Talk:Quote-mining (Talk.Origins)

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General

I have fixed some typos (and removed a potentially-libellous claim). However, I disagree with the article and feel like rewriting it myself (which I may yet do). I have now (finally) done so Philip J. Rayment 11:50, 24 April 2006 (GMT)

Without being able to refer to and check any specific quotes, I think that the use of quotes has been dismissed far too readily. Perhaps "They are the source of 99% of all such quotes" was more true in the early days of creation science (although even then I strongly doubt that the percentage was that high), but not now. I do know that the author(s) of AiG's The Revised Quote Book checked every single one of the 130 quotes used in that book.
Philip J. Rayment 22:06, 28 Nov 2004 (GMT)

The author(s) of the original unrevised quote book were not so careful, though, and neither are those such as Kent Hovind and Carl Baugh. 99% is definitely wrong. Roy 20:34, 1 Dec 2004 (GMT)

Regarding the Quote Book, you are correct, but even there, the criticisms of it far exceeded the problems. Philip J. Rayment 22:42, 1 Dec 2004 (GMT)

Gould

Re: "To caricature this as a misunderstanding of what Steven Gould "really" meant to say..."

Gould himself clarified that he was referring to transitional forms between species, not transitional forms in general:

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists -- whether through design or stupidity, I do not know -- as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.

Gould, Stephen Jay 1983. "Evolution as Fact and Theory" in Hens Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History.

By not acknowledging this, and by referring to a 'lack' rather than a 'rarity' of transitional forms you are continuing the practice of misusing these quotes. The ICR article also misrepresents Gould, but in a different way, by referring to 'magical leaps' in evolution - a position to which Gould did not ascribe. Roy 14:12, 16 Mar 2005 (GMT)

The reference to 'magical leaps' is the ICR author's description of Gould's proposal, not a quote from him. Now, weren't you saying something about "not understanding" quotations from one's opponents? ~ MD "Webster" Otley (talk) 21:15, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of this page

CreationWiki Argues Against . . . CreationWiki PrometheusX303 22:30, 22 April 2006 (GMT)

This is a better link: CreationWiki Argues Against . . . CreationWiki

Some comments about the blog entry:

[quoting our article] The source given is from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. This is the publication arm of the Jehovah's Witnesses. They are the source of 99% of all such quotes.

Set aside the fact that a perfectly orthodox Christian (or at least as orthodox as a Fundamentalist can be), Henry Morris, was the source of a bit more than 1% of these quote mines, publishing an entire book of them...

Pieret is overlooking the very real possibility that the article was referring to 99% of invalid quotes, not 99% of all creationist quotes. If this is the case, his comment referring to Henry Morris is itself invalid. (Now what was that about creationists misunderstanding the authority they were quoting?)

Instead, contemplate the amusingly schizophrenic manner that the CreationWiki immediately follows the above entry with one flatly denying that the creationists using these quotes either misunderstand or misuse them.

I guess we can't criticise Pieret for not reading this talk page, but if he did he would have noted my opinion above (well predating his blog entry) that the article as it stood was quite unsatisfactory.

CreationWiki completely ignores what Gould himself said and goes on insisting that the quote means something that Gould said it didn't. According to the CreationWiki, the "obvious lack of transitional forms in the fossil record is the salient fact recognized in this quote" but it stubbornly fails to acknowledge that Gould stated that "Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups."

The article did/does not explicitly say that Gould said that there were no transitional fossils between major groups. So his charge that we were insisting that Gould said something that he said he didn't is wrong.

However, I think that needs to be qualified by noting that the article used the word "lack" (as noted by Roy, above), which means an absence of. I have now changed that to "shortage", which I trust is more precise, as a "lack", or absence, would imply that there were none at all, i.e. including between major groups. This change does not, however, change the argument put in this article, which shows that the use of the word "lack" was not a key point of the argument. (Actually, "extreme rarity" sounds to me like a euphemism for "almost total lack" anyway.)

Incidentally, I don't know how the reader is meant to understand from the original quote (as distinct from Gould's later explanation) that there are plenty of transitional forms between major groups, but that is a separate issue.

Philip J. Rayment 11:45, 24 April 2006 (GMT)

I like the rewrite Philip. Sorry about the link. I didn't realise that blog could be sepearted.

By the way: If anybody wonders why I posted the link to a critical site, it's is just for this reason. If we consider what people have to say about our work, we can improve it. PrometheusX303 16:58, 24 April 2006 (GMT)

Thanks for the compliment. I have also slightly altered it a bit more.

It is a good idea to post such links here. If we can put big bold encouragement to "Visit [sceptic] site X" at the foot of some articles (which I think is going too far), there should be no question of being able to post a link on the talk pages as you did.

Philip J. Rayment 08:04, 25 April 2006 (GMT)

Avoiding Offensive Terminology

I would like to raise a concern. I believe one can question and discuss the published material work without being belittling the faith of Jehovah's Witnesses. The comments "cult" and "Pseudo-Christian" are extremely offensive and inappropriate. And in my opinion ignorant. I would ask the comment please be reviewed and deleted. I don't believe the purpose of Creationwiki to use this forum to bully others creationists. --Anaccuratesource 23:22, 15 September 2013 (EDT)

I believe that the term "pseudo Christian cult" is quite accurate, and in this context, appropriate. (Disclosure: I probably put that term into the article.) It is not being used to bully JWs, but to point out the fallacy of Talk.Origins quoting from sources other than the main creationist sources. Philip J. Rayment 09:45, 11 October 2013 (EDT)