Are creationists purposely misquoting evolutionists?

I would love to get an actual response to this however -

 

I had hoped this thread would die while I was out of town, but I see Bob continues to post.

So, you say that you have never had an explanation of Goulds statement about the "great trade secret of paleontology?" That is not true. Look up a couple of pages and I provided a link to where it was addressed years ago. Alas, you never learn anything from the responses to your misquotes. You just keep pulling the same distortions and lies out of that Word document you have stored away just for such uses, or wherever you keep these things.

But this is a great quote for this thread, because it addresses exactly what you are doing. Now the quote in particular is talking about something very similar to that Patterson distortion you gave above. Patterson basically says that you can never know whether whether a given fossil is directly ancestral to another species or is merely a closely related side branch.

If you will remember from the horse discussions, most evolution takes place through branching. What Gould is saying is that the public may have this mistken impression of what most transitional series looks like. They expect a nice, smooth progression. While you might have the endpoints, what you generally have in between will be maybe a few real ancestors and more side branches that died out before getting to the end point. These are the "tips" and "nodes" of the "branches."

Now, let's see what Gould himself has to say about the kind of quoting you have done using a quote that addresses the very essence of what is being discussed here.

The issue I keep pushing is that quotes should reflect the opinion of the author if they are to valid. This quote from Gould shows quite clearly what one author thinks of your quoting.

 

Are you not honest enough to consider the fact that God created the universe with the appearance of age. How old was Adam when he was "created?" One day?" But he had the appearance of perhaps a thirty year old man. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was already bearing ripe fruit, as were all the other trees. How long does it take a tree to grow before it is able to bear a fair amount of ripe fruit. God put the stars in the heavens above. You know a lttle bit about astronomy. God created the light of the stars at the same time that he created the stars for Adam could see the stars. Yet how long does it take for the light to travel from many of the stars that we can see with the naked eye to the earth? God created everythig with an appearance of age. So science does not prove that the earth is old at all. It only verifies that God created a new earth, a new universe that has an appearance of age when he created it.
DHK

 

The problem wit han "appearance of age" is that it turns God into a deceiver if the appearance goes beyond what is needed to make the earth mature and functional.

For example, you mentioned the stars. We can see far further back in time than 600 years. In your case, then, light from more than 6000 light years away was created in transit. And the stars are not just static points of light. That have action and a history. But in your view, the action that we see from distances of greater than 6000 light years is fake.

If you were to limit your "appearance of age" to things that make the earth functional then you would have point. But the ratios of isotopes in rocks that are used to determine their age have nothing to do with making a functional universe. Are you saying God faked it? Do you believe God is a deceiver?

Do you think God also faked the history of the stars whose light we see in transist?

Do you think that God faked the shared pseudogenes and the knwon transitional series and the shared retroviral inserts and the other data for evolution?

In essense, you argument is that a mature earth should be one in which hte universe appears to be 13.7 billion years old and explainable by the inflationary cold dark matter lambda theory. One in which the earth appears to have gone through 4.6 billion years of geologic history. And one in which all life on earth appears to share common ancestry. Is this really what you mean?

So, does your appearance of age mean that a mature earth should look 4.6 billion years old, be in a universe that looks 13.7 billion years old and have life that appears to share common ancestry? If so, then why should we not believe our lying eyes? For that matter, you have just destroyed most if not all young earth evidences.

Or do you not really think that an "appearance of age" would lead to such an appearance?

For an appeal to an "appearance of age" is an admission that all of the data asserted to show and old earth/universe and common descent really exists.

 

multiple post

 

Appearance of age

Certainly, it is possible for God to create something with the appearance of age. One example of this happened at a wedding in Cana. Jesus made wine out of water. The wine had the appearance, taste and smell of real wine that had fermented for the ideal amount of time, even though we know it was created on the spot. As the master of the banquet said after tasting it, "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now" (John 2:9). That was a miracle and I have no problem accepting it.

However, what if after the miracle one of the guests mentioned that he remembered pressing the grapes and bottling the wine that Jesus created? Then, we'd have more than fully aged wine created by Jesus: we'd also have the appearance of a natural history for how that wine came to be. If this guest wasn't lying, then it would appear as if Jesus was tricking the people at the wedding, either by taking credit for wine that he didn't make, or by making it seem as though the wine came about through other means because of the memories he gave the one guest.

Now, here's how that relates to creation. It takes time for light from distant stars to reach us (just as it takes time for the sound of thunder to reach us), and we can see stars so distant that it should have taken the light billions of years to reach us. At creation, God could have also made beams of light stretching all the way from the stars to Earth, and in that way we could see the stars immediately. This is analogous to God creating wine that is perfectly aged. No problem. But, these beams of light from distant stars contain histories of events that, if the universe is young, never happened. In fact, the beams contain billions of years of history, and in some cases that history ends abruptly when the star explodes in a supernova. But, when we observe the explosion of a distant star, that would mean that the star's explosion only existed in the beam of light that God created. The star itself would have exploded millions or billions of years ago, and so if the universe is only really 6,000 years old, that means the star never existed at all! Why then do we see its beam of light?

An easier to explain example is the fossil record. Why would God include fossils in the earth of animals, such as dinosaurs, that appear to have existed millions of years ago, and if the earth is young, actually never existed? When scientists extract ice cores from large glaciers and count the seasonal layers within them, why do these layers go back hundreds of thousands of years, and why do we see actual events in some of the ancient layers, such as ash trapped in the ice from volcanoes that, if the earth is only 6,000 years old, never erupted?

The examples could go on and on. Our universe has not only an appearance of age, but an appearance of history that took place during that age. To claim that this appearance is not real, that the events we see evidence of in the past never took place, is to claim that God is deceiving us. That is why most believers do not accept that approach to problems like distant starlight and the fossil record, and instead look for other ways to reconcile what we see in nature to what God has revealed in the Bible.

 

DHK,

Are you not honest enough to consider the fact that God created the universe with the appearance of age.

I have no problem considering that. I have no problem with the young earth stance.

What I do have a problem with a stance which defends young earth creationism at all costs, even if it involves misrepresentation.

Ask any biologist about evolution. 99% will tell you that we do have a good deal of evidence that suggests it did occur to some extent. If he/she is honest he/she will admit that it has not been proven nor will it ever be proven. Most of the creationist stuff on the bookshelves at Christian stores is full of misrepresentation, mostly from well-meaning apologists who have no more understanding of biochemistry than the average high school student. If a young Christian has questions and is referred to this kind of resource he/she may be hurt rather than helped with he/she realizes that the facts have been misrepresented.

If we believe the Bible then we should not have to prove it with science. And if we do set out to prove it we should admit that some things are not quite clear - rather than advancing ridiculous things like the water canopy-age theory in an effort to discredit evolutionists.

 

Pretty funny - you admit to your own blunder and you expect me "not to notice"!!

:laugh: :thumbs:

Pretty good antic UTEOTW!

Let's reherse this inconvenient fact until you are able to either respond with substance or admit what is so glaringly obvious.

Here you are "again" for your own reference -- your blunder in living color.

UTEOTW here admits that HE inferred text into the quote that was not there!

He admits that he invented the "suggestions" and then blamed me for what HE invented.

He admits to the totally bogus illogical claim that I showed being of the form - "atheist evolutionists can only be quoted when they identify a blunder in evolutionism IF they ALSO become Bible Believing Genesis Accepting Christians while doing so"


In Christ,

Bob

 

err umm "no"!

I claim that ON this thread there has not been a response to the 2 point post I gave - so "I posted it again".

Still waiting.

Try the simple obvious, honest and objective method of -- quoting the post and then responding to the points.

Come on - I just know you can get this part.

Here is the post you are "still dodging" try quoting it and responding --
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=785019&postcount=89

You post is filled with empty accusation after accusation --

#1. PAtterson did not make a distortion.
#2. You have not shown it to be a distortion.
#3. ALL you have "shown" is that you INFERRED material that was not in the post and then falsely accused me AS IF I had actually authored the material that YOU admit to inserting!

How sad that you have to stoop to such tactics UTEOTW.

Still waiting for some "substance" in your post - and finding nothing but ranting.

Surely you can not be content with such antics.

I guess if you are willing to turn a blind eye to every inconvenient detail - that might be all you would get from the quote -- purposely LEAVING out the part of PAtterson's quote that INCLUDES his own revelation about "INFERENCE" used instead of fact for linkage.

How sad that your methods are so transparent.

Here is the quote from Patterson where you AVOID the "inferernce" language so devastating to the atheist darwinist doctrines on this subject.

 

Do you notice a pattern there?

UTEOTW admits that he is inserting his own inference into my quotes and treating his OWN inference as if IT was a fact posted by ME!!

Then we see in the quote above that atheist evolutionsts are doing that same thing every day - publishing mere INFERENCE as though it was discovered FACT!

How sad that this "pattern" would be developed and repeated among the devotees to that form of religion.

But how wonderful for all Bible believing Christians that they would be so willing to admit to it on a thread like this!

You could not have asked for anything more!

In Christ,

Bob

 

Before "branching off" to another discussion lets actually "quote" the excerpt that you DO NOT quote but simply seek to gloss over --

How carefully you AVOIDED that quote you were claiming to explain (i.e. glossed over the inconvenient facts just to "fit your story" again.)

The key in the quote that you avoid -- is highlighted in BOLD for you.

(Actually for the objective reader who sees and reads with the thinking mind. But we both knew that of course)

The Quote is given in the context of the "NEVER HAPPENED IN NATURE" blunder of Evolutionism in terms of the early smooth orthogenic transitional sequence fraudulently presented as fact.

But the "telling" feature here is in the quote above where we see that "INFERENCE" is being portrayed as discovered fact!

The same way UTEOTW was accusing Christians of lying when in fact it was HE who INSERTS his own "inference" into the quotes and then objects to the material HE INFERS!!

UTEOTW your tactics speak volumes as they are carefully exposed on this thread.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Since UTEOTW is disinclined to respond to posts that are most devastating to the tactics he uses here -- I will repost it "Again"

 

In this post we have the simple request to Charles asking that he just put some evidence - some data - some fact behind his charge that Bible believing Christians are misquoting/lying just like UTEOTW claims they are doing when they quote atheist darwinists.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=785483&postcount=100

As one might expect -- he has no answer in "substance" just in "Accusation piled upon accusation".

In Christ,

Bob

 

After I offered my OWN quotes here (quotes that UTEOTW has whined about for days in the past) and even having some that UTEOTW linked to -- when we ask for SUBSTANCE that SHOWS something to be "quoted in error" or some lie -- the first thing UTEOTW does is to ADMIT that he is INFERRING text INTO our quotes!!

How sad.

Then tactic number 2 is to GO TO SOME OTHER QUOTE that I never gave at all

Obviously that is not a response from Gould to any quote I have made!

How in the world can UTEOTW avoid "substance" in each post -- time after time when it comes to the actual subject of this thread?

It is amazing!!

in Christ,

Bob

 

The subject of the OP was the issue of whether adherents of YEism misquote scientists sometimes.

Bob has been kind enough to derail this thread by actually giving us some of the quotes which fit into this category. One quote which he has given us comes from Gould. Now he has been set straight on what this quote means in context for years, yet he continues to misappropriate the quote. He complained that no one had addressed this quote on this thread (I guess if you ignore the past refutations you can pretend that they do not exist) so I explained it again in my last post. Let's get the Gould quote on the record.

I informed Bob of the meaning behind this quote in my last post. I guess he didn't read it closely for he says that he is "still waiting" for it to be addressed. No problem. Bob's blunders are easy to show.

This time I will use language closer to that used by Gould himself. All life on earth, past and present, fits into a great tree. By definition, the extant life forms are the very tips of the branches. Looking into the fossil record, we do not even come close to having a specimen for every species that ever lived. The record is not complete and never will be. But we do have many of the branches and we have many of the nodes where lineages become separate branches. Though the tree is incomplete, we still have enough data to "infere" much of the rest of the tree.

Now Bob is trying to convince us that this is some great admission. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is more than sufficient information to know where most of the limbs on the tree go just from the available fossil record. And the missing details become more filled in every month as new findings are published. Bob is trying to size upon the statement that some things must still be "infered." He also wants you to think that for some reason that he can better infere about such things than the scientists who have the full set of data before them.
But Bob must also hope that you do not know about the ways that these inferences can be checked. There are a host of ways. Let's list some.

Shared pseudogenes
Molecular parahomology
Anatomical parahomology
Ontogeny
Shared retroviral inserts
Biogeography
Past biogeography
Stratiography
Molecular vestiges
Anatomical vestiges
Atavisms
Shared transposons

These are but a few of the methods available to check the inferences. But Bob hopes that you will ignore the other science behind that curtain over there. He needs to maintain this illusion that scientists make wild guesses from scraps of data instead of letting you know the rich amount of material available and the many indepenent ways to check your work.

Now since we are talking about quote mining, let's return to Gould.

It seems that Bob only want to use quotes himself. He doesn't like it when quotes are used against him. He brushed off the quote claiming that I was trying "to GO TO SOME OTHER QUOTE that [BobRyan] never gave at all." I guess only he wants to be able to quote.

But the Gould quote that I offered strikes to the heart of the issue. I only insist that quotes accurately reflect the opinion of the author. Bob cannot stand that standard, for it ruins his quotes, so he instead makes up things that he claims that are being offered as a standard. How many times have we seen Bob falsely categorize my standard like he did above. For the record, he paraphrased my stand as "'atheist evolutionists can only be quoted when they identify a blunder in evolutionism IF they ALSO become Bible Believing Genesis Accepting Christians while doing so.'"

Now nowhere will Bob ever be able to show where I have ever said such a thing. It is made up out of whole cloth. My only standard is that the quote reflects the actual opinion of the author. If you have to cut up the quote until the original meaning becomes lost, then you are misquoting.

So, let's see, again, what it is that Gould had to say about the practice of quoting him in the manner of Bob. I can see why Bob glossed over this statement.

Gould is "infuriat[ed]" by the practice. Gould cannot tell if they misquote him through "design" or through "stupidity." Gould is directly adressing the practices of Bob.

Gould also directly addresses the issue of the quote of GOuld from Bob that he keeps claiming has not been addressed. Gould says that transitional fossils are "abundant." Bob's selective quoting tries to make it look like they are few or non-existent in Gould's opinion. But Gould's response to this kind of quote mining shows Bob's assertions through his sliced and diced quoting to be patently false. The known transitions between the higher groups are those known "branches" and "nodes." The transitions between individual species are the ones that are generally lacking, though even there we have many fine examples of detailed change, some documented by Gould himself. (Interestingly, in the "kinds" concept where only "microevolution" is allowed, it is these species to species transitions only that should be found. If there is no "macroevolution" then there can be no transitions between higher groups. But look at what the observations show. Those transitions compatable with YEism are "generally lacking" while those disallowed by YEism are "abundant.")

Bob has also been presented with a similar quote form Patterson many times in the past expressing specifically his anger at being misquoted in the distorted quote that Bob gives.

But Bob doesn't even believe the author of the quote when being told that the quote is not accurate. Bob thinks he knows the opinion of the individual scientists better than they do themselves. I guess he is a mind reader.

 

This is me being OFF TOPIC??!!

To post something that FITS into the OP subject matter?

(I am starting to get a better idea now of how the evolutionist mind evolves)

err ummm -- "no".

If you look at the post clearly (posted on this page and even linked "again" in this thread) the issue is the relationship between the "METHODS" of using "inference as fact" and the initial horse series blunder.

You have "already confessed" that you merely "insert by inference" the objectionable content that you then choose to "complain about".

As you may recall - I asked you to PROVIDE a quote SHOWING the mind numbingly bogus claim that you always make of the form "Bible Believing Christians can not quote atheist darwinists UNLESS THEY ALSO claim those darwinists are no longer darwinist evolutionists"

Misappropriate???!! I simply SHOW its usefulness in debunking the atheist darwinist doctrine on some point.

Wrong "again".

Please PROVIDE the quote instead of simply "spinning your own inference" again and again and then using your own insert "as if" it was fact.

Step 1 -- QUOTE the post
Step -- respond to the DETAILs IN the post.

Avoid your "re-spin the discussion with UTEOTW inference INSERTED as if fact".

Since you "seem to fear' the quote sooo much that you can not bring yourself to quote it --

I will give it to you "again" IN THE CONTEXT of the post where it is found -- because it TIED DIRECTLY to the horse blunder you so wish to ignore.

Click on this link to SEE what you are avoiding HERE -

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=786879&postcount=112

Notice that the INFERENCE language explicitly stated IN the quote AND The history of the horse series blulnder are LINKED in the post at the following location??
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=784217&postcount=67

Please address the "details" for a change.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob,

In this post we have the simple request to Charles asking that he just put some evidence - some data - some fact behind his charge that Bible believing Christians are misquoting/lying just like UTEOTW claims they are doing when they quote atheist darwinists.

No my main charge is that those putting forth arguments in favor of creationism seem willing to use any explanation, no matter how ridiculous, as long as it will cast doubt on evolution. They will dress it up in scientific jargon to make it sound "real" tp those without scientific education.

Examples:

1. Carbon 14 dating. No creationist book ever accurately describes C14 dating.

2. Water canopy theory.

3. Thermodynamics. The laws obviously do not disprove evolution since the earth is not a closed system.

I have certainly encountered misquotations by creationists but that is not the focus of my argument.

But just look at all of the creationist/evolutionist debate discussion. What seems to be the recurring criticism of creationists?

It is that they are willing to put forth anything, even untenable hypotheses and misquotations in order to keep arguing.

Most evolutionists would respect the stance of, "I realize that science has shown a lot of intertesting stuff but I still believe the Bible." But our witness and our ability to defend the faith is weakened by the tactics of some creationists.

 

Is it any wonder that in order to present "myth as fact" (i.e presenting something that "never happened in nature" as if it was science fact) you have to embrace a kind of morality that is willing to present "Inference as fact". And in extreme cases - "inference that fills in as substitute for vast amounts of data".

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as [b]the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes[/b] of their branches; the rest is inference, however, reasonable, not the evidence of fossils[/b].” “Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History 86 (May 1977): p. 14. [Emphasis added - ed.]

And so UTEOTW continues even on this board to practice that same model of "myth for fact" or more precisely "inference AS IF fact"

 

More words.

The subject of the OP is whether adherents to YEism misquote scientists. The only way to tell is to see if the person being quoted really has the opinion that seems to be being given. If the meaning of the quote has changed by editting, then it is a misquote.

Bob keeps repeating a gould quote. Let's, again, see what Gould had to say about it, you know, the guy who is being quoted.

I don't know how Bob can keep asserting that he better knows what Gould meant than Gould.

Since Gould cannot tell, can you answer his question for us? Are you misquoting Gould by design or because you do not know any better?

 

And let's do Patterson too. This is his response to Bob's deliberate misquoting. Emphasis added.

I guess that you also know more about what Patterson meant than Patterson himself.