Bogus Claims by Evols that Christians Misquote: A Test Case

Oh, BOb.

I have already prepared and delivered detailed reponses to two of you quotes. Just look on this page.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=30022&page=21

Give us a response to how you really quoted Simpson and Gould in a way that preserved the original intent and opinion of the authors. Then maybe we'll talk about me rehashing my responses to your distortion of what Patterson had to say.

You picked what quotes you used, I picked which ones to give a detailed response to. Give satidfactory answers to those two, and maybe we will continue.

 

But, hey, since you started a thread just for such, I'll cross post my responses over here. If it is too bad a violoation of the rules, the mods can delate the posts. But since the other thread is at 21 pages and likelt to be soon closed, the discussion might be better served here.

.........................................................

Well, we now have Bob on record as saying that the meaning of a quote should not change when you look at the larger context. So let's go back and take a look at some of his favorite material. This will require several posts, so I apolgize in advance for the string of posts.

Let's first get into the record just what Bob has posted since he earlier complainded that I was just repeating the quotes without his comments on them.

We saw begin this back on the 7th page of the thread.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=784214&postcount=66

And in the next post

Later we hear Bob speak of "the fraudulent, failed, debunked horse series that now stands fully and blatantly discredited EVEN by Atheist darwinists that CONTINUE to believe in evolutionism."

And

and

 

Now it is time to start filling in the details to show how Bob has misunderstood and misrepresented the Simpson quote.

But first we need a few more quotes. The first, Bob himself was kind enough to give us on a different thread.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=437725&postcount=1

And of course we need the whole quote itself.

 

Now, we have enough information to judge the varacity of the quote as presented.

It is a fairly simple manner to read through Bob's comments of the quote to see what it is that he claims about the quote.

(From my perspective, I find that Bob's opinions of the quote seem to have changed through the years. At one time, it seemed to me that he presented the quote as being a straight "admission" that horses did not evolve. Lately, he has tried a more subtle approach where he instead says that the quote is an admission that the original horse series "never happened.")

Bob basically asserts that before the time of Simpson, that there there was a fraudulent horse series passed off as true. Look at some of the words that he specifically uses. In the first post, Bob asks "did someon [sic] ARRANGE a set of fossils and then SHOW THEM to the worldAS IF such a smooth orthogenic transitional sequence had actually been found IN the fossil record just as was fraudulently presented!"

Bob shortly thereafter says

"Answer - it was ARRANGED in fossil order sequence and then published AS IF that arrangement had actually been found IN THAT SEQUENCE in the fossil record! When in fact - it had not!"

So what Bob is claiming is that fossils were fraudulently put into an order in which they did not occur in the fossil record, that this was done on purpose, and that Simpson is admitting as much.

That simply is not so.

Now if Simpson has said that "The transformation of Hyracotherium into Equus never happened in nature," Bob might have had a case to be made if the rest of the context still supported such a statement. But there are two key words in there.

"The uniform continuous transformation of Hyracotherium into Equus ... never happened in nature."

Those words, "uniform" and "continuous," are the key to understanding the passage.

Bob's assertion that the fossils that comprised the early series were not found in the order in which they are presented is patently false. Stratiography strongly supports the horse series as it was arranged then and today.

Here is an image, from a creationist site no less, that shows the modern tree and when and where the specimens lived. It shows that assertions that are often made, such as the fossils were not found in the right order or that the actual line was from fossils from the world over (one that Bob has also made in the past), just are not true.

http://www.biblicalcreation.org.uk/images/MacFadden.gif

The fossil horse from before Simpson's time were in the correct order, just there were few of them. The limited number of fossils led to an incorrect assumption of monophyletic evolution. Also called orthogenetic. This is where evolution happens in a straight line, with little or no branching, and at a fairly stead pace.

By Simpsons time, enough fossils had been discovered to show that the actual pattern was phyletic, or highly branching. Hence the quote from Simpson that "[h]orse phylogeny is thus far from being the simple monophyletic, so-called orthogenetic, sequence that appears to be in most texts and popularizations." And the statement that the "line from Eohippus to Hypohippus exemplifies a fairly continuous phyletic evolution"

All of these together show us that Simpson was pointing out that horse evolution was not "uniform" and "continuous" as had been previously thought. He was not at all suggesting that there was somehting fundementally wrong with the old horse series. Just that the mode and tempo of change was misunderstood because the record was not complete at the time.

The starting and endpoints were correct even in the original series. The known fossils in the original series were even in the right order, contrary to Bob's claims. They just didn't have all of the data. And as that data came in, nothing about the horse series changed except the pace of change and the depth of knowledge.

Now these are my assertions about the quote. Look at the full quote in context to see if it fits.

Look at the sentence immediately preceding Bob's quote. "The evolution of the horse family included, indeed, certain trends, but none of these was undeviating or orthogenetic." Sound familiar?

Look at the sentences immediately after Bob's quote. "Increases in size, for instance, did not occur at all during the first third of the whole history of the family. Then it occurred quite irregularly, at different rates and to different degrees in a number of different lines of descent. Even after a trend toward larger size had started it was reversed in several groups of horses which became smaller instead of larger." Notice that Simpson is not saying anything about fraud or about the fossils being in the wrong order or about mistakes that were made. He instead is discussing how the horse fossil record was anything but a "uniform continmuous transformation."

He uses the reduction of the toes as an example of another jerky transition in the horses.

He then says. "In the history of the horse family there is no known trend that affected the whole family. Moreover, in any one of the numerous different lines of descent there is no known trend that continued uniformly in the same direction and at the same rate throughout. Trends do not really have to act that way: there are not really orthogenetic."

Again, we see that it is the pace of change that Simpson is addressing. There is nothing of the sort that Bob alledges.

Simpson finally concludes that the evolution of the horse "is still a classic example of evolution in action."

Now, I have made a well reasoned case that the message that Bob presents about the quote is not one that is grounded in either fact nor in the context of the quote.

If Bob really thinks that he is presenting the quote accurately, then he should be able to show that I am mistating that quotes that I use to support my assertions. He should be able to show from the wider context that his interpretation is the more reasonable. And he should be able to show that the facts of nature agree with his assertions. (For example, he could show documented evidence that the horse fossils were really found way out of order.)

 

And for his other favorite quote on this thread.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=784217&postcount=67

Bob refers to this quote later.

and again

and again

 

Once again, I think that this quote requires a little more quoting to be understood properly.

First, the Gould quote I have been presenting in response in a longer form.

Gould, Stephen Jay 1983. "Evolution as Fact and Theory" in Hens Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., p. 258-260.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html

And the full quote.

 

So let's get on with it.

I think that it is important from the very beginning to look at the title from which Bob's quote comes. "Life's Erratic Pace."

This becomes important as you start to look at what Gould was discussing. A whole paragraph from Gould is telling.

And this, too.

So Gould is discussing "life's erratic pace." Look at the quotes again. Gould talks about how "evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils." Now let's think about this.

In biology, speciation is generally defined as the branching where a new species is born. Look at what Gould says. We have data from the "nodes of the branches." He also says that we have data from the "tips." The tips would be extant species, or at least known species. Put it together and what do you get?

Gould is discussing how it is that we have the larger transitions but are genrally lacking the smaller transitions. If he says that we have down to the "nodes of the branches, " that we have the tips and that we must "infere" what is in between, what does he mean? He means that genrally we are lacking the information about how an individual species changes with time and changes between species. He is saying that we genrally have good data for larger changes. To repeat in GOuld's own words, "[t]ransitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups."

The quote that Bob lifted is from a writing describing just this phenomenon. Gould and Eldredge proposed punctuate equilibrium to explain just why this should be the case. In their theoru, most evolutionary change happens in relatively small populations over geologically short periods of time.

Now a common distortion of adherents of YEism is to say that PE was proposed to explain a lack of data. Nothing could be less true. If you go back to the early 1970's when they first proposed the theory, their paper outlined specific examples of where such change can be seen in the fossil record.

So what Gould was saying is seen in the fossil record with "extreme rarity" is transitions within species or between two species. Gould says that transitional forms are "abundant between larger groups."

It is important to note that most adherents of YEism will only allow "microevolution." This is exactly the kind of change that Gould notes is "extremely [rare]." The change giving rise to new genera, families, classes, orders, kingdoms and phyla, which YEers would deny as possible, Gould says is "abundant."

So, similar to what we saw with Simpson, GOuld is arguing against the idea of gradual change only. He says that "n fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil record." Contrary to the expectations of YEers.

Again, I have laid out a good case that shows that Gould was speaking only of changes withing species, between the "nodes" and the "tips," when he says that the fossil record is rare. I have used quotes from the wider context and from other GOuld writings. If Bob wants to insist that he was right when he asserted that Gould was saying that transitionals in general are rare, then he should be able to show where I am mistating the opinion of Gould in my larger quoting. He should be able to show, using a broader context, where Gould actually thinks as Bob has asserted. And he should be able to show from the facts where transitionals at all levels are in fact missing.

What will we get instead.

Bob will respond. No doubt about that. There will be repeats of quotes with lot's of bolding. There will be phrases with quotation marks around them. In some cases he may be actually quoting someone and in some cases he will just be randomly inserting quotation marks. Very hard to tell which is which. There will be a lot of random words in all CAPS. The word "salient" will be in there somewhere. I'd guess he will keep misstating my gender. There will be a bunch of posts in a row, as well. Some will be repeats. Some may even be nothing more than quotes of what he said in a post one or two above the one in question.

But what you will not see is a detailed accounting as I have given showing where he preserved the original intent and opinion of those he quoted. You will not see long quotes to give you all of the context. You will not see links, as I gave in one case above, to where the entire original article can be read.

And, since I have done such detailed anaylsis with Bob in the past to no avail, you will continue to see him use these quotes in the future. He has been exposed but he has deluded himself into thinking that the quotes are valid. We all know better, now.

 

So, Bob, you now have a straight forward task. (Though things are rarely straight forward with you when trying to be direct, especially.)

All you have to do in order to show that you were not quoting out of context is too show a few simple things.

1. You should be able to show, using the larger context, that it is you and not I who better represents what the author was trying to say originally and the you better than I represent the over all opinion of the author.

2. You should be able to show that you are the one presenting the more resonable interpretation of the quote by using the wider context and other wrtitings from the author in question.

3. And, if you can meet those challenges, for the quote to be valid you would then need to show using the underlying facts of science that the quote as you presented it best fits the data. After all, it remains possible to accurately quote someone who is simply wrong.

So you have to be able to show that you have better represented their original intent and overall opinion better than I have AND that the facts of the case (you know, stuff other than quotes) also best support your opinion.

Good luck.

 

You picked what quotes to use, I picked which ones to which I would respond.

I have made a detailed case for two of your quotes that show that I am the one presenting an opinion that is in line with what the authors were intending to say, I am the one presenting an interpretation in line with their other writings and I am the one presenting an interpretation in line with the accepted science.

If you disagree, then show that you have quoted in context by showing how your interpretation better fits these areas.

Please, show us how your presentation and interpretation of the quotes better fit the original intent and opinion of the authors in question.

 

I told you, you picked what quotes to use, I will pick which one to which I respond.

The other thread is being so enjoyable with you twisting in the wind, forced to pull quotes that support my position and to make comments that support my position and then pretend that you are arguing your case.

Admit defeat over there, or make a case for actually preserving the intent and opinion of Gould and Simpson (I notice you are not even giving Gould an attempt at a response) and then I'll think about responding to your choice.

Although I am not sure what more I need that Patterson saying that the creationist interpretation of his comments are "wrong." That sounds cut and dry to me.