consilience. : the linking together of principles from different disciplines especially when forming a comprehensive theory.
contextomy. : an informal fallacy and a type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning. Quote mining.
excilience. : the linking together of Contextomies from different disciplines especially when forming a comprehensive theory. Thought mining.
The Quote Mine Project provides excellent examples of contextomy. Uncommondescent provides excellent examples of excilience.
The practices lend themselves to all kinds of humorous incongruities. Among them are:
1. free will vs predestination
2. deism vs interventionism (Michael Denton vs Michael Behe)
3. front loading vs twiddling (Mike Gene vs gpuccio, etc.)
4. ascentism vs degenerationism (Chardin vs Sanford)
5. old earth vs young earth
6. realism vs last thursdayism
7. biblical literalism vs inspirationism
There are probably a lot more, but these come up frequently. The humor comes from observing that the armies of ID clash by night, without ever mentioning or discussing their differences and their contradictory assumptions and conclusions.
Food for discussion.
The converse of quote mining is to present the strongest and best argument against one’s position, then defend oneself against the best the opposition has to offer.
Darwin (what good is half and eye) did this repeatedly, which is why Darwin is quote mined so much.
Quote mining isn’t just dishonest. It’s slovenly, cheap, and disgusting.
No, someone made a specific blanket statement (all X are Y) and William saw an opportunity to win imaginary internet points by showing that person was wrong, in a very specific venn diagram of claims.
That’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.
Right, so you claim to know better what a quote mine is than the people whose quotes were actually misused as such:
Gould explains clearly how he was being quote-mined, ‘again and again’.
Maybe you should slow down a little and consider that, when everybody tells you you have it wrong, perhaps that is because you actually do have it wrong?
fG
But I’m after larger fish. this thread was inspired by Sal, who is quoting larger chunks of biology, and not always a s quote mines. I’m calling what sal does thought mining.
He takes some ot the remaining unsolved puzzles in biology and presents them as either unsolvable or as actual evidence against evolution.
In doing so he completely excludes consilience. He disregards physics, geology, astronomy. He nibbles at the fringes of science and highlights only puzzles and gaps. His approach is the inverse of consilience, so I call it excilience.
While we are talking about quote mines (which, according to WJM, don’t actually exist), I came across a post by Warren Throckmorton, documenting a quote mine by David Barton:
David Barton Removes Claim About Chaplains at the University of Virginia in New Edition of The Jefferson Lies
There’s quote mining and outright lying.
Darwin’s Doubt makes similar use of ellipses to join snippets from different sections of a published paper.
Neil Rickert said:
I never said any such thing. What I’ve shown in this thread that many of you (1) don’t understand what “context” means when it comes to establishing what is, and is not, a quote mine, and (2) that there has been no evidence presented here that the quotes discussed in this thread were in fact quote-mines – they are only assumed or inferred to be based largely on the biased assumptions and ideological commitments of many here and at or running other sites.
It’s become just another rhetorical, demonizing label many anti-IDists and anti-creationists use to vilify rather than debate serious subject matter and salient points.
GlenDavidson said on Noyau:
Being bereft of context and referenced poorly doesn’t make them quote-mines. Clearly you, like petrushka, do not understand the concept of what a quote-mine actually is.
LOL! WJM still trying to defend the despicable Creationist tactic of quote mining.
Or everyone here does understand and it’s William J. Murray who doesn’t.
faded_glory said:
Anyone can have a faulty understanding of what a quote-mine is, including authors who have been quoted. Obviously, many people here have a faulty understanding. I have no doubt that Gould has been, in fact, quote-mined by creationists. I also have no doubt that creationists have been quote-mined by anti-creationists.
So? What does that have to do with anything I’ve argued here?
LOL! All those readers and authors have a faulty understanding but WJM is the only one right. Must be Divine Insight. 😀
When you say “anyone”, could that possibly include you as well?
When an author is quoted in support of a position he is known not to hold, with the intention of making it LOOK like he agrees, that’s dishonest.
Gould’s positions have NEVER EVER EVER been honestly and correctly presented by any creationists.
Robin said:
Quote-mining isn’t determined by authority. It’s determined by definition – using quotes out of context in order to make it appear that the quote means something other than what the quotes meant in their original context.
What list of quotes are you referring to? The one at idea center? There’s nothing necessarily dishonest or unethical about it, especially considering the disclaimer.
You may prefer to argue about something else, but what drew me into this debate was when I followed petrushka’s link to the Quote Mine Project and immediately realized they didn’t understand what “quote-mining” meant nor had they evidenced any actual quote-mining. Then, after posting, several people here demostrated they didn’t understand what quote-mining meant, most notably Petrushka, who insists that it is de facto a case of quote mining any time a creationist quotes an evolutionary biologist.
No. My point is that many of you clearly don’t understand what “quote-mining” means, and are using it in many cases as nothing more than a demonizing, rhetorical attack on IDists and Creationists.
It is in theory for a creationist to present something like Gould’s position honestly, but I don’t know of any examples.
the first clue is that anyone who understood Gould’s position could not possibly think it supports ID or creationism.
So yes, quoting Gould in support of creationism would be like quoting Viktor Frankl in support of concentration camps.
Flint said:
Quoting an author in support of a position he is known not to hold is fine. An intention to make the quote look as if he agrees with your position is dishonest.
I seriously doubt you can support that assertion.
faded_glory said:
Maybe you should slow down a little and consider what it is I’m actually arguing. I have no doubt Gould has been quote-mined many, many times by creationists.
I can give you links to all the pages that display the quotemine Gould quotes.
You care to look through them and see if any of them correctly present Gould’s ideas?
I’ve looked at hundreds of pages without seeing anything but quote mines.
But there could be a black swan lurking out there.
So, is anyone here who knows better going to be brave enough and intellectually honest enough to correct petrushka?
First of all, say what needs to be corrected. You may have a black swan example, but if you do, it is rare.
It makes no sense to quote Gould in support of ID or creationism, because when correctly presented, Gould offers no comfort to the ID position.
And you “showed” that by pulling a quote completely out of context, and demonstrating that you did not understand the context (of the quote mine project). Which casts doubt on whether you actually showed anything at all.
use your mindpowers to enhance them, William!
Is WJM going to be brave enough and intellectually honest enough to admit he was wrong?
GlenDavidson was intellectually honest enough to admit Petrushka was wrong earlier. Glen, you up to correcting him?
This thread is a demonstration of theistic morality.
Edited links.
What causes you to “have no doubt”? Are you aware of such instances? Can you link to an example?
I did ask for such and example, particularly since William mentioned Elizabeth’s discussion of Dembski as possible examples of quote mines. I’d like to tee such and example.
I can provide 13,000 unique examples of creationists citing mainstream biologists with context free quotes.
I’m wondering what would be the point in quote-mining a Creationist? Maybe I could put something together like “The Earth is… …not… …six thousand years old.” says A. Creationist. What purpose would that serve?
We do tend to quote one stripe of creationist against another.
The problem is, to avoid doing this, one would have to have some clear understanding as to whether one is speaking to Reformed Designist, Evangelical Synod, or General synod Idist.
Gould on creationist quotemines, and their other distortions (at least).
There’s little to fault there, IMO. On the other hand, there may be some truth to the claim that Gould did help creationism by excessively playing up his differences with Darwin and his supposed gradualism (I think real at first, but not so much later). And Gould often was not dealing with creationism directly in the common quotemines, so I differ from petrushka’s “Yes, it is, because in it’s original context, it was part of an argument against creationism.” Often, he really was attacking “gradualism” or some such thing, not creationism, which I’d argue makes it easier to quotemine since he wasn’t directly attacking creationism in that particular writing.
Nevertheless, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a creationist/IDist use Gould correctly, because it remains a fact that Gould was steadfastly opposed to creationism, and that much wider context is what is often left behind in the bare quotes used. That I think is the important factor that petrushka is pointing to. Yes, maybe you can use a quote from Gould about transitional forms being hard even to conceive (which I tend to doubt, but he wrote something along that line) properly in apologetics, but in most cases he actually does discuss these matters with at least some possibilities raised, and the fact that he did discuss these matters meaningfully (well, usually anyway) at some point is what is typically (Always? Not sure) is left behind, at least as any sort of serious matter.
Moreover, the fact that Gould understood the evidence of intense vertical derivation being rampant and nested as evolutionary mechanisms dictate in so many lines of organisms to be excellent evidence for evolution is almost always ignored by creationists, even though most of them accept such evidence without question so long as it doesn’t bother their version of creationism (gee, wouldn’t design differ recognizably from unguided evolution? The tacit ID/creationist response is “no,” except via some purported problem with the odds of it happening).
I really don’t know how anyone can properly use Gould appropriately without at least a reasonable mention of his tentative answers to whatever problems he has raised, and that omission is typical. At UD Gould’s answer to a problem often will be brought up only as a sneer, rather than discussed as a legitimate possibility. Really, if you’re going to use Gould to claim that the evolutionary history is somehow wrong, you ought to at least consider his discussion of how it may have really occurred, as well as to face up to the actual evidence that Gould and other scientists accept for evolution.
So while I do think that it’s possible for IDists/creationists to use Gould quotes appropriately, I can’t think of any instance where I could say that they have. A big problem is that using quotes in a discussion of science ought normally to lead to proper discussion of the evidence behind those quotes, and when do creationists manage to do that?
Glen Davidson
And you never will find one, because it is prohibited by the creationist quoting mechanism. After all, why present Gould’s actual context and arguments correctly? All that does is make your creationist claims look stupid. And why bother with quoting Gould at all if he’s simply reporting facts available from original sources?
The purpose of the creationist quote-mine is to attempt to lend the authority of a respected expert to an incoherent or nonsensical claim. And in every case I’ve seen, this is NOT done to buttress the claim, however dishonestly. Instead, it’s done to show that “evolutionists” themselves know their theory is wrong. It’s a form of marketing.
Saying Gould didn’t argue against creationism is word lawyering. You would have to ignore much of his Natural History essays. Gould requires a really large context.
oh look. another admin interested in honest debate. Make Elizabeth proud Neil.
I think most of us understand that you can have an honest debate, or you can debate with a creationist, but you cannot do both. To paraphrase judge Jones, creationism and dishonesty cannot be decoupled.
Elizabeth is delusional then. Granted. And TSZ is a joke, because it’s a haven for people who are anti-ID and anti-theist and who have no interest in adhering to the stated principles of this site.
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.”
“The principle is in the strapline: Park your priors by the door.”
“There are plenty of blogs and forums where people with like priors can hang out and scoff at those who do not share them.”
Poor Elizabeth. She thought TSZ would be different.
Yes, I am now convinced that only William J Murray knows what quote mining is.
On another topic, here is a nice un-self-aware gem of a … something from Conservapedia on quote mining:
“Quote mining is a term typically used by evolutionists to attempt to justify a knee-jerk allegation made by an evolutionist that a quote of a prominent evolutionist admitting one or more of the many weaknesses of the evolutionary paradigm is being taken out of context when in most cases it is certainly not. This reflexive denialism and/or obfuscation occurs because Darwinism is an errant religion often practiced by dogmatists and it is not science. The Darwinist and atheist philosopher of science Michael Ruse admitted: “Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.””
Ruse responds
Not sure whether this is more appropriate for the “moderation issues” thread or Noyau. I would be happy to pursue matters raised in either thread. It is off-topic here.
Moved a comment to guano. Please try and stay within the rules, folks.
Looking upthread, I see several more candidates for guano. I’ll just remind everyone that imputing other members honesty is against the rules in all threads except noyau.
GlenDavidson,
Or, you could just skip the irrelevant, distracting apologetics and agree that petrushka is flat-out wrong.
Why would anyone do that? You’re the one who is flat out wrong about quote-mining as at least a dozen people have explained. But in classic WJM fashion it’s the whole world which must be wrong, not WJM.
To be honest, I do think that the Quote Mine Project would have been better with an example of unfair usage for each, and not just the commonly-mined quote alone. It’s not just the excised, but the new, context that matters.
Equally, I might be more persuaded that WJM alone correctly understands quote mining if he offered an example where a quote was used as a quote mine (as he understands the term), and contrasted with one where it wasn’t. The same quote, better yet. ‘Quote mine’ is not an empty set, surely?
To be fair, I have provided almost 50 page links just to the use of quote mine number three, and have invited William to browse through them to see if any of them are anything other than naked quotes.
Um, no. Glen has already agreed with me about Petrushka once earlier, and in the above disagrees with Petrushka (“… I differ from petrushka’s “Yes, it is, because in it’s original context, it was part of an argument against creationism.”) although he won’t even characterize it as disagreeing (“differ”) and agrees with me again when he says “So while I do think that it’s possible for IDists/creationists to use Gould quotes appropriately …”
Nothing else GlenDavidson says is relevant to my complaint against what Petrushka and others here said about what constitutes quote-mining. How many times creationists actually quote-mine is entirely irrelevent because what I’m arguing about is what quote-mining is.
So, the fact is that in the case of what petrushka thinks “quote-mining) is, Glen Davidson agrees with me and disagrees with petrushka, and everything else in the post is irrelevant and an attempt to apologize for petrushka’s mistaken view and divert attention to something else.
Others here know it as well, I would think. They’re just not willing to agree with me.
Perhaps you will refresh everyone’s memory by providing a link.
Quit being a good comrade, Alan. You know full well Petrushka is wrong whether or not I can jump through your bullshit hoop.