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new intro - needs integration with old article version
'''{{PAGENAME}}''' is a [[pejorative]] term, not recognized by major dictionaries, which expresses objection to using someone's quotes against him. While the entire fields of law and politics encourage quoting an adversary to [[discrediting attack|discredit]] him, [[evolutionist]]s do not feel their quotes should be used against them and have invented the term "quote mining" to criticize that practice.
'''Quote mining''' is the practice of looking through a person's published remarks or writings, looking for out-of-context quotations which support one's own point of view. It is a akin to putting words in someone's mouth, but it's more effective when an exact quotation is used. Often the point you wish to make is that the speaker or author is incoherent, stupid, politically incorrect; holds abhorrent views, etc. (see [[character assassination]])
It's not easy to distinguish quote mining, which is a form of deception, from honest reporting of a person's views. To distinguish a "mined" from an "honest" quote, we must be familiar with the person's previously published ideas. Quote miners take advantage of this to get other people to dismiss a person and their ideas entirely, hoping that a few supposedly representative quotations will cause the reader to write them off as a coherent or reliable source; the book ''[[Bushism]]'' had that intent.
In academic disputes, quote mining is all too common. Dishonest academics, instead of present research in a straightforward fashion, frequently distort other people's published writings to garner support for questionable views. Equally damaging to the [[marketplace of ideas]] and the advance of human knowledge is accuse someone else falsely of quote mining.
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It is a [[pejorative]] term, not recognized by major dictionaries, which expresses objection to using someone's quotes against him. While the entire fields of law and politics encourage quoting an adversary to [[discrediting attack|discredit]] him, [[evolutionist]]s do not feel their quotes should be used against them and have invented the term "quote mining" to criticize that practice.
==Origin, in TalkOrigins.org==
==Origin, in TalkOrigins.org==