Darwinian Debating Device #5: The False Quote Mining Charge

_{Barry Arrington

October 16, 2014

Intelligent Design}

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One of the Darwinists’ favorite tactics is the “False Quote Mining Charge.” For those who do not know what “quote mining” is:

Quote mining is the deceitful tactic of taking quotes out of context in order to make them seemingly agree with the quote miner’s viewpoint or to make the comments of an opponent seem more extreme or hold positions they don’t in order to make their positions easier to refute or demonize. It’s a way of lying.

In summary, to accuse someone of quote mining is to accuse them of lying. It is a serious charge. Let us examine a recent example of the charge to illustrate.

In Origin of Species Darwin wrote this about the lack of transitional fossils in the fossil record:

But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

In a prior thread I asked Alan Fox the following question:

Are you suggesting that the fossil record now reveals the “finely graduated organic chain” that in Origin Charles Darwin predicted would be ultimately revealed as the fossil record was explored further?

He replied:

As far as it reveals anything, yes. The current record is certainly not incompatible with gradual evolution over vast periods of time.

I replied:

Again, leading Darwinists disagree:

Darwin’s prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.

Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Myth of Human Evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 45-46.

In response, in three separate comments, Mr. Fox charged me with quote mining:

Nice selection from the Bumper Book of Quote-mines, Barry

The quote-mine lifted (and I bet not by Barry) from a book implies that Eldredge has a problem with evolutionary theory.

Returning to the thread topic and Barry’s quote mine of Eldredge:

Let us summarize:

1. I quoted Darwin for the proposition that the fossil record should show a “finely graduated organic chain” and the fact that is does not show any such chain is the strongest objection to his theory.

2. I asked Alan Fox whether he believed the fossil record does show such a chain, and he said yes and that the record was not incompatible with gradual evolution.

3. I quoted Eldredge for the proposition that “Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.” VERY IMPORTANT: When I quoted Eldredge I called him a “leading Darwinist.”

4. Alan begins screaming “Quote mine”!

Now let’s go back to the beginning. To accuse someone of quote mining is to accuse them of quoting a source out of context to make it appear as though they agree with you when they don’t. It is a form of lying.

The proposition that I was advancing was that the fossil record has not turned out as Darwin expected. Alan disagreed. I quoted Eldredge to support my claim. Alan accused me of quoting Eldredge out of context to support my claim. This means Alan was accusing me of taking Eldredge’s words out of context to support my claim when in context they do not. He then said that I implied Eldredge has a problem with evolutionary theory. Bottom line: He accused me of lying and gross deceit.

But the truth is that I did not quote Eldredge out of context. Eldredge wrote that change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record, and that is exactly what he meant. Nothing in the context of the quotation changes that. He has never changed his views.

I never implied that Eldredge had a problem with evolutionary theory. Indeed, the whole point of quoting him is that his is an admission against interest. I called him a “leading Darwinist.” Alan’s charge is not only false it is imbecilic. He said I implied that a leading proponent of a theory has a problem with the theory, and that is absurd on its face.

In summary, Alan Fox should be ashamed of himself. He came onto these pages and falsely accused me of lies and deceit.

Comments

The term "quote mine" is so sophomoric. A professional like Nick does himself a disservice by using such a stupid term. The term is just a propaganda term to deflect quotes that the Darwinist/evolution advocate cannot deal with. If a quote is out of context then the person should say "that's out of context" and show why the quote is out of context. Even though if you look up the meaning and that the term means "out of context" it is very rarely used like that and is just thrown around casually and is just used to say that you have commited a crime for quoting an Evolutionist who said something that your debate opponent is not pleased with and cannot deny that it was said. If your debate opponent says "out of context" then they have to show it and prove their point. Just using the term quote mine is much easier because it is a negative term that dismisses what is posted and infers that there is something wrong with a quote without specifying what is wrong. This term can mean whatever the Evolutionist wants, but it really is a moronic term for a professional to use as a debating tactic.mrchristo_{October 19, 2014
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Matzke #102
They are quote-mining because Simpson was writing in the 1950s, and the record of transitional fossils has improved dramatically since then.
LOL I think this is worthy of its own post.lifepsy_{October 18, 2014
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I will admit that I was sympathetic to Nick up until about halfway through the thread, which I read over the course of two days. Mind you, I was not "with him" in the sense of agreeing with him, but I did feel he was making reasonably decent arguments and being a good sport. When he started to dance around certain statements he had made previously and admit under fire that they were half-true or absolute assertions were actually contextually determined, my tolerance began to waver. And when he finally made this comment: "They are quote-mining because Simpson was writing in the 1950s, and the record of transitional fossils has improved dramatically since then." I lost patience. "Quote mining" apparently means to cite anyone who damages Nick's argument. If Nick can argue the quote away, and prove that it actually means the opposite of what it says, then it is a form of "quote-mining". The underlying assumption is that all scientists are equally in concord about all facets of evolution, so anyone who breaks ranks is only seeming to do so, or is really only breaking ranks on some very abstruse point which appears nowhere in their writing. As a history major, I do not think Nick really understands what "context" means either. At least, it does not mean what Nick seems to think it means. He has used the term interchangeably in at least two different senses (literary context and historical context) which are not alike. If a person is going to be so textually imprecise then literally anything can be viewed as "out of context". Context then becomes merely a pretext for serving steaming helpings of Red Herring.CalvinsBulldog_{October 17, 2014
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"Probably some self-defense denial mechanism. Maybe in their hearts they just can’t believe Gould et al. uttered those blasphemies?" That will never happen at UD. Blasphemers are banned.tintinnid_{October 16, 2014
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Yes I've seen this schtick a million times. You quote an evolutionist (a hostile witness) that supports your argument. (e.g. lack of darwinian gradualism in the fossil record) Your opponent then accuses you of claiming that the quoted evolutionist doubted evolution. It's a false quote-mine accusation + strawman combo. They have to kick up dust like this to distract from the task of dealing with those awkward moments when prominent evolutionists spoke honestly. Probably some self-defense denial mechanism. Maybe in their hearts they just can't believe Gould et al. uttered those blasphemies?lifepsy_{October 16, 2014
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I'm probably more generous regarding Professor Matzke than I should be . . . but he reminds me of several professors that I had in college. There are several problems that cause communication disconnects: 1. Darwinism makes sense. It's a reasonable and compelling explanation for speciation and a "tree of life." 2. As more data was collected over the decades, it became obvious that there were limits to evolution in velocity (Haldane's dilemma), complexity (compare protoplasm and coacervates to ribosomes), and the "magical" generation of chemical cycles and body plans. 3. Darwinism was indiscriminately applied to social sciences and morality. People chose sides and fought bitterly for their ideology (of course, battles also occur within scientific disciplines). 4. Evolution has become a paradigm, and all new discoveries and publications must corroborate tiny parts of the theory. New discoveries typically are found to be "surprising" (such as Mary Schweitzer's work), but need to be carefully rationalized, melded into the massive body of published work, disputed, or ignored. 5. Professor Matzke is an expert in his field, and it's easy for him, or anyone else with a field of expertise, to project their own self--confidence into other fields. 6. Professor Matzke interacts with people who do not have expertise in his field, and assumes that they are bumpkins. This is also easy for anyone to fall into, myself included. 7. The conversation can easily become adversarial because people won't admit to losing an argument (as in Monty Python's Dead Parrot skit), people don't argue "fair," and people misunderstand (or twist) what the other person is writing, which might be unclear or overly long--winded. No one's immune. 8. There are a lot dumb arguments, weak theories, speculation, and outright fakery around. Personally, I don't mind being challenged, because in a civil conversation, sloppy thinking is exposed, and everyone can learn new things---as long as the dialogue is kept civil and honest. And I can naively try to pry Darwin's cold dead hands from Professor Matzke's throat---after all a strong theory can and should be challenged with new data. ;-) -QQuerius_{December 8, 2013
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I believe UD should publish everything that Matzke has said. There has been some very useful admissions here by him and interesting questions that flow from what he said. This is actually longer than I had originally intended First, there are no close transitions. My guess is that they would say that we would not know one because it would look like the original. However, this is a cop out as there must be a point where there should be transitions that could be distinguished from an ancestor. Each substantial new feature/characteristics should have some sort of ancestor that is different from the supposed descendant on this trait. A whole bunch of new stuff should not just appear but individual traits should show up as the change. Second, we were then told there were transitions but only from those that are far apart on any type of morphological scale. Are these really transitions? Or just a different species that appeared in the fossil record. There has to be some way of assessing just how much or how little these transitions vary from predecessors and ancestors. How many new traits are involved in these supposed transitions? Until that is done it may be specious to classify something as a transition. I know very little about paleontology so I assume they have some way of doing this and that they report it in their studies. Third, there is not taxonomic hierarchy that is real. There are just species and any tree of life or hierarchical system is a mental construct. This does not mean that two different organisms are not descendant from a common ancestral population, it just means that when we evaluate transitions there is in reality just one species, a transition, between two other species, an ancestor and a descendant. So when Matzke said that there were transitions between upper parts of the taxonomic hierarchy it really means that there were innumerable number of transitions missing that should be there. One can argue over the differences between the relevant species as to just how many transitions are missing. A key bit of information is whether the intervening geological strata produced fossils or not. If a large number of fossils were recovered from the intervening geological layers then that would say that more transitions should have been found. If new organisms just suddenly appeared it would seem to indicate that there is no naturalistic process that produced them. Science does not know a process that produces new species quickly. (it can be argued it does not have a slow process either) It is always possible that the fossilization did not occur but the presence of lots of other fossils would undermine that possibility. Matzke also pointed to an entire issue of a journal on transitions. My guess that would be definitive on just what is known. I haven't the time to read this nor would i probably understand a lot of it but it may answer a lot of the questions posed. Let me suggest what should be in the fossil record to validate the naturalistic process. There should be one species at some time in the past. Then there should be fossils of this species along with fossils of this species slightly different. There then should be examples of each variation either remaining the same or one slowly diverging from the original along side the species that does not change. (as one population gets separated from the other) Why because stasis is the norm according to the paleontologists but there is change possible when populations get separated. So we should have numerous example of stasis along with divergence proceeding in the same strata. Are horses and rhino such examples? What other ones are there? Why isn't there stasis as well as change throughout the fossil record? Horses and rhnio are very different or are they? Just how different are they and does either species have a capacity that is truly new or different that one day could lead to say they would produce a new phylum? So I think the process was fruitful and more should be encouraged. There is nothing to be afraid of.jerry_{December 8, 2013
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Or maybe he’s just a scumbag.
That's it! Just ban the psychopath. That will hit him where it hurts. UD don't need people like Matzke and should not indulge them. They waste our time because they have nothing to teach us. Ban them at the slightest hint of pathology.Mapou_{December 8, 2013
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Barry Arrington @ 124
Indeed. Why does he do it?
They are like small children who, when caught with cookie-crumbed lips by their mothers, insist the family dog ate the cookies. Childrens' lies and intellects are undeveloped, having only been vetted by their playmates and having themselves been stymied by their playmates commensurately undeveloped lies, they quite literally fail to grasp and anticipate how transparent they are to their mothers. They are like flat-earthers who insist the flat road ahead of them remains unrefuted by an image of our "blue marble" from space. Their argument is more an emotional bulwark against embarassment, perceived enemies and dragons, than a calm anlytical appraisal of the differences in the two kinds of information. When most of the intellectual challenge you receive is kowtowing from your students (who depend on your good graces to extract some return on their investment in "higher" education) or indifferent "peer reviewers" (who depend on editors' good graces to get published themselves), when all you've done for most of your "academic" life is engage with other academics who think like you, you cease to think critically. When you cease to think critically, you loose the ability to think outside the box in which you've put yourself. There is also the possibility of (a point I made on the Ubermensch thread) they have been so ‘succesfully maladaptive’ at avoiding truth for so long that they’ve cognitively imapired their brains/minds: they quite literally may have lost some cognitive ability to comprehend “politically incorrect” facts. They seemingly can’t with intellectual honesty, discuss concepts they don’t agree with. Dishonesty reduces applied intelligence: re-wires the brain Clever Sillies – Why the high IQ lack common sense We all know numerous bandwidth-sucking examples of such personalities, whose minds when trapped in intellectual cul-de-sac’s of their own making, instead of admitting “I understand your point”, pour smoke out their cybernetic ears and freezeup in a BSOD….. well, until they pop up on the next UD thread for another round of “whack a mole”.Charles_{December 8, 2013
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Charles, interesting idea. I certainly think we need to add "quote mining" to the FAQ. The dishonest use of that pejorative seems almost automatic to the Darwinists, and the lurkers need to know what they are up to.Barry Arrington_{December 8, 2013
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WJM @ 122. Indeed. Why does he do it? Of course, we cannot know for sure. But it seems to me that he brings a quasi-religious zeal to the table. Like many a deluded religious zealot before him, perhaps he thinks evil is not evil if it is in the service of a “greater good.” His god is Neo-Darwinism. Perhaps he believes that deceit, diversion and dissembling are acceptable tactics in the service of his god. Or maybe he’s just a scumbag. Who can tell?Barry Arrington_{December 8, 2013
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Barry Arrington Perhaps the forum would benefit from another sidebar menu, with entries indexed, linkable and ordered by poster name, in which concise summaries of their record of intellectual dishonesty (with links to original posts) would be documented and available for browsing and citation. There are numerous examples of multi-thread train wrecks in which intellectually dishonest people expose themselves, but the casual lurker might never find them, nor appreciate the sweeping scale of the habitual deceit and incompetence - unless it is organized and indexed, similar to FAQs. The entries could be written by anyone as a post appended to any thread, with the post designated as a candidate for the intellectual dishonesty archive, and then forum moderators could promote the post to the archive if they felt a compelling demonstration, worthy of exposure to the public, had been made. I doubt it would reduce the level or frequency of intellectual dishonesty, but it would certainly make exposing its' perpetrators less time consuming and repetitive. It could be called 'Heads on Pikes", or some such.Charles_{December 8, 2013
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If Nick had an ounce of humility or honor, he would simply admit that he had mistakenly assumed Mr. Arrington meant something other than what he said, apologize, and then perhaps make a point about what he thinks those who use these quotes are mistaken about in their conceptualization of the fossil record. Like so many Darwinists, Nick insists that he knows what his adversaries mean whether they admit it or not, and makes cases against what is in his mind, not against their actual argument. Which is why he didn't have to read Darwin's Doubt carefully to write a critical review of it; in Nick's mind, he knew what Meyer was thinking before Meyer even wrote the book.William J Murray_{December 8, 2013
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TSErick @ 120. Just so.Barry Arrington_{December 8, 2013
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@Nick
I’m not going to play any more, folks. There is no point trying to explain things if Barry won’t allow the explanations to be posted. Cheers, Nick
Typical. Do you tire of being a stereotype of pseudo-intellectuals? Why should Barry indulge your obvious continued pettifogging and reluctance to address the ACTUAL point without meaningless equivocation? You've made an absolute FOOL of yourself, and one better believe I am copying all of your remarks to send out to anyone who will read them. I suppose, to this end, I should thank you.TSErik_{December 8, 2013
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I'm not going to play any more, folks. There is no point trying to explain things if Barry won't allow the explanations to be posted. Cheers, NickNickMatzke_UD_{December 8, 2013
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Beautiful quote from Q,,, I wonder if Matzke could trouble us with a precise falsification criteria for sequence comparisons: The Mystery of Extreme Non-Coding Conservation - No Plausible Speculations - Cornelius Hunter - Nov. 2013 Excerpt: Consider this new paper from the Royal Society on “The mystery of extreme non-coding conservation” that has been found across many genomes. Years ago an evolution professor told me, in defending the claim that evolution is falsifiable, that if functionally unconstrained yet highly similar DNA sequences were found in different species, then evolution would be false. A few years later that is exactly what was discovered. In fact, the DNA sequences were extremely similar and even identical in different species,,, Did the professor agree that evolution was false? Not at all. For the fact of evolution goes far deeper than scientific findings and failed predictions.,,, Here is how the paper summarizes these findings of extreme sequence conservation: "… despite 10 years of research, there has been virtually no progress towards answering the question of the origin of these patterns of extreme conservation. A number of hypotheses have been proposed, but most rely on modes of DNA : protein interactions that have never been observed and seem dubious at best. As a consequence, not only do we still lack a plausible mechanism for the conservation of CNEs—we lack even plausible speculations." http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-mystery-of-extreme-non-coding.htmlbornagain77_{December 7, 2013
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Eldredge: Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their fossils as they pursued them up through the rock record.

Box: So far Eldredge is speaking about the fossil record in general, right?

Nick Matzke: No, he’s talking about tracing single species through the fossil record.
This confinement is simply not in text. BTW the distinction you make between the species level and higher orders suddenly seems utterly ridiculous to me. You say (#32):
Nick Matzke: This is a discussion of how species change. Species are the smallest units of analysis for paleontologists. It says nothing about changes in higher groups, e.g. hominids, whales, mammals, tetrapods. Eldredge, like Gould, thinks transitional fossils are common across those larger evolutionary distances, just not across the tiniest transition between one species and its closest sister species.
The fossil record shows us that the expected gradual change of species is lacking, but what certainly is lacking is an abundant and gradual array of intermediate fossils between, let’s say, hippos and whales. So what is your point exactly? Querius got it right early on in the discussion:
Querius #10: Hilarious! So, we can find transitional forms between chihuahuas and bears, but not between whales and other whales or dolphins or porpoises?
Box_{December 7, 2013
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I've posted a long review of the quote-mining issue to Barry's new thread: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/nick-matzke-admits-his-quote-mining-accusation-was-false-instead-of-apologizing-tries-to-change-the-definition-of-quote-mining-to-refusing-to-agree-with-me/ It's in moderation because of the links. I will continue the discussion over there.NickMatzke_UD_{December 7, 2013
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Let’s look at the context together, Niles Eldredge and I. Tattersall, The Myths Of Human Evolution, 1982:
NE: Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their fossils as they pursued them up through the rock record.
So far Eldredge is speaking about the fossil record in general, right?
No, he's talking about tracing single species through the fossil record. Most species only last for a few million years or less, so most "punctuated equilibria" studies look at the history of species in single formations, where you can literally walk up a hill and sample different layers over a few hundred thousand or a few million years, and compare the same species in these different layers.
NE: That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin Darwin himself … prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search …
Still general remarks about the fossil record. There is no indication that he restricts his remarks to the level of species – nor did Darwin.
Nope -- he says "individual kinds of fossils", this is just another way of referring to individual species, in a semi-popular work. Unless you think it is plausible that he is referring to the creationist definition of "kinds"?
NE: One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin’s predictions. Nor is the problem a miserly fossil record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong. Still no hint that we should confine Eldredge remarks to the ranks of species.
We've already had such hints. Plus, if you know the field at all, you know that punctuated equilibria is one of Eldredge's major career interests.
NE: The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor’s new clothes everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin’s predicted pattern, simply looked the other way… [my emphasis] Ok, here it is: ‘species’.
Like I said...
But on what grounds are we to conclude that the preceding general talk about the fossil record was in fact confined to the rank of species?
First, there were other hints just in the quotes you gave, secondly, Eldredge's interests are well-known, and third, it is false and obviously false that anything other than species remained "recognizably the same" through their fossil record. Mammal-like reptiles, horses, etc., had long series of fossils that were well-known in the 1980s and well-before, and the early members are not the same as the later ones. Fourth, there would be some indication that Eldredge was switching topics, if he switched to talking about species transitions from larger sorts of transitions.
How does the remark that species are conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time abrogate the preceding general remarks about the fossil record?
NE: Darwins prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.
Eldredge rounds up, speaking again in general terms about the fossil record as a whole. If he is only talking about “transitional fossils between extremely similar species” and is unaware of other problems in the fossil record, as you claim he is, then Eldredge is the worst writer ever.
"All lineages" means "every single species". He is indeed making a general statement, but it is a general statement about how species-to-species transitions look in the fossil record, not a general statement about any transition of any sort looks in the fossil record. Just in case it's still not clear, check out what Eldredge says about "gaps" in Niles Eldredge (2001), The Triumph of Evolution: And the Failure of Creationism.NickMatzke_UD_{December 7, 2013
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I’m sure there’s some mechanism to be discovered here! Maybe it’s minor, or maybe it will prove to be major.
I doubt it. The study you quote is Wiens 2000, it just deals with trying a flurry of phylogenetic methods, many of them very old and rarely used, on allozyme data. Many of these methods were not really designed for allozyme data, which is fairly crude in comparison to sequence data. You are just tossing around random statements and quotes in order to defend your original, indefensible and quite silly statement:
It was once hoped that analysis of similarity in proteins would settle some of the classification issues, but the results made no sense, so the anticipated method was simply abandoned.
…which you followed up with a statement that choosing slow or fast proteins was "cherry-picking". It's no more cherry picking than it is cherry-picking to use Carbon-14 to date archeological material, and using Uranium-Lead dating to date Cambrian material. Or using telescopes to look at planets and microscopes to look at tiny things. And anyway, like I said, if one is super-concerned about picking slow versus fast proteins, just put them both in the analysis. It's easy, although it's a bit of a waste of time and computer resources to people who know what they are doing.NickMatzke_UD_{December 7, 2013
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NickMatzke_UD, Previously, I quoted the following:
The frequency, polymorphic, and scaled parsimony methods all resolve the same, incorrect tree (P. neomexicanus, lugubris (hardii (ferreus (aeneus+flavipunctatus)))). This tree is not only rejected by the morphological and immunological data, but also makes little sense biogeographically (i.e. ferreus, lugubris,and flavipunctatus all occur in the extreme western U.S., whereas aeneus occurs in the Appalachians).
To which you responded:
Oh noes! Minor differences in results between two analyses!
Oh noes? ;-) It's funny how "minor differences" in Science can lead to big discoveries. And you went on to say
Therefore common ancestry is wrong! (suggesting that I'm throwing away $100 for a nickel's worth of data -Q) These are all closely-related salamanders on any analysis. They are all on the same little branch of the tree of life . . .
I understand what your trying to say, and I don't disagree with you in principle! But, you go on to say
and there is no particular guarantee that one random old-fashioned dataset (allozymes) and old-fashioned techniques (UPGMA and distance methods) will perfectly resolve every last detail.
Now you're throwing legitimate data under the bus, and marginalizing the work of previous scientists. This is exactly the cherry picking that I object to. I'm sure there's some mechanism to be discovered here! Maybe it's minor, or maybe it will prove to be major.
You might as well be arguing that the Earth is flat because maps from the 1800s aren’t quite perfect. Call me when some analyses put some salamanders inside frogs and other salamanders inside mammals. That would be a really significant disagreement.
Now you're just flailing. Please don't squirm. I'm actually trying to help you. I'm not trying to turn you into a creationist. I'm just trying to pry Darwin's cold, dead hands from your throat. -QQuerius_{December 7, 2013
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Matzke: [Y]ou are confusing Simpson’s statements about transitional fossils between major groups from the 1950s, with Eldredge’s statements about transitional fossils between extremely similar similar species in the 1980s.
Let’s look at the context together, Niles Eldredge and I. Tattersall, The Myths Of Human Evolution, 1982:
NE: Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their fossils as they pursued them up through the rock record.
So far Eldredge is speaking about the fossil record in general, right?
NE: That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin Darwin himself … prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search …
Still general remarks about the fossil record. There is no indication that he restricts his remarks to the level of species - nor did Darwin.
NE: One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin’s predictions. Nor is the problem a miserly fossil record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong.
Still no hint that we should confine Eldredge remarks to the ranks of species.
NE: The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor’s new clothes everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin’s predicted pattern, simply looked the other way… [my emphasis]
Ok, here it is: ‘species’. But on what grounds are we to conclude that the preceding general talk about the fossil record was in fact confined to the rank of species? How does the remark that species are conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time abrogate the preceding general remarks about the fossil record?
NE: Darwins prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.
Eldredge rounds up, speaking again in general terms about the fossil record as a whole. If he is only talking about “transitional fossils between extremely similar species” and is unaware of other problems in the fossil record, as you claim he is, then Eldredge is the worst writer ever.Box_{December 7, 2013
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Nick Matzke
As long as you keep refusing to admit the context of the Eldredge quote, you will be guilty of quote-mining when you use it to argue that the fossil record doesn’t support evolution.
Nick, a "quote mine" is a passage that leads the reader to believe that an author's meaning is different from what the one he actually intended. The quote Barry selected faithfully represents the author's intended meaning. It has nothing to do with the meaning that you intend; it's all about the authors intentions.
They are quote-mining because Simpson was writing in the 1950s, and the record of transitional fossils has improved dramatically since then.
Quotes from past luminaries are not "mined" simply because they do not reflect reality as you perceive it now; they are mined if they do not reflect reality as the author perceived it then. It is up to the reader, not you, to decide if those quotes are obsolete. To save face, just say this: "Barry, I am persuaded that the men you quote have oversimplified a complex problem and I can make a good case for it, but although I believe my convictions are well-founded, I should not have accused you of quote mining. It isn't true and I am sorry."StephenB_{December 7, 2013
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Everyone on UD should stop responding to Matzke, in my opinion. His purpose here is to inflate his ego and be a general nuisance to ID advocates. He's lucky this is not my forum. I would have booted him out a long time ago and as unceremoniously as possible.Mapou_{December 7, 2013
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I take it that you agree with me that it does not constitute quote-mining in the sense that the quotes are taken out of context.
They are taken out of context, if they are used to assert what the fossil record looks like today, which is how they are always used by creationists, and how they were originally used here on UD. Also: Eldredge not Eldridge, and you are confusing Simpson's statements about transitional fossils between major groups from the 1950s, with Eldredge's statements about transitional fossils between extremely similar similar species in the 1980s. Simpson's broad statements from the 1950s are the ones that are severely out of date because of the discovery of new transitional fossils between major groups. But finding more transitional fossils between major groups doesn't particularly effect Eldredge's punctuated equilibria debate about transitionals between extremely similar sister species. As I mentioned before, Eldredge looks to be wrong about what Darwin thought, and the evidence was, and is, mixed about the commonality of the punctuated equilibria pattern between extremely similar sister species.NickMatzke_UD_{December 7, 2013
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Wow. This is truly infuriating. You are not only ignorant of class hierarchies, you are willing to lie on top of it. Do you get paid for this or are you just doing this for brownie points? How do you figure that it does not take intelligence to use multiple inheritance? How is Darwinian evolution going to use multiple inheritance since it is constrained by common descent? You know, there was a time when this kind of academic shenanigans was punished by prison sentences. PS. Matzke, you are a lying sack of feces, from my perspective. You are beneath the dignity of the human race. This is my last response to you.
Whoo! That's a pretty strong reaction to an academic point about trees versus networks.NickMatzke_UD_{December 7, 2013
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Matzke @88:
In a non-nested tree, a design still inherits functionality from parent designs. Besides, why even claim, as Darwinists do, that the Darwinian tree of life is purely nested if the converse is not possible?
The converse is theoretically possible, but it wouldn’t be a tree, it would be a network or web or some such. Hierarchies have groups within groups. Simple inheritance doesn’t necessarily mean you have hierarchy/trees, e.g. inheritance within sexual populations isn’t treelike, since everyone has two parents. You could make a tree of just the father relationships, or a tree of just the mother relationships, but when you stick them together you’d have a network.
This is pathetic, man. You call yourself a scientist? You are acting like an uneducated moron. Computer programmers have been creating class hierarchies with multiple inheritance for decades. You don't know what a network is if you comparing class hierarchies to networks. Multiple inheritance is comparable to a graft from one branch of the tree to another. But then again, this semantic argument is just a subterfuge on your part since this is not the point of my argument.
(Which, BTW, shows that a non-tree pattern does not particularly indicate intelligence was involved.)
Wow. This is truly infuriating. You are not only ignorant of class hierarchies, you are willing to lie on top of it. Do you get paid for this or are you just doing this for brownie points? How do you figure that it does not take intelligence to use multiple inheritance? How is Darwinian evolution going to use multiple inheritance since it is constrained by common descent? You know, there was a time when this kind of academic shenanigans was punished by prison sentences. PS. Matzke, you are a lying sack of feces, from my perspective. You are beneath the dignity of the human race. This is my last response to you.Mapou_{December 7, 2013
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Nick Matzke,
Box: The quotes below by G.G.Simpson are addressing this problem and I don’t understand how presenting them qualifies as quote mining.

Matzke: They are quote-mining because Simpson was writing in the 1950s, and the record of transitional fossils has improved dramatically since then.
I take it that you agree with me that it does not constitute quote-mining in the sense that the quotes are taken out of context. Given your claim that the fossil record has been dramatically improved since the 1950s (and especially since the 1980s), it is safe to assume that the quotes are indeed an accurate reflection of G.G.Simpson position back in the 1950s. Your definition of quote-mining seems to me rather flexible at best. Again, I believe that the Elderidge quote, “Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record”, is to be understood in the context of the era in which he expressed his observation. An era with the knowledge of some transitional fossils, but far too few to meet Darwinian expectations. You claim that, since the time that Eldridge wrote his sentence, there has been a dramatic improvement of the fossil record. However you cannot have it both ways: if there has been a dramatic improvement of the fossil record since the 80s then Eldridge observed many gaps in the fossil record at the moment of his writing. Given the dramatic improvement of the fossil record Eldridge – back in the early 80s - could not have been in agreement with the proposition that there are “plenty of fossils demonstrating transitions between major groups”, as you claim in post #6.Box_{December 7, 2013
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Contrary to the misinformation Matzke would (once again) like to disseminate, the fact is that the popular evolutionary myth of 'Horse evolution' is also severely misleading: "The construction of the whole Cenozoic family tree of the horse is therefore a very artificial one, since it is put together from non-equivalent parts, and cannot therefore be a continuous transformation series". Dr. Heribert Nilsson - Evolutionist - Former Director of the Swedish Botanical Institute. Darwin vs. the Fossils Excerpt: "A team of 22 international researchers led by Ludovic Orlando of the University of Lyon in France did one of the first-ever comprehensive comparisons of ancient DNA (aDNA) from fossil equids (including horses, donkeys and zebras). These specimens came from 4 continents. The results were so shocking, they call for an almost complete overhaul of the horse series. For one thing, they concluded that many specimens relegated to separate species are actually variations on the same species. For another, they found that for evolution to be true there had to be sudden bursts of diversification – Cambrian-like explosions within the horse family – contrary to Darwin’s prohibition of great and sudden leaps." http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev200912.htm#20091211a "The results, published June 20 in the journal Science Express, come from a study of 19 groups of mammals that either are extinct or, in the case of horses, elephants, rhinos and others, are in decline from a past peak in diversity. All are richly represented in the fossil record and had their origins sometime in the last 66 million years, during the Cenozoic Era." https://uncommondescent.com/extinction/extinction-was-the-red-queen-right-does-failure-to-evolve-lead-to-extinction/ The evolution of the horse? http://creation.com/horse-evolution The non-evolution of the horse http://creation.com/the-non-evolution-of-the-horse "Whales, bats, horses, primates, elephants, hares, squirrels, etc., all are as distinct at their first appearance as they are now. There is not a trace of a common ancestor, much less a link with any reptile, the supposed progenitor." Harold Coffin - Zoologist - "A View Of Life" As well, the favorite evolutionary myth of the Giraffe's neck slowly getting longer appears to be quite a 'stretch' of the truth from what the fossil record actually says: "No data from giraffes then (in Darwin's time) existed to support one theory of causes over another, and none exists now."... ancestral species are relatively short necked, and spotty evidence gives no insight into how the long-necked species arose.""The standard story, in fact, is both fatuous and unsupported." - Stephen Jay Gould http://www.weloennig.de/Giraffe.pdf The Evolution of the Long-Necked Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis L.) - What do we really know? - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig http://www.weloennig.de/GiraffaSecondPartEnglish.pdf Pt. 1: Another Evolutionary Icon: The Long-Necked Giraffe - Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig - podcast http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2012-10-26T17_40_09-07_00 Here is another article by Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig: Geneticist W.-E. Loennig replies to Darwinist Nick Matzke: - September 2011 https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/geneticist-w-e-loennig-replies-to-darwinist-nick-matzke-it-heats-up/ Psalm 50:10-11 For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine.bornagain77_{December 7, 2013
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