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Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 12 2013,18:28   

I was confronted by a creationist with several "quotes" from famous scientists that "proved" that evolution was a fraud. Most were already in the TalkOrigns Quote Mine Project." One that was not was,

Quote

W. HOWELLS, Harvard, "A great legend has grown up to plague both paleontologists and anthropologists. It is that one of; men can take a tooth or a small and broken piece of bone, gaze at it, and pass his hand over his forehead once or twice, and then take a sheet of paper and draw a picture of what the whole animal looked like as it tramped the Terriary terrain. If this were quite true, the anthropologists would make the F.B.I. look like a troop of Boy Scouts.", MANKIND SO FAR, p. l38

Published creationist sources;Creation Wiki: Paleoanthropology quotes

Sean Pittman, MD: Thoughts on Evolution From Scientists and Other Intellectuals

The quote was from a 1944 book, "Mankind So Far." I bought a copy which arrived today, 12, Nov. 2013. The "quote" was on page 128, not 138. From personal forensic work, nearly all police agencies are "boy scouts" compared to professional physical anthropologists. The rest of the quote was totally different from the creationist's presentation. A physical anthropologist, Prof. Howells was critical of paleoanthropologists who named a new species nearly every time they discovered a new skull. Howells was a "lumper" who saw great variation in single species as the common fact, and no need for elaborate classifications of species. This was particularly evident in his research on modern human origins. He was a strong advocate of the "out-of-Africa" hypothesis of human origins, and the biological unity of human races.

And of course, the "quote" was totally mangled by creationists to change the meaning. They have cut off the end of Howells sentence, and deleted the rest of his thought to totally alter the meaning of this passage. Here is the actual section, following "boy scouts"

Quote

"If this were quite true, the anthropologists would make the F.B.I. look like a troop of Boy Scouts ... and it has led to a certain amount of skepticism in the lay mind regarding the restorations of early man which have been made. But it is not quite true.

The restorations of fossil skulls do not really go beyond what is reasonable; in fact there are one or two cases in which the restoration has been made on a small part of a skull only to have another specimen turn up to give the true form; and in these cases the resemblance has been quite good."


The rest of the page follows in a similar vein, that fossil reconstructions are generally reasonable and based on the comparative analysis of multiple specimens of many species. He concluded with the entirely competent observation that soft tissue reconstructions in the 1940s were entirely speculative. Modern forensic studies, 50 years later, are considered much more accurate.

Edited by Dr.GH on Nov. 12 2013,17:36

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"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 12 2013,19:31   

Oops. I didn't use the local HTML surrogate. Will Edit to fix.

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"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 12 2013,19:56   

BTW, I posted this here and at my blog, Stones and Bones because it doesn't show up at the TalkOrigins discussion group.

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"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 12 2013,22:06   

A good rule of thumb is that anything quoted by an ID/creationist will.imply the opposite of the author's intent.

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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 12 2013,23:44   

Quote (midwifetoad @ Nov. 12 2013,20:06)
A good rule of thumb is that anything quoted by an ID/creationist will.imply the opposite of the author's intent.

That was why we started the the Quote Mine Project.

Edited by Dr.GH on Nov. 12 2013,21:45

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"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
OgreMkV



Posts: 3668
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 13 2013,08:04   

I did an extensive review the McDonald Quote (http://www.skepticink.com/smilodonsretreat/2013/11/12/mcdonald-the-great-darwinian-paradox/)

Meyer copied it from Dembski who copied it from Meyer who copied it from Wells who copied it from Behe who either wrote or copied it from Pandas.

It still doesn't say what they think it says.

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Ignored by those who can't provide evidence for their claims.

http://skepticink.com/smilodo....retreat

   
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 13 2013,12:53   

Quote (Dr.GH @ Nov. 12 2013,23:44)
Quote (midwifetoad @ Nov. 12 2013,20:06)
A good rule of thumb is that anything quoted by an ID/creationist will.imply the opposite of the author's intent.

That was why we started the the Quote Mine Project.

I did some work using the quote mine project.

http://blog.darwincentral.org/2006....of-dawn

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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 13 2013,13:42   

Maybe John Pieret will do a minor update to the TO Quote Mine Project.

   
OgreMkV



Posts: 3668
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 13 2013,18:30   

Quote (Dr.GH @ Nov. 13 2013,13:42)
Maybe John Pieret will do a minor update to the TO Quote Mine Project.

He's been talking about a major update.

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Ignored by those who can't provide evidence for their claims.

http://skepticink.com/smilodo....retreat

   
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 13 2013,21:10   

Quote (OgreMkV @ Nov. 13 2013,16:30)
Quote (Dr.GH @ Nov. 13 2013,13:42)
Maybe John Pieret will do a minor update to the TO Quote Mine Project.

He's been talking about a major update.

Good. It has been a long time since I tried to comment on the TO news group. I tried to sent the Howells quote, but nothing ever showed up.

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"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
Soapy Sam



Posts: 659
Joined: Jan. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 14 2013,03:45   

It is a habit of mine to paste any text presented by a Creationist into Google and see (if available) what the full piece says. Among the hits, one almost invariably finds endless repetition of the truncated version copy-pasted from site to site. Like the old joke about knowing someone is bullshitting 'cos their lips are moving, you know it's a quote-mine because it's a quote.

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SoapySam is a pathetic asswiper. Joe G

BTW, when you make little jabs like “I thought basic logic was one thing UDers could handle,” you come off looking especially silly when you turn out to be wrong. - Barry Arrington

  
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Nov. 14 2013,09:12   

My post did eventually appear on TO.

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"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
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