Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Camaban · 10-24-2002, 06:56 PM

Quote:

The author cited two alleged out-of-context quotations by creationists, one by Dr. Gary Parker supposedly intimating that Dr. Stephen Gould was "championing creationism," the other by this writer supposedly claiming that two evolutionary geologists had agreed that the strata of the great Lewis "overthrust" were all flat and undisturbed. The fact is that we are always careful not to quote out of context. Such quotations have to be brief, for reasons of space, and so cannot give the full scope of the author's thoughts on the subject, but they do not misrepresent their nature and significance. Out of the many thousands of such references that are included in our writings, critics have to search diligently to find even a handful that they can interpret as misleading. Even in the two that were cited, a careful reading of the full context in each case will demonstrate that the reporter was himself guilty of distortion. Dr. Parker made it quite clear that Dr. Gould is a committed evolutionist (in spite of his arguments against certain Darwinian tenets). In the Lewis overthrust discussion, there was ample mention of the physical evidences of disturbances, and the quote (actually appearing only in a minor footnote) certainly did not affect the evidence developed in the particular section against "overthrust" explanation. In no way did it misrepresent the beliefs of the authors quoted.

and his definition of "not quoting out of context" means that I could fairly (by those rules) quote him as saying

Quote:

The fact is that we are always careful to quote out of context.

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/lewis/#MorrisDefendsQuote" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/lewis/#MorrisDefendsQuote</a>

{RA: Message edited to fix quote block}

[ October 25, 2002: Message edited by: RufusAtticus ]</p>

RufusAtticus · 10-25-2002, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Out of the many thousands of such references that are included in our writings, critics have to search diligently to find even a handful that they can interpret as misleading.

A handful? Bleh. Talk about making a molehill out of a mountain.

Valentine Pontifex · 10-25-2002, 04:55 PM

Consider Whitcomb and Morris's preface to the sixth printing of The Genesis Flood dated May 25, 1964:

Quote:

The second basic criticism of these reviewers is the charge that we have supported our position by quotations taken out of context, and that these quotations are consequenctly misleading. To this we would only suggest that skeptical readers look up the references for themselves. We have been careful to give full documentation for every refrence, for just this reason. We flatly reject the innuendo that we have tried to give the impression that the authorities cited agree with our basic position or even with the particular argument we are attempting to illustrate by each quotation. We are of course trying to show in each case that the actual scientifci data can be interpreted just as well or better in terms of the creation-catastrophe framework. Since it would be unrealistic to expect most readers to accept our description of the particular phenomenon under discussion simply on our own authority, we use instead the works of recognized geologists of the orthodox school. No implication is intended, unless explicately so stated, concerning the beliefs of the particular writer quoted. We believe the quotation in each case speaks for itself conserning the issue at hand. This, of course, is standard procedure in scientific dialogue and argumentation. The latter would be quite impossible were writers expected to limit their citations to recognized authorities who already agreed with their position.

Of course Whitcomb and Morris miss the point. The problem with the quote is not that they claimed the quoted people are creationists. Rather that they distorted the observations and ideas of scientists.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.