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.
You need a link to scroll up a handful of comments? Really?
I scrolled, but didn’t find anything that supports your assertion. So provide a link, please.
I provided quotes from what he said. I think it’s Glen’s last post in the thread so far.
That’s fair enough.
It doesn’t change anything. The creationist quote miners are presenting quotes out of context to imply either that evolution has insurmountable problems, or that the original author is so stupid that he doesn’t realize evolution has insurmountable problems.
That’s out of context quoting to imply a meaning not intended by the original author.
Using a quote from a mainstream evolutionary biologist to make a case that evolution has insurmountable problems even if it is that biologist’s position that evolution has no insurmountable problems is not ipso facto quote-mining. You are simply wrong about this.
It simply does not matter what the biologist’s position or views or conclusions are; what matters is what the quoted text itself meant in context, not what argument or theory it was used to preface or make.
Therefore, if a biologist says their are few fossils showing transitions between species, it does not matter if that biologist goes on to theorize that speciation occurs too quickly to provide fossilized remains. I am entirely free to use that quote to make a case against evolution or for creationism, as long as I don’t characterize that biologist as agreeing with my argument or conclusions.
I do not have to give his evolutionary-friendly theory about why there is a lack of species to species transitional fossils any airing in my argument whatsoever. I might, as a courtesy, say something like “Although Gould thinks there may be another explanation for this lack, …” but I’m certainly not ethically or morally bound to do so and it certainly is not a case of quote-mining if I do not.
No, petrushka. The quote represents a fact and establishes that the fact is agreed upon by both sides. The creationist can then use that fact to reach any conclusion he wishes, whether or not the biologist agrees with that conclusion. It’s not quote-mining.
Also, quotes offered bereft of an context or characterization whatsoever is. not. quote. mining. Period. I’m sorry your carefully accumulated database of “quote-mine” sites turns out to be a big waste of time and effort, but such sites which simply produce “naked” quotes are not guilty of quote-mining.
They may be guilty of misquoting, and they may have unethical intentions, but unless those quotes are characterized somehow (mis-characterized), they cannot factually be “quote-mines”.
William J. Murray,
Its so bloody obvious that using ones own words to dispute their conclusions is fair game, that it seems ridiculous that you should even have to explain this.
If Charles Darwin had said, “I believe some animal forms appeared suddenly on Earth, fully formed”, and someone wanted to use that quote as evidence that the theory of Darwinian evolution has some problems it can’t explain, OF COURSE that is a fair use of the quote, even if Darwin himself still believed fully in his theory. His own ignorance of the implication of his own evidence is meaningless.
I am almost ashamed I even need to write this post here-you guys are so damned wrong about this, it shouldn’t even require mentioning. If you guys can’t even understand this incredibly facile point, the idea of having a deeper discussion with any of you is unthinkable.
The argument being made is the context.
And what a typical quote mine snippet means in context is something like:
Here is an apparent problem [what good is half an eye] and here is how it is resolved.
What quote miners are doing is taking the equivalent of a rhetorical question and presenting it as if it represented the views of the author.
William J. Murray,
I’m quite sure Petrushka is wrong about all sorts of stuff. But I never even mentioned him, in defence or otherwise, so I’m not sure why the snarl ‘n’ sneer.
What I’m not gathering is that you really understand what a quote mine is, hence my suggestion. It would help to clarify if you gave an example of a ‘true’ quote mine according to your definition of the same. Simple enough request, but of course no obligation to oblige, and I think I’ve had my answer.
petrushka said:
Naked quotes (bereft of any kind of contextualization) are not quote-mines, dumbass post.
And you’re trying to expand the context of the quote to include the conclusions and overall view of the person being quoted, insisting that nothing they say can be quoted to reach a different conclusion or view or else the quote is being used “out of context”. It’s a ridiculous and incorrect understanding of what “in context” or “mischaracterizing” means, petrushka.
petrushka,
Yes, I meant the original resource.
WJM:
Something turns here on “what the quoted text itself meant.”
I take the meaning of a message to be that which the author of the message intends I take the meaning to be. As Searle put it, “Communication is peculiar among human actions in that we succeed in producing an intended effect on the hearer by getting the hearer to recognize the intention to produce that very effect….I can, for example, tell them that it is raining just by getting them to recognize my intention to tell them that it is raining.”
So meanings and authors’ intentions are not quite so easily severed. Reproduction of the text of a message should include information sufficient to enable the recovery of that original intention. Omitting that information can mislead regarding those intentions, and deliberately omitting that information in order to mislead is quotemining.
William J. Murray,
The tribe concurs on accusations of tribalism.
WJM’s meltdowns are particularly good. Wanted big boy pants, got a skirt.
There seems to be a blind spot here. Someone is properly quoted to present that person’s actual position on a matter. If W.C.Fields is known to hate dogs and children, and some dog lover finds a phrase Fields wrote or said that can (in isolation) be cited in support of the love of dogs, THAT is a quote mine.
And, invariably, the subtext here is going to be “see, even Fields loved dogs after all.”
What you are saying is that we can simply IGNORE how Fields felt about dogs, and PRETEND he loved dogs after all, calling it “ridiculous and incorrect” to even HINT that Fields hated dogs, since the whole purpose of the quote was to support a position Fields is known not to share.
Yeah, WJM’s defense of it’s-not-really-quotemining because it’s just what the “quoted text itself meant” is peculiar. It denies everything we know about human communication – intuitively and scholarly, both.
Intuitively we know, from early childhood, that it’s unfair to deliberately take a person’s words to mean something other than what the person meant. Okay, maybe it’s just a bit of harmless teasing when kids hear this convo:
I’m hungry.
Hi, Hungry, I’m Billy.
but when grownups do it to others’ essays it’s far from harmless teasing.
This isn’t something we should have to lecture WJM about. He already knows it’s unfair, and he never would put up with it if someone did it to him. He’d be ranting about how we weren’t quoting him in context, and how we were arguing with a strawman version of his ideas, and how we knew that wasn’t what he really meant, and on and on …
It’s beyond ridiculous that we keep having to have this Don’t-quotemine discussion, over and over with creationists and theists of all stripes — who not incidentally are supposed to have morals — about why it’s illegitimate to steal a person’s words and use them the opposite of the way the author intended.
Ooh, that should be in Guano – and probably will be soon — but I can’t resist applauding.
Even if it goes against what I stand for (got a skirt? fuck, what kind of sexist slur is that ‽ ) I’m laughing out loud at my mental picture of the tears of impotent rage that phrase evokes.
Thanks for the fun. 🙂
William:
William, in December:
And:
RB,
When William tells you to “go fuck yourself, comrade”, he isn’t expressing moral outrage. He’s just expressing disappointment, “in a calm and collected manner”, for your sake.
Don’t make William sad, RB.
hotshoe_,
Anything, ANYTHING, other than admitting petrushka is wrong. ROFLMAO!!
keiths,
Make it about anything, ANYTHING other than the fact that Petrushka is wrong. ROFLMAO!!
William,
I haven’t mentioned petrushka, or even participated in this discussion at all, until now.
I just think your meltdown is hilarious when juxtaposed with your “calm and collected”, “I don’t feel moral outrage” self-image.
Flint,
Says the guy who agreed with petrushka’s laughable claim. But, once you start going down that road of defending the indefensible, there’s no way to turn back.
Well, I can tell somebody to go fuck themselves in a perfectly calm and collected manner. 🙂 It’s a special talent, but it’s by no means exclusive.
Welcome to the mean-bitch club, William!
From the man who keeps pulling his own books from the sale! 😘
Using phoodoo’s own words to dispute his conclusion. All perfectly honest and fair, right WJM and phoodoo?
keiths,
Petrushka said:
Is he right or wrong?
Richardthughes,
Petrushka said:
Is he right or wrong?
I would never “admit that petrushka is wrong”.
What an impossibly stupid way for WJM to phrase that taunt.
If I happened to think petrushka were actually wrong about something – anything I care to argue about – I’d simply say so. But I’d never “admit” it, as if it were a guilty secret that I was confessing to, half ashamed and half relieved that I could – finally – admit the truth even though it pained me.
Now watch WJM or phoodoo or Mung quotemine my first sentence to imply that I can never see any fault in a person on “my side” like petrushka.
And even seeing that I’ve already predicted their misconduct won’t sway them from doing it anyways …
William:
Link, please. I want to make sure you’re not quotemining him.
I think WJM has a bad case of Creationism disease. Just as a lie told for Jesus isn’t really a lie, a quote-mined quote told to support ID-Creationism isn’t really a quote-mine, doncha know.
The mental gymnastics these self-proclaimed “more moral than you” ID-Creationists go through to declare themselves superior is amazing.
Haha. OF course WM is quote-mining petrushka, when taken in context of the this whole thread.
What else could WJM do?
He certainly can’t tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about his side’s recurring practice of quotemining.
hotshoe,
Of course, and I myself have disagreed with petrushka probably dozens of times by now. The idea that we’re bound by tribalism to refrain from expressing disagreement is ludicrous.
I don’t understand why it matters that quoting an evolutionary biologist to support a creationist position counts as “quote-mining” or not. Are we trying to give an analysis of the concept of “quote-mining”? Stipulate its necessary and sufficient conditions? If so, why?
Regardless, it hardly seems controversial to claim that:
(1) It is intellectually dishonest to quote from some established authority in order to produce in the reader the impression that the authority endorses the position under examination, when the established authority does not endorse that position and makes that lack of endorsement perfectly clear;
(2) Creationists do (1) with depressing regularity, as should be clear to anyone with a passing familiarity with creationist literature (e.g. Gish, Morris, Ken Ham, Ray Comfort).
Kantian Naturalist,
Simply amazing. Anything, ANYTHING other than simply admitting petrushka is wrong.
Now that Murray has been accused of intellectual dishonesty, it is only a matter of time before someone says “oh yeah? well, since you atheistic secularist materialists don’t even believe in absolute, transcendent, universal, eternal, and necessary moral standards, nothing I do or say can ever be morally wrong by your own lights, so stop being a hypocrite!”
3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
That’s because I don’t know what petrushka said and I don’t really care. It’s just not important to me.
WJM:
Modesty bars any sort of response. But I accept the compliment.
He’s wrong, due to overgeneralization.
If the quote deliberately omits information needed to recover the original intent (meaning intended by) the author, it is quotemining.
If the quote includes information needed to recover the intent (meaning intended by) the author, it likely isn’t.
Petrushka isn’t wrong in this case. You are. You just lack the self awareness to realize it.
See that, Petrushka?
Are you smart enough and honest with yourself enough to figure out what this means?
Keiths and hotshoe think I must be quote-mining you when I present your actual position on creationist quote-mining – that when any creationist, when making a case for creationism, quotes a mainstream (non-creationist) evolutionary biologist, they are necessarily (ipso facto) committing an act of quote-mining.
They think I must be quote-mining you!
As I said, Petrushka, you’re just flat-out wrong about this.
How about providing a few example of Creationists quoting a mainstream biologist to support a creationist argument that you say isn’t quote mining.
I take back calling you a tool. Thanks for having the intellectual honesty and huevos for calling it straight.
Except, he’s not generalizing, RB. He thinks that just quoting them as part of a pro-creationist argument is, ipso facto, quote-mining.
Quoted for emphasis.
However, we can put this in perspective. Christian theology depends, to a large extent, on quote-mining the old testament. And Christian apologetics adds a lot of quote-mining of the new testament. So it isn’t all that surprising to see quote-mining being defended.
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.
William,
Pay attention, William. Here’s what I wrote:
This ^^^. It’s one of the fundamental differences between scientists and Creationists. Scientists argue from the evidence no matter who presents it, and they accept the evidence even if it means reversing their original position. Getting the correct answer is more important than “winning.”
Creationists only know argument from authority. The Bible is their primary authority but if they can find words from a science authority then the words are acceptable to use even if taken out of context and drastically misrepresent the scientist’s position. “Winning” for their religion is more important than factual correctness.
Still waiting for your examples of a creationist quoting a mainstream (non-creationist) biologist in their pro-creationism argument that you say isn’t quote-mining.
If the reader is left with the impression that the mainstream biologist agrees with the creationist interpretation, then it’s a quote mine. Quote mining involves more than just quoting. It involves a context-switch, making it APPEAR that the person quoted agrees with something he does not agree with.
William,
Says the guy who was too lazy to read and comprehend the comment he was responding to.
It doesn’t matter if every single such quote in history was a bona-fide case of quote-mining, Adapa. Petrushka would still be utterly, laughable wrong.
So you can’t provide a single example of the bullshit you were spewing. What a surprise. Thanks for admitting Petrushka was right all along.