Using creation science to demonstrate evolution

[Mallon]

There was an interesting article published recently in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology that uses statistical techniques (or rather, exploratory techniques), often employed by neocreationists to demonstrate gaps between 'baramins', for the purpose of showing that there is no appreciable gap between dinosaurs and birds. From the abstract:

It is important to demonstrate evolutionary principles in such a way that they cannot be countered by creation science. One such way is to use creation science itself to demonstrate evolutionary principles. Some creation scientists use classic multidimensional scaling (CMDS) to quantify and visualize morphological gaps or continuity between taxa, accepting gaps as evidence of independent creation and accepting continuity as evidence of genetic relatedness. Here, I apply CMDS to a phylogenetic analysis of coelurosaurian dinosaurs and show that it reveals morphological continuity between Archaeopteryx, other early birds, and a wide range of nonavian coelurosaurs. Creation scientists who use CMDS must therefore accept that these animals are genetically related. Other uses of CMDS for evolutionary biologists include the identification of taxa with much missing evolutionary history and the tracing of the progressive filling of morphological gaps in the fossil record through successive years of discovery.

Creation scientist Dr. Todd Wood responds in kind here: Todd's Blog: Baraminology in Journal of Evolutionary Biology. In short, he doesn't seem certain how to respond. He does backpedal a little, though, and says that maybe these exploratory techniques aren't so good at delimiting baramins after all. He doesn't consider even for a moment that maybe creation science is trying to tell us something about the relationship between dinosaurs and birds.

 

[shernren]

I find the first sentence (and hence the overall aim of the paper) highly interesting. Is it normal for a mainstream scientist in a mainstream publication to make reference to creationists? And to give them the overly laudatory title of "creation scientists"?

I would have thought that a more objective approach would have been to establish the relevance of CMDS as a scientifically relevant technique, irrespective of creationist interests, and then have NCSE and the like push the significance of the result. I feel that it's better for scientists qua scientists to deal with the creationist community at some length like that.

As it is (and I hope I'm not being too negative about the paper!) this could open the floodgates to both the "Look, creation science is peer reviewable" crowd and the "Look, creation science is being actively suppressed by the academy" crowd. I can imagine the opening line alone being quotemined ad nauseam for the next ten years.

 

[rcorlew]

I find the first sentence (and hence the overall aim of the paper) highly interesting. Is it normal for a mainstream scientist in a mainstream publication to make reference to creationists? And to give them the overly laudatory title of "creation scientists"?

I would have thought that a more objective approach would have been to establish the relevance of CMDS as a scientifically relevant technique, irrespective of creationist interests, and then have NCSE and the like push the significance of the result. I feel that it's better for scientists qua scientists to deal with the creationist community at some length like that.

As it is (and I hope I'm not being too negative about the paper!) this could open the floodgates to both the "Look, creation science is peer reviewable" crowd and the "Look, creation science is being actively suppressed by the academy" crowd. I can imagine the opening line alone being quotemined ad nauseam for the next ten years.

To be honest, there is some actual real science going on in creation science, the main problem with it is that it is being used to find the outliers, that is the information that is in the margins, and then use this found information to draw up radical new theories which are giant leaps in either or both rationality or logic.

The reason for the two sides being irreconcilable at the moment is that they both have skin in the game. The creation scientist is forever looking for information in margins to disprove evolution once and for all and as long as they can scrounge up something and sell some books and make some appearances they seem all too happy. Similarly, as long as mainstream scientists can write some books to deny what the creation scientist says and marginalizing any actual information that may be present in the creationist's argument then they too are happy. Both sides make money off the other, and use this money to keep funding the cycle. This is not true of all scientists on either side, but it is why we keep seeing this flame war continue.

I have studied some on both sides of the matter and part of that study was the implications of ID and its underlying suppositions within the scientific framework. One article we read (I do understand that it is anecdotal yet useful) was a micro-biologist who admitted that along with himself there are many in his field that cannot possibly conceive of any purely natural cause for the items which they studied. He stated that this belief would not become one of public knowledge because much of their research is closely related to evolutionary biology in a manner in which their work was being used by evolutionary scientists to advance the greater understanding of the mechanisms at work. His relation (and I assume the others who share this view) though to ID was that they can clearly see the design, the overall purpose and the mechanism God had employed (not a YEC definition). He did not share the breadth of those who share this view, he stated that they work in quiet in union with other scientists who do not share this view with the knowledge that if those who share this looser ID view were to be made known it would in effect ruin their careers as they would not receive the funding or support they currently enjoy.

 

[shernren]

You are unfortunately all too accurate about what "creation scientists" do; my only beef with your middle paragraph is that those people, in fact, are the very people who do not deserve to be called creation scientists. They're more like creation snipers. They don't get that the best way to replace a theory is not so much to poke holes in it as to develop a better theory.

For better or for worse, I think baraminology has the best shot at being a proper creation science. At least they are upfront about their methodology and data sets, and at least they are looking to systematize a biology in which there is no macroevolution. When their techniques can be used against them, that itself is to their credit. In no other area of creationism or ID is there a theory to rebut so much as a mish-mash of assorted assertions, which therefore require painstaking individual rebuttal by evolutionists.

In fact I myself (as I've said before) have a romantic hunch that the first life was miraculously created. But I have no idea how I would test this scientifically. Therefore, neither my theology nor my science hinges much (if at all) on that hunch; I think that is a fair position for me to take, isn't it?

 

[Papias]

rcorlew wrote:

The creation scientist is forever looking for information in margins to disprove evolution once and for all and as long as they can scrounge up something and sell some books and make some appearances they seem all too happy.

So far so good. Yep, raking in a ton of money generally makes people happy.........

Similarly, as long as mainstream scientists can write some books to deny what the creation scientist says and marginalizing any actual information that may be present in the creationist's argument then they too are happy. Both sides make money off the other, and use this money to keep funding the cycle.

Um, there are several reasons why the second quote may not work.

First, mainstream scientists generally don't have the opportunity to gain much from writing books to refute creationists unless they are a big name like Gould. This is because the target audience is not large (most evolution supporters don't have any interest in buying books that confirm their posittion because they know that practically all of science confirms their position). Plus, to do so they have to read a bunch of intellectually insipid arguments,and most don't have the stomach for that. Hence, for nearly all mainstream scientists, there isn't money to be made in writing anti-creationist books, so they usually don't do so. For instance, taking books written around the same time (because more recent books sell better), compare Wells' "Icons" at amazon sales rank #59,000 with a scientifically accurate book from around the same time, say Pennock's "Tower", which has a sales rank of #711,000. You can see that the creationist book take little real work to make, as it is unconstrained by reality, and sells to the huge masses of uninformed people. While the converse means that the scientific book takes a lot of work and real research, and sells almost nothing by comparison. There isn't any "data" to marginalize because there is no data in support of creationism.

Next, and much more importantly, is the fact that mainstream scientists have a HUGE incentive to disprove evolution with verifiable evidence. Science works by greatly rewarding anyone who provides evidence that doesn't fit with the prevailing model. Any other scientist can confirm this as well, and it's what I've seen in the 20 years I've worked in science. We are all desperately looking for any hard evidence that doesn't fit with the prevailing models, even chasing down rumors of such from others, because we know if we publish hard evidence that doesn't fit, we get fame, fortune and tenure. Einstein got those because he found evidence that didn't fit with Newton's widely accepted physics, Dirac got that because he found evidence that didn't fit in the prevailing chemistry ofthe day, Newton got that because his evidence didn't fit with Aristotle, Mme Curie got that because her evidence didn't fit in the prevailing view of chemistry, and on and on, including practically all the big names, like Hubbel, etc. The hard part is that it must be repeatable, real evidence, not word games and distortions.

In fact, the very fact that scientists have been desperately trying to disprove evolution for a century is what gave us the fine tunings of people like Gould that are worded in ways that can be easily misrepresented by creationists to make it sound like they are disputing evolution. They wouldn't be worded that way if scientists were not trying to make it sound like they are giving new approaches that break with the past.

The reason why rcorlew's second quote doesn't work is because BOTH scientists and creationists are very eager to find evidence that doesn't fit with evolution. The difference is that creationists are happy to distort, lie, and misrepsent to do so, while the scientists are only interested in real, hard, evidence. The most exciting thing to hear in the lab is NOT "Eureka!", but instead is "now that's odd....".

They only both have skin in the game if you realize that the two games are very different. In the creationist game, there are few rules and the goal is to make money from garbage books. In the science game the main rule is that only real, hard evidence may be used, and the goal is to increase our understanding of the real world.

Papias

 

[shernren]

Which reminds me of a comment I once heard: the battle isn't so much between evolutionists and creationists as between anti-creationists and anti-evolutionists.

In the creationist game, there are few rules and the goal is to make money from garbage books.

I doubt that's entirely fair. I would be very surprised if creationist authors didn't actually believe that they were saving the world from the grip of Satan. The shallowness of their arguments doesn't so much reflect their desire to do a shoddy job, so much as the genuine feeling that evolution really is a stupid theory invented by the devil and the holes in it are obvious enough to poke through. And most of them would probably justify their profiteering by saying that ministries need money to run, which is true enough.

Succinctly, we too often ascribe to malice what can be explained by ignorance ...

 

[Papias]

shernren wrote:

I doubt that's entirely fair. I would be very surprised if creationist authors didn't actually believe that they were saving the world from the grip of Satan.

Any understanding of their behavior has to account for several observations.

• They often repeat falsehoods to a new audience after they've been corrected in another venue. A good example is Gish's "Bullfrog" incident, and so on. If I am caught using a falsehood, and I'm honest, I'll stop using it. Continuing to use it with others is lying. We even saw on this forum Juvi lie about being a geology professor, get caught, and then to do so again after enough time had passed that he thought the previous one wouldn't be found - but Mallon, I think, pointed it out that he had done this in the past.
• They quotemine incessantly. Any of the many examples of quotemining show that to take a part of a sentence or quote and say that it says something other than what it says shows that the perpetrator has to know what he is doing, and has to know that he is lying.
• Deliberatly hiding information that shows them to be incorrect. Examples of this are sometimes harder to prove, but there are so many cases of them being shown the information and then ignoring it that there are many likely examples. For instance, Behe has to know that there is plenty of evidence showing how the bacterial flagellum evolved - that's his field, there are dozens of papers published in the journals he should be reading, and heck, it's even in the textbooks published in his field before he published his book. Yet he says that scientists have no idea how this could have evolved.....
• Outright hoaxes. Creationists making money from hoaxes is so common that it seems patronizing to mention examples, such as the iron pot found in coal, the perennial finding of "noah's ark", and so on. I don't see how someone could honestly, accidentally, fabricate a hoax - they are deliberate lying.

Now, while I don't see how to avoid the conclusion that they are dishonest, and lying, they could think they are doing so for a "good reason". For instance, if they really think that by lying to you, they may be saving you from going to hell (the money they make is side issue), then they may honestly be trying to help you, thinking that lying is the only way to do that. I've heard a creationist say they are "lying for Jesus". Really? Jesus wants us to lie?

I'm sure there is a mix - some who are simply misled, some who are lying for Jesus, hoping to save us from hell, and others who are just making money. It seems to me that someone who is willing to repeatedly lie for whatever reason could well be willing to be dishonest with the goal of making money. The biggest creationist names, and those who are very active, I don't think could fall into the first category, because after being involved for even a little while, any inquisitive person will see that evolution is well supported, leaving only the dishonest people as the most active and famous creationists.

Sorta like natural selection?


Papias

 

[shernren]

• They often repeat falsehoods to a new audience after they've been corrected in another venue. A good example is Gish's "Bullfrog" incident, and so on. If I am caught using a falsehood, and I'm honest, I'll stop using it. Continuing to use it with others is lying. We even saw on this forum Juvi lie about being a geology professor, get caught, and then to do so again after enough time had passed that he thought the previous one wouldn't be found - but Mallon, I think, pointed it out that he had done this in the past.

You do have a point here. Having said that, though, are creationists ever convinced that they got something wrong? For example, has Gish ever admitted that his bullfrog example is wrong? They may well be living in denial that their example has been refuted.

A good forum example is mark kennedy's repeated claim that many human ancestors are really mis-classified chimpanzee ancestors, and that the paucity of hominids identified as immediate ancestors of chimpanzees smacks of deception. Now he's made this claim many times before, and almost every time someone around has been responsible enough to point out his mistake. (Chimpanzees and their immediate ancestors lived in areas of acidic soil, notoriously bad for fossils; most human ancestor fossils do indeed show traits that are best explained as being ancestral to humans; despite making this claim repeatedly, mk has never cited a single example - that stood up to scrutiny, that is - of a clear morphological trait which hominid fossils possess which would place them as chimp ancestor fossils.)

I think it's bad form for him to keep using that example. But is he lying? I wouldn't think so. He's just so overwhelmingly invested in his worldview that he can't so much as recognize a rebuttal of his ideas. He's never thought of his ideas as wrong, and so he's never lied - because that requires using an idea even after knowing it's wrong.

In addition, AiG has its "Examples not to use" list, which indicates that at least some creationists are capable of jettisoning an argument once they're convinced that it's wrong.

• They quotemine incessantly. Any of the many examples of quotemining show that to take a part of a sentence or quote and say that it says something other than what it says shows that the perpetrator has to know what he is doing, and has to know that he is lying.

These guys quote-mine the Bible, for crying out loud - for example, quoting Job in a devotion about how suffering is the punishment for sin! Again, they may simply be cognitively prevented from seeing how the context of a statement modifies that statement. Also, I think there are actually relatively few quote-miners out there, while there are many people who simply repeat what they've heard.

• Deliberately hiding information that shows them to be incorrect. Examples of this are sometimes harder to prove, but there are so many cases of them being shown the information and then ignoring it that there are many likely examples. For instance, Behe has to know that there is plenty of evidence showing how the bacterial flagellum evolved - that's his field, there are dozens of papers published in the journals he should be reading, and heck, it's even in the textbooks published in his field before he published his book. Yet he says that scientists have no idea how this could have evolved.....

But isn't that commonplace in debating? I've lost count of how often I think up a counter-argument to my own arguments. Most of the time, I try not to use an argument I can refute; but sometimes I'll still put it out there to see whether or not creationists can knock it down (and more often than not they stand around trying to knock me down instead!). Again, bad form but not necessarily unethical.

• Outright hoaxes. Creationists making money from hoaxes is so common that it seems patronizing to mention examples, such as the iron pot found in coal, the perennial finding of "noah's ark", and so on. I don't see how someone could honestly, accidentally, fabricate a hoax - they are deliberate lying.

I'll certainly agree that there are some people who do that. However, I can't think of any outright hoaxes that have been perpetrated by the major players in the industry (AiG, CSR, etc.).

The biggest creationist names, and those who are very active, I don't think could fall into the first category, because after being involved for even a little while, any inquisitive person will see that evolution is well supported, leaving only the dishonest people as the most active and famous creationists.

Perhaps Kent Hovind falls in that category, seeing as he cheated on taxes.

But I think you underestimate the creative power of the human mind. After all, there are flat earthers (no, not just the ones who are in it for the lols), climate change skeptics, moon landing hoaxers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and Holocaust deniers, to say nothing of the more mainstream connect-the-dots folks like UFOlogists, astrologers, homeopaths, and - dare I say it? - some of the more outrageous members of the Tea Party. Sure there's a profit motive in it for some of them. But what financial gain do I get peddling the idea that the Holocaust didn't really happen, or that the government is covering up an alien invasion?

I'd like to think rather that creationists are honestly convinced people, some of whom have just happened to find out that their honest convictions happen to bring in a neat profit.

 

[Bob Jones Student]

Mat 15:13 He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.
Mat 15:14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit."

Joh 10:26 but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.

 

[Dark_Lite]

Mat 15:13 He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.
Mat 15:14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit."

Joh 10:26 but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.

Care to attach an explanation to this post?

 

[Bob Jones Student]

If people are saved they will believe all of God's Word.

 

[shernren]

And if they have hair, they won't?

 

[Mallon]

If people are saved they will believe all of God's Word.

What does it mean to "believe" God's Word?

 

[Papias]

Shernren wrote:

You do have a point here. [about creationists repeating falsehoods after they've been shown to be wrong] Having said that, though, are creationists ever convinced that they got something wrong? For example, has Gish ever admitted that his bullfrog example is wrong? They may well be living in denial that their example has been refuted.

A good forum example is mark kennedy's repeated claim .....

I think it's bad form for him to keep using that example. But is he lying? I wouldn't think so. He's just so overwhelmingly invested in his worldview that he can't so much as recognize a rebuttal of his ideas. He's never thought of his ideas as wrong, and so he's never lied - because that requires using an idea even after knowing it's wrong.

After seeing them repeat falsehoods over and over, and to go through unbelievable mental gymnastics to justify positions, it says to me that in a lot of cases they are lying and in other cases their idea of logic and rational thought is so twisted that they think these kinds of behaviors are healthy. In either case, it strongly says that creationism is extremely harmful to one's mind.

I'll agree that we can't know for sure that they are lying when they repeat falsehoods, but that realization only makes creationism look more harmful. I'm sure there are some of each.

In addition, AiG has its "Examples not to use" list, which indicates that at least some creationists are capable of jettisoning an argument once they're convinced that it's wrong.

Or that they've realized that these arguments are so weak as to make the creationist look bad, and the arguments no longer work. Their posting of that list could simply be tactical, and not an indication of honesty. Besides, read that page any you'll see that they introduce a lot of wiggle on a lot of them.

These guys quote-mine the Bible, for crying out loud - for example, quoting Job in a devotion about how suffering is the punishment for sin! Again, they may simply be cognitively prevented from seeing how the context of a statement modifies that statement.

Like the first point, this is still consistent with them being just in it to make money - maybe they quote-mine the Bible because they just don't respect scripture. Or, if not, then it is again testimony to how harmful creationism can be to a formerly working brain.

Also, I think there are actually relatively few quote-miners out there, while there are many people who simply repeat what they've heard.

I'm sure there are plenty of repeaters, like the dupes who haven't found out about the details of the discussion yet. However, look at this list and you'll see there are an awful lot of quoteminers. Look at how many quotes are here, most from just a single creationist page (the anointed-one.com)
Quote Mine Project: Contents Sorted by Author

But isn't that [deliberately hiding information that proves one wrong] commonplace in debating? I've lost count of how often I think up a counter-argument to my own arguments. Most of the time, I try not to use an argument I can refute; ..... Again, bad form but not necessarily unethical.

That's part of the problem. Creationists see this a debate, where that would be "bad form". But it's not some high-school debate team practice, it is science. In science, one lists the arguments and evidence (without distorting them) against anything proposed, and fairly discusses their pros and cons. I've done this in written papers. In fact, in science, it behooves the writer to articulate the counter arguments better than the writer has seen them presented. Again, a difference in how creationists see the discussion vs. how scientists see the discussion.

I'll certainly agree that there are some people who do that. However, I can't think of any outright hoaxes that have been perpetrated by the major players in the industry (AiG, CSR, etc.).

.....and that makes all the hoaxes OK? Does it make the constant reliance on hoaxes by so many creationists OK?

Besides, it's not like perpetrating hoaxes is something creationists do only rarely. You are aware that they've got whole museums of hoaxes, displayed as if they were real, right? Creation Evidence Museum Online - Museum Displays

Perhaps Kent Hovind falls in that category, seeing as he cheated on taxes.

But I think you underestimate the creative power of the human mind. After all, there are flat earthers (no, not just the ones who are in it for the lols), climate change skeptics, moon landing hoaxers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and Holocaust deniers, to say nothing of the more mainstream connect-the-dots folks like UFOlogists, astrologers, homeopaths, and - dare I say it? - some of the more outrageous members of the Tea Party. Sure there's a profit motive in it for some of them. But what financial gain do I get peddling the idea that the Holocaust didn't really happen, or that the government is covering up an alien invasion?

Yes, that's true. I think by sheer numbers, the largest numbers of creationists fall into the dupes category, as you say. However, many, and especially the leaders, seem to have to be either knowingly lying for a cause (such as hell), or out to make money. Also, there often are large monetary or political gains to be had by doing things like denying the holocaust or claiming aliens. Look at how much Streiber made on his alien abduction books - millions of $$.

I'd like to think rather that creationists are honestly convinced people, some of whom have just happened to find out that their honest convictions happen to bring in a neat profit.

Well, sure. I mean, I'd like to think that everyone always has the best intentions, and that there is no need for me to ever lock my car. But realistically, I'm sure there is a mix, with many honest dupes in the population, and amoung the creationist leadership, many dishonest scammers, liars for Jesus, and so on. I agree that we can't know for sure who is what, but wow. Plus, if there were that many who looked dishonest, or operated dishonestly among some other group, say Muslims or gays, would we be as forgiving of such an ongoing string of apparently dishonest behavior?

Papias

 

[rcorlew]

Well, sure. I mean, I'd like to think that everyone always has the best intentions, and that there is no need for me to ever lock my car. But realistically, I'm sure there is a mix, with many honest dupes in the population, and among the creationist leadership, many dishonest scammers, liars for Jesus, and so on. I agree that we can't know for sure who is what, but wow. Plus, if there were that many who looked dishonest, or operated dishonestly among some other group, say Muslims or gays, would we be as forgiving of such an ongoing string of apparently dishonest behavior?

Papias

I would certainly hope for all our sakes that most of them are just trying so hard to share their faith in God that they see evidence in their rational application of their stretched logic.

 

[Papias]

rcorlew wrote

I would certainly hope for all our sakes that most of them are just trying so hard to share their faith in God that they see evidence in their rational application of their stretched logic.

Well, I would certainly hope so too, but I also hope that we never see a nuclear war or dirty bomb used, and hope that muggings don't occur, and so on. People are human, and humans lie sometimes, humans who are or say they are Christians are still humans, and it is sheer denial to think that they aren't.

You might not be as familiar with the repeated, demonstrable, ongoing lying that many us who have been invovled with creationists for years have seen, but have you at least looked at the links I posted?

Quote Mine Project: Contents Sorted by Author (it takes a liar to quotemine because one must artfully cut the quote to change it's meaning.)

and the hoaxes on the other site?

Papias

 

[theFijian]

If people are saved they will believe all of God's Word.

A suitably vague statement. Do you believe all of God's word? Kindly elaborate for us all what that implies.

 

[rcorlew]

rcorlew wrote



Well, I would certainly hope so too, but I also hope that we never see a nuclear war or dirty bomb used, and hope that muggings don't occur, and so on. People are human, and humans lie sometimes, humans who are or say they are Christians are still humans, and it is sheer denial to think that they aren't.

You might not be as familiar with the repeated, demonstrable, ongoing lying that many us who have been invovled with creationists for years have seen, but have you at least looked at the links I posted?

Quote Mine Project: Contents Sorted by Author (it takes a liar to quotemine because one must artfully cut the quote to change it's meaning.)

and the hoaxes on the other site?

Papias

I found that I had done that before while trying to use unfamiliar source materials which is why I now stick to my university's library resources using EBSCO Host for reference materials. One very enlightening experience was when I was researching humanism and found several quote-mines about Julian Huxley, the interesting part was the quote-mines were Huxley friendly, trying to obscure Huxley's utter contentment for all religions especially Christianity and Orthodox Judaism. Creationists are famous for this as they usually do not have access to any raw data, so they are used to 2nd or 3rd generation knowledge, I do however guarantee you this, quote-mining is found in virtually all groups, even those who profess Christ and those who profess science!

 

[Papias]

rcorlew wrote:

Creationists are famous for this as they usually do not have access to any raw data, so they are used to 2nd or 3rd generation knowledge,

How is that the case? Somebody needs to be getting the quote from the original source, and cutting it to deceive. I'm not talking about all the creationist dupes who use quotes without checking on them (which is bad enough), but the creationist that first quotemined the quote. A lot of these are from books, such as the origin of species, that anyone can get, and even the papers have to be obtained first (such as from the library) by the creationist that first gets the quote.

I do however guarantee you this, quote-mining is found in virtually all groups, even those who profess Christ and those who profess science!

Yes, I agree that other groups quote mine too. We just saw the nationally prominent case of quote mining in the Shirly Sherrod case. However, does any group quote mine as much as creationists? I mean, I can easily come up with dozens of cases of creationist quotemining in minutes, yet I don't think I could find even 6 quote mines easily by putting together all the other ones I could find that aren't from creationists. Am I forgetting some huge source of quote mines?

Similarly, have you seen any group use as many hoaxes? And it's not so much that they use the hoaxes, but that they keep using the same hoaxes after they've been exposed - the opposite of what happened with piltdown man, which was exposed as a hoax by scientists, and dropped. maybe UFO people come close on that score?

Papias

 

[shernren]

However, does any group quote mine as much as creationists? I mean, I can easily come up with dozens of cases of creationist quotemining in minutes, yet I don't think I could find even 6 quote mines easily by putting together all the other ones I could find that aren't from creationists. Am I forgetting some huge source of quote mines?

Do you pay as much attention to any other group of conspiracy theorists as you do to creationists?

I mean, the quote mine is really just a specialized case of the more general tactic of ignoring context - and that is used by conspiracy theorists all over, whether it's anti-Semitics harping on the Great Jewish Agenda of 1905 (or whatever it's called) or moon landing deniers harping on the creases in the American flag. Climate change skeptics are especially good at mining their quotes and data.