Talk:Quote mining

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article was nominated for deletion on March 8, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

There's no source about when and where the Origin of Species was misquoted. I added a citation tag.Unmitigated Success 21:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

This probably went uncited because, to people involved in the creation-evolution debate, it's so well known. I grabbed a random creationist book that I had handy, Darwin's Enigma, and found it on page 52-53 in a section about the Cambrian explosion and the appearance of eyes:

Paley made much of the intricacy and perfection of the eye, and said that it could have no other interpretation than that it was not the product of chance. In fact, he began his book with this very point. Since Darwin was quite familiar with Paley's book, it is no wonder that he wrote that the eye turned him cold all over when he pondered it's origin. He said:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to difference distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree.¹⁵

Certainly, Darwin knew that the eye could not have been the product of an accident -- especially not an explosion, Cambrian or otherwise. (Sunderland, Luther (1984). "The Fossil Record - Nonlife to Reptiles", Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 2nd edition, Master Books, 52-53. ISBN 0-89051-108-X. )

So not only did Sunderland use this exact quote, he represented it as an admission on Darwin's part that it couldn't have evolved. A fragment of the quote is used similarly in this ICR impact article. Even Answers in Genesis acknowledges that this quote is sometimes used "subtly out of context."^[1] TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 02:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Does this term apply specifically to Creationists misquoting Darwinists, or also to Darwinists misquoting Creationists? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.156.219.134 (talk • contribs) 00:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The term "quote mining" applies to such actions taken by anyone, regardless of viewpoint. The essential element for the criticism is that the quotes are taken out-of-context or intentionally misinterpreted. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:22, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Should the article mention other examples of quote mining? For example some apologists accuse sceptics of quote mining from the Bible when sceptics produce lists saying that Christians shouldn't eat shell fish or should stone to death adulterers etc.

Interesting - that's actually an example of an accusation. Ironically, it is the apologists who are quote mining, although not quite in the sense of this article. The furore swirls around some people quoting Leviticus to justify varying amounts of disapproval of homosexuality, selecting the particular verse that suits their need, without honoring any of the rest of that section - which has many, many rules, mostly dietary. The skeptics then have fun by picking another Levitican verse to parody the more extreme gay bashers among the "disapprovers". Thus, the extremist nastiness of carrying signs that say "God Hates Fags" gets parodied with signs saying "God Hates Shrimp." Although I suppose really, God must love shrimp, since He apparently tells us not to eat them. human 22:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

human, I'll resist the salacious corollary to your last line ☺ to get back to the real issue here. If we really want NPOV here, we might try enforcing a deletion of any example that doesn't quote two well-sourced, diametrically opposite instances of quote mining for any particular topic. The proper goal here is to illustrate the subject of quote mining, not prosecute an argument on any particular issue. Since quote mining is liberally used by some proponents on all sides of any major controversy I've ever seen, this restriction shouldn't cause any difficulty in producing plenty of clear examples. It would only inconvenience editors who have agendas not appropriate to pursue here. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:30, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, Jeff. I was mostly pointing out that the anon's example wasn't a good one. Can someone come up with some egregious examples pointing in other directions across the spectrum of ideas? The trouble I am having is 1. the phrase was practically invented to describe the "quote lists" presented by creationists to attempt to make a case against evolutionary concepts, and 2. my own "blind eye" to, let us say, liberal/left examples (of taking conservative/right quotes out of context). I keep laughing as I think of them, and I think someone more to the right on the spectrum would have better examples to add - surely, for instance, some of the malaprops I have heard or read of attributed to certain poitical figures must be examples - they can't all be accurate and fair. If I do come across any good examples in some other arena I will instantly repair to my computer and add them appropriately, though. Again, I agree that the subject ought to be able to be illustrated by enough variety of examples to gore everyone's ox. human 23:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sourcing

Possible sources, placed here for evaluation and consideration by editors:

• Nielson Buzzmetrics
• Fashionable Nonsense: Quote mining
• Kuro5hin article on Climate Change Versus Loose Change term used but not defined - there are of course a great many sites which use, but do not define, the term - I include this one because it is about global warming, and most uses are creation/evolution. KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)