Quote mining
Quote mining is debate tactic that is often accused of being intellectually dishonest. Quote mining is where a quote is either taken out of context or abridged in such a way as to give an impression the 'miner' desires, but which is not that of the original person quoted. [1]
An example of a mined quote (bold), from the full quote (in italics) which shows the author's intended impression:
"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different 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 freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. [2] Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real."[3] -- Charles Darwin, from The Origin of Species, 1859.
References
- ↑ http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html
- ↑ http://www.saintsalive.com/general/wonderfully.htm
- ↑ http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1228
External Links
- Scientists Speak About Evolution
- Selected Creation/Evolution Quotes
- Creation Quotes list from Answers in Genesis
- The Quote Mine Project - hosted by the talk.origins archive
