaps really are due to imperfections in the fossil record. Very big gaps, too. For example the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. Evolutionists of all stripes believe, however, that this really does represent a very large gap in the fossil record, a gap that is simply due to the fact that, for some reason, very few fossils have lasted from periods before about 600 million years ago. One good reason might be that many of these animals had only soft parts to their bodies: no shells or bones to fossilize. If you are a creationist you may think that this is special pleading. My point here is that, when we are talking about gaps of this magnitude, there is no difference whatever in the interpretations of `punctuationists’ and `gradualists’. Both schools of thought despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and both agree that the major gaps are real, that they are true imperfections in the fossil record. Both schools of thought agree that the only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation, and both would reject this alternative.” (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, pp. 229-230)

36. One of the distinguishing attributes of the Dawkins quote is its length. Another is that it clearly represents Dawkins’ view of the matter in question.

    A third attribute is it fails to support or give comfort to ID or creationism.

37. petrushka: I have said (since qualified) that quoting a scientist out of context to support creationism will be quote mining. I think this is almost always true, but there can be exceptions.

    I went back and, I think, found your statement that WJM is taking exception to.

    Well, yes, it’s true that quoting a mainstream biologist to support a creationist argument is quote mining.

    and it seems hardly controversial. Does any mainstream biologist support the idea of a radiation of all the life we see on Earth from Noah’s ark?

38. petrushka:

    Alan Fox: For the lurkers, what is it precisely you think Petrushka is wrong about?

    Let me give my understanding of the error.

    I have said (since qualified) that quoting a scientist out of context to support creationism will be quote mining. I think this is almost always true, but there can be exceptions. The following Dawkins quote might be considered a fair quote. It comes from the Idea Center page.

    “Before we come to the sort of sudden bursts that they [Eldredge and Gould] had in mind, there are some conceivable meanings of `sudden bursts’ that they most definitely did not have in mind. These must be cleared out of the way because they have been the subject of serious misunderstandings. Eldredge and Gould certainly would agree that some very important gaps really are due to imperfections in the fossil record. Very big gaps, too. For example the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists . … [my bold]

    This is a great example, petrushka, because it’s exactly the kind of complete in-context quote which is quotemined by creationists.

    I searched this quote and the first page of google results all are scientific/evolution-friendly sites. Except two. Guess how much of this quote the two creationist sites use?

    Right, they strip out the context and use only the creationist-misrepresentation part I bolded. Worse, one of the creationists used even less of the quote than I bolded. omitting the sentence about “Cambrian strata” and thereby implying that the fossil record looks planted-with-no-history throughout the whole record.

    Billy boyo is wrong. Hypothetically, some creationist somewhere might use an evolution quote honestly, fully, and in context, but in reality they can’t bring themselves to do it; they simply cannot have the requisite honesty to do so while still supporting creationism. They never have, they won’t, they can’t.

39. Alan Fox: Does any mainstream biologist support the idea of a radiation of all the life we see on Earth from Noah’s ark?

    Does anyone beside me appreciate the way critics of ID equivocate over the term “creationist”?

40. Mung: Does anyone beside me appreciate the way critics of ID equivocate over the term “creationist”?

    I used the phrase young Earth Creationist. How is that equivocation?

    ETA Oops that was in the other thread!

41. Mung: Does anyone beside me appreciate the way critics of ID equivocate over the term “creationist”?

    I confess I do not. I know creationism has a variety of flavors, but the common denominator is the belief that invoking gods adds any explanatory power whatsoever to our understanding of any aspect of reality.

    And given this boggling mountain of codswallop, all the other little detailed differences are lost in the noise.

42. Mung: Does anyone beside me appreciate the way critics of ID equivocate over the term “creationist”?

    All IDers are creationists Mung. Many are Biblical Young Earth Creationists.

43. One might equivocate over design vs create.

44. I should mention a couple “thought mines” which had a curious impact on me regarding my beloved mentor and friend James Trefil who was quoted by IDists as saying:

    “If I were a religious man, I would say that everything we have learned about life in the past 20 years shows that we are unique and therefore special in God’s sight.”

    James Trefil
    Are We Alone?

    and he wrote a chapter

    The Five Reason’s Galaxies Can’t Exist

    James Trefil
    Dark Side of the Universe

    The IDists and YECs jumped on this.

    When I saw those quotes years ago, I said to myself, “I think I want him as my professor!” So I enrolled in his classes, but I was careful enough not to press him on these issues, but focused on what I was supposed to learn.

    After I was done with GMU he found out I was a creationist because I organized an ID event on campus that had CBS Evening News reporters present. The report never aired…..

    Some years later, he made an anti-ID presentation at GMU, but in the Q&A he happily presented me to the audience as his creationist student to whom he awarded an “A” in class.

    After his anti-ID presentation, we finally talked about some things, and I said, “Dr. Trefil, I actually took your class because you’re something of a hero in the creationist and ID community because of your books Are We Alone and Dark Side of the Universe.” He was shocked.

    He asked me to e-mail him the links to how he was quoted. When I passed on how his work was cited, he was not impressed! (Yikes!).

    Anyway, I got his autograph on his two books and actually read the passages.

    The first quote was actually him talking about how special our planet is and that we should be good stewards of the environment since it is delicate. It would be fair to say he feels the planet and humans are privileged in terms of the environment, and hence if someone were religious, they ought to feel special in God’s sight. But it wasn’t an endorsement of ID but an advocacy for environmental stewardship!

    The second quote was actually articulating why the 5 reasons galaxies can’t exist if there were no Dark Matter.

    Anyway, he autographed The Darkside of the Universe book with “It was great having you in class” and the Are We Alone? book with “Your Friend, James Trefil”.

    We are still on very good terms.

45. WJM:

    I don’t know that I convinced anyone here, but I at least got a couple of people to admit that petrushka is wrong, which was more than I thought would admit it.

    Actually, at least four of us, including pretrushka himself, recognized and commented upon his mistake.

    You should update your post at UD.

    Surely someone at that site realizes that petrushka et al are utterly, laughably wrong about what constitutes a quote-mine, but as of yet none have chosen not to correct them.

46. I don’t see where Petrushka has admitted that he was wrong. I see where he admitted that there was a case of an creationist using a quote that was not quote-mining, but that’s not exactly the same thing as admitting that using such quotes to make creationist arguments are not necessarily cases of quote-mining.

    Other than you and Alan Miller, who else do we have? I’ll be happy to amend my post at UD. I don’t want to characterize anyone as “agreeing that Petrushka is wrong” over there only to have them bitch about it here, knowwhutImean? I don’t want to be accused of mischaracterizing what they said here. 🙂

    Edit: I mentioned you and Glen as disagreeing with petrushka, beause I remembered Glen correcting me that when he said “differ”, he did in fact mean “disagree”.

47. phoodoo,

    And the exact same can be said when materialists present quotes from people. So why is one side claiming some ethical highground here?

    Sure, when they do I would hope it were done honestly.

    But no-one on the ‘materialist’ side uses a Creationist quote to bolster the ‘materialist’ narrative. Unless you know different. The two approaches are not symmetrical. It is very noticeable the extent to which Creationists quote mainstream biologists. Mainstream biologists hardly ever quote Creationists.

48. Allan Miller: But no-one on the ‘materialist’ side uses a Creationist quote to bolster the ‘materialist’ narrative

    So, are you saying no one has ever quoted Dembski in order to make the case that he is wrong about evolutionary systems requiring oracle information to acquire functional targets, or to make the case that natural systems are capable of doing the same?

    Are you saying no one has ever quoted Behe to make the case that he is wrong about irreducible complexity, thus making a case for “materialist” sufficiency in acquiring such structures?

    Are you saying no one has ever quoted Douglas Axe or Ann Gauger to make the case that, contrary to their work and conclusions, novel, functional protein folds are well within the search limits of “materialist” processes?

49. William J. Murray,

    So, are you saying […]

    Perhaps you misunderstand me. People refuting these individuals is not the symmetrical case. Of course you have to quote someone if you are directly refuting what they say.

    If people were refuting Darwin, Gould, or whoever, and quoting their words to do so, that would be symmetrical to the kinds of usage you are referring to. But that was not my point.

    I think the idea that dismantling an opposition position is the same as bolstering one’s own is the sticking point here. It’s certainly how ID works, but is not how ‘materialism’ progresses, by dismantling Creationism. That’s a niche activity, not the entirety of the enterprise. Hence my ‘hardly ever’.

50. William J. Murray: So, are you saying no one has ever quoted Dembski in order to make the case that he is wrong about evolutionary systems requiring oracle information to acquire functional targets, or to make the case that natural systems are capable of doing the same?

    Are you saying no one has ever quoted Behe to make the case that he is wrong about irreducible complexity, thus making a case for “materialist” sufficiency in acquiring such structures?

    Are you saying no one has ever quoted Douglas Axe or Ann Gauger to make the case that, contrary to their work and conclusions, novel, functional protein folds are well within the search limits of “materialist” processes?

    All this bluster and WJM still doesn’t understand what quote-mining entails.