Reworking the Quote Mine

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen 

Centuries ago, I wrote "Working in a Quote Mine" about accusations by anti-creationists of "quote mining" by biblical creationists. That is, taking remarks by a proponent of molecules-to-miner evolution out of context, misquoting, or other trickery for our own ends. 

Credit for image of burros at silver mine ca. 1900: LoC / Photochrom Collection

The main advantage of mining for quotes over mining for nose gold is that it's easier to share the quotes. Even better, however, is that using quotes by evolutionists who admit that their belief system has serious problems is a technique in law called statements against interest.

One of the tricks atheists use to dehumanize Christians and creationists is to lie about us. A lot. To say that we are digging up quotes to imply that some materialists suddenly announced, "My pals and I ain't riding for the Darwin brand no more" is sheer fatuousness. I reckon that anti-creationists make this charge for a couple of reasons. One is that their faith is shaken, "Galileo Figaro! Thunderbolt and lightning! Frightening me very!" The other reason is their desire to vilify creationists through poisoning the well and negate the truth of what we have to say.

I'll allow that there are mistakes, and biblical creationists should have a very high standard, what with being human and all. We cannot pass around a quote of a quote of a quote like secularists using non-reproducible peer-reviewed papers. I have discarded quotes myself when I could not find a reliable source. (We don't need hearsay because the facts are on our side anyhow.) Sometimes feral atheists will accuse us of lying because of a wording imperfection or using other typo pouncing. Other times, inefficient research yields an imprecise quote that works against us. Stop that.

In "That 'Quote Mining' Monkey Business", I quoted George Wald. Misotheists went ballistic, calling me a liar and so on. Their accusations were based on ignorance of the subject matter, their own poor research, and variations on Wald's statements. In this case (and in general) it is up to the accusers to back up their claims, showing that the creationist was disingenuous, incorrect, and embellishing the quote so we can make a straw man argument. 

What follows below is an article by Dr. Jerry Bergman from 2004. He was maligned by someone who did not have his own facts straight, beclowning himself through ridiculous attacks. This analysis is helpful to see how anti-creationists (who often are unskilled in science and ignorant of their own mythology) become desperate to hogtie creationists. Also note that the source of the attack was not from a reputable source, but just another propaganda mill that is revered by anti-creationists.

The claim by Darwinists that  “misquoting” by creationists is universal, or close to it, was investigated in this paper, and a specific example was examined and shown to be incorrect.  Specifically, the claims of Jim Foley were evaluated and were shown to be totally erroneous.  The case I examined, Foley claimed, was one of the worst cases he has identified of creationist misquoting.  I have also evaluated at many other cases of alleged creationist misquoting and concluded the claim of misquoting is usually actually an attempt to misrepresent the creationist, although in some cases it was due to typographical errors, sloppiness, or was in a few cases actually contrived by anti-creationists.

You can read the rest at "An Evaluation of Alleged Misquoting by Creationists—the Case of Jim Foley".