Quote mining

https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/quote-mining.html

Quote mining is the slimiest, most disgusting form of lying used by creationists.

The image shows the most infamous example, but is still put about by creationist liars. I can call them liars, because I can't imagine they haven't been told, repeatedly, how mendacious it is.

Darwin frequently used a technique in forming an argument by framing a problem, or a concept that seemed difficult to answer or understand, in order to set up his answer to it. The quote-miners will quote his expression of the supposed problem but fail to quote his answer to it, giving a completely false impression of what Darwin thought.

 Here, the intention is to give the false impression that Darwin thought that the formation of the eye by natural selection was "absurd in the highest possible degree". But did he?

Let's check. Search engines like Google will give only verbatim hits when you enclose the search string in quotes. Let's search for a distinctive phrase from the quote and see what we get. Googling "inimitable contrivances" yields, among other hits, http://darwin-online.org.uk/Variorum/1859/1859-186-dns.html where we find, 

"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. 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." - Origin of Species (1859), page 187.

 

So reason tells him that what seemed to be absurd is not a real problem. The quote miner has selected Darwin's introduction to the matter to try and give the gullible the impression that Darwin thought the opposite of what he actually thought. In other words, the quote miner has lied.

There are many examples of these sorts of lies coming from the creationist camp. Jesus must be well pleased. Remember to search for distinctive phrases, search for them in quotes, find the source, and read the mined quote in context. You will invariably find that someone has tried to lie to you.

You can also look at this collection of examples where people have already done the leg-work for you. https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/contents.html


See also, https://ncse.ngo/misquoted-scientists-respond