Quote Mining

Outstanding post by GumbyTheCat, another blogger sincerely interested in preserving and improving science education. His topic is one that seems to plague evolution supporters in the Blogsphere and places like Topix, and that is "Quote Mining."

We've all seen it, quotes from popular figures taken out of context. I know I mentioned when I posted a review of Expelled that I was not happy with the way they used what was portrayed as a quote from Charles Darwin. Gumby caught that one as well. I said I would be posting more on it after seeing the movie again, but I have yet to do so. Gumby got it down, so here it is:

Ben Stein quoted Charles Darwin:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

Made it sound like Charles Darwin was supporting and encouraging Eugenics. But let's place the whole quote in context. The parts Ben Stein used are in bold.

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.

This should be criminal! By pulling only particular pieces of a quote they completely changed the meaning and used it to justify the most absurd part of their mockumentary, where Ben Stein blamed the Holocaust on Charles Darwin. But read the actual quote and you will realize that nothing can be further form the truth. BTW, even The Anti-Defamation League has disagreed with Little Benny and called what he did a form of Holocaust Denial!

Sadly this is a common tactic, as we could see by the recent election. So I am going to borrow one more piece from Gumby and reiterate his final comment here:

The next time someone throws you a quote in support of their argument, never take it at face value. Take the time to Google or otherwise research it, and sometimes you'll find out that the quote has purposely been totally taken out of context. And if that indeed turns out to be the case, don't hesitate to publicly embarrass the person who tried unsuccessfully to pull a fast one on you. It's fun!

Please feel free to post your favorite examples of quote-mines here.

Addendum, I have been quote-mined :-)

A Topix troll named 'wilson' tried to explain evolution by using a completely blind chance mechanism. Kinda like using a tossing a dice with several million facets. Well he used part of my response to make it sound like I completely disagree with chance having any role in Evolution.

His quote-mine from nearly a month ago:

"Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on."

However in context, here is what I was answering to, and what I actually responded with:


Wilson wrote:

Baloney! I don't "have the evolutionary view!"
You expect me to believe that? You have absolutely no way of proving it.
Molecular biologist James Watson called our brain “the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.” And neurologist Richard Restak said:“Nowhere in the known universe is there anything even remotely resembling it.”
A scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said:“Today’s computers are not even close to a 4-year-old human in their ability to see, talk, move, or use common sense.... It has been estimated that the information processing capacity of even the most powerful supercomputer is equal to the nervous system of a snail—a tiny fraction of the power available to the supercomputer inside [your] skull.”
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/...
Your conviction is that all of this came about just by chance, and now you have my challenge to prove it.
Wilson.

And my original response:

Still bobbing and weaving I see. But you let in too many blows.

One more time, with feeling. No one, but a poorly educated rabid creationalist, claims that the human brain came about by chance. NO ONE in evolutionary circles. Evolution is not a toss of the dice! How many times do people have to explain it to you. But then you get caught in yet another corner of your own building and fall back on arguments already dismantled.

Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on.

It's your incredible poor understanding of evolution and the theory of evolution that gets revealed every time you make comments like this.

Just today wilson posts this:

Hohio,
You said that chance does not play a role in mutations, or something to that effect.
Remember this:
IF NOT BY CHANCE, THEN BY DESIGN
You said:
"Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on."
Well, check this out, Hohio:
“We call these events [mutations] ACCIDENTAL; we say they are random occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of modification in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organism's hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that CHANCE ALONE is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. PURE CHANCE, absolutely free but BLIND, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the SOLE conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. AND NOTHING WARRANTS THE SUPPOSITION - OR THE HOPE - THAT ON THIS SCORE OUR POSITION IS LIKELY EVER TO BE REVISED.”(Jacques Monod)
Hohio, tell me that Monod was wrong! If not by chance in nature, then how? By design?
Wilson

And here, just for grins is my response:

The context I was responding to was that your description of evolution as completely arbitrary chance wasn't the right one. You were treating evolution like a completely random toss of a dice with several million facets -- which is WRONG.

That even random mutation follows the laws of molecular binding and particle physics, so it is not based on chance, that many of the combinations of DNA cannot happen. Natural Selection is certainly not a chance driven change, since the selection is based on environment ... the list goes on. Try reading the context of my post rather than quote-mine me. I have said it many times, read for comprehension, not quote-mines.

Never once did I deny that chance has a role, but no evolutionary mechanism is based on chance. I had any number of other posts showing that while chance does play a role, it is not the role people like wilson ascribe to it. There is a great deal within evolution and evolutionary theory that do not have a component of chance at all. But wilson dismisses all of them either because he is

• Un-educated and actually believes all of evolution is based on chance
• Dishonest because he knows it's not and tries to make it seem like it is to add unsupported validity to his comments
• A troll who is just after an emotional response.
• Or all of the above :-)