A WTF Moment in Texas: Yup. It was a quote mine.

"Darwin was from England and Einstein was from Germany. The elitism and arrogance that has been going on is not what Texas is about."

I think 'Family in Focus' need new glasses. What does this mean ??

WTF sums it up perfectly.

Argument from xenophobia? That's a good one.

Romartus said: "Darwin was from England and Einstein was from Germany. The elitism and arrogance that has been going on is not what Texas is about." I think 'Family in Focus' need new glasses. What does this mean ??

Well, its obvious what he means. Physical reality is different Over There, and we don't want none of that socialistism natural laws down here, y'all.

If only it were true! Being forced to to live by physical laws that accorded with your personal belief system would cure religious belief fast. :)

Does WTF mean Where's Their Focus?

Is this sort of like the ancient Celts used to do? Crazy stuff, like painting themselves blue, fighting naked, frothing at the mouth, all to give a simple message: "Watch out, we're crazy, we're so goddam insane you better not mess with us"?

Darwin was from England and Einstein was from Germany. The elitism and arrogance that has been going on is not what Texas is about.

He forgot Hitlers comment on Einstein and Jewish science. That would seal it for most Texans.

Focus on the Family is from Colorado, an elite, arrogant place unlike real America in East Texas. And lots of these other atheists are from west Texas, also arrogant.

386sx said: (snip) Jonathan Saenz is here: http://at1.tea.state.tx.us/SBOE%20meetings/SBOE2008/Nov/SBOECommtFullNov1908d.mp3 at about 127:30. (snip)

Never mind. Just looked at the previous thread.

fnxtr said:

386sx said: (snip) Jonathan Saenz is here: http://at1.tea.state.tx.us/SBOE%20meetings/SBOE2008/Nov/SBOECommtFullNov1908d.mp3 at about 127:30. (snip)

I thought you meant 1:27:30 so went there. Is that Miller being treated to the Gish Gallop from the peanut gallery?

Yeah, I got that.

Don't be too hard on Texas, y'all.

At least they're prosecuting Dick Cheney.

hermit said: Argument from xenophobia? That's a good one.

Funny thing coming from a guy with a Spanish last name.

Was this an out of context quote or is it a fair one?

Hello

Just out of interest is this a quote mine? Or is it accurate?

Regards

Sorry about the double (now triple) post....

McLeroy asked anyone with suggestions about evolutionary theory-related reading to send them his way. He’s already read Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, and The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design.

I challenge McLeroy to intelligently discuss anything from TBW or WL. This Texan thinks he is full of bovine excrement.

Xeno said: Hello Just out of interest is this a quote mine? Or is it accurate? Regards

I think that it is still a WTF comment. The original context was that the board ignored the entire Texan scientific community to bring in out of state kooks. To answer this by saying that Darwin was from England and Einstein was from Germany is certainly a WTF moment.

Didn't Texas once have a governor who said something like: "If English was good enough for Jesus its good enough for me"?

Oh, perfect. He’s convincing himself that this is all about faith vs. atheism. Yeah, that’ll help. Ken Miller’s book is only a little better than Dawkins since Catholics are probably looked on among that group as only a little better than atheists. I’ll see how much good it will do anyone to recommend Keith Miller’s “Perspectives on an Evolving Creation”, and Francis Collin’s “The Language of God”.

— Mike

michael j said: I think that it is still a WTF comment. The original context was that the board ignored the entire Texan scientific community to bring in out of state kooks. To answer this by saying that Darwin was from England and Einstein was from Germany is certainly a WTF moment.

386sx said:

fnxtr said:

386sx said: (snip) Jonathan Saenz is here: http://at1.tea.state.tx.us/SBOE%20meetings/SBOE2008/Nov/SBOECommtFullNov1908d.mp3 at about 127:30. (snip)

I thought you meant 1:27:30 so went there. Is that Miller being treated to the Gish Gallop from the peanut gallery?

127 minutes and 30 seconds is what I meant.

386sx said:

michael j said: I think that it is still a WTF comment. The original context was that the board ignored the entire Texan scientific community to bring in out of state kooks. To answer this by saying that Darwin was from England and Einstein was from Germany is certainly a WTF moment.

Sure, still a WTF moment. They're still clowns who pretend like they don't know how to look up stuff. Still clowns who want to smuggle fundie religion in there. WTF indeed.

386sx -

Mr. Saenz was referring to the complaints about how the DI advisers aren’t from Texas. His point was that Einstein and Darwin weren’t from Texas either. He talks about “elitism and arrogance” later at about 131:40.

This is actually a very significant quote mine.

Saenz is a deluded creationist, but that only makes it dumber to twist his words. Why quote mine a guy who's already laughably wrong if you quote him honestly?

The reason that it is a very serious quote mine is that Saenz seems to have been using Einstein and, oddly, Darwin, as examples of very expert figures.

He wasn't saying that Einstein was no good because Einstein wasn't from Texas, but rather, that judging the various DI stooges because they aren't from Texas is unfair.

And on that point, he's right. The problem with them is that they are deluded or dishonest peddlers of pseudoscience and ignorance. Whether or not they are from Texas - home of many creationists AND many prestigious legitimate scientists - is irrelevant.

I'm sure the quote mine was accidental, but there's no need to exaggerate the stupidity of creationist arguments. They're stupid enough when presented accurately.

tresmal said: Didn't Texas once have a governor who said something like: "If English was good enough for Jesus its good enough for me"?

386sx said:

Darwin was from England and Einstein was from Germany. The elitism and arrogance that has been going on is not what Texas is about.

That appears to be a quote mine. Jonathan Saenz is here: http://at1.tea.state.tx.us/SBOE%20meetings/SBOE2008/Nov/SBOECommtFullNov1908d.mp3 at about 127:30. Mr. Saenz was referring to the complaints about how the DI advisers aren't from Texas. His point was that Einstein and Darwin weren't from Texas either. He talks about "elitism and arrogance" later at about 131:40.

RBH said: I'd like to check on this, but for some reason I can't play that MP3. Would someone transcribe the relevant few minutes, please? My DSL has been wonky the last two days so I'm on a dialup backup and it's getting frustrating.

Soon to appear in Conservapaedia?

eliticism (n): Any attitude displayed by any person who might have more intelligence or edumacation than you do. Especially pronounced when you are spewing forth on any topic in which he or she claims expertise.

386sx said:

RBH said: I'd like to check on this, but for some reason I can't play that MP3. Would someone transcribe the relevant few minutes, please? My DSL has been wonky the last two days so I'm on a dialup backup and it's getting frustrating.

Here's Mr. Saenz's full session in front of the Board: http://www.upload-mp3.com/pfiles/34966/Saenz.mp3 (About 4 1/2 megabytes.) At about 07:20 on that Saenz.mp3 file he says: "And umm, and by the way, umm, all this talk about status and people not being from Texas, Darwin was from England and Einstein was from Germany. So." And then there's about 4 minutes of stuff, and then at about 11:20 on that Saenz.mp3 file he says: "Oh, well not to mention people that have testified today and been, you know, been laughed at and been ridiculed, I mean, the eliticism and arrogance that, that has been going on is, is really not what Texas is about."

yotu said: He keeps saying that they have been debating about 'one word' being changed. Is that true? What is the word?

I'm just taking a wild-guess here. I'm lazy, my connection isn't too fast either, and why should I bother to research any more than those ID'ts anyway?

Wild Theory Forward: Could the 'word' perhaps be related to the (failed) global exchange of 'creation' into 'design proponent' in that infamous panda school book, which led to ID's disgraceful defeat in a court case a few years back after it was pointed out that in some places the cut&paste had left this curious phrase: "cdesign proponentists"? / $0.02

Just in case there was any doubt about why the creationists on the Texas State Board of Education are so intent on keeping the "strengths and weaknesses" language (or "strengths and limitations" in it latest cosmetic morph)...

— John Pieret at http://dododreams.blogspot.com/

386sx said:

RBH said: I'd like to check on this, but for some reason I can't play that MP3. Would someone transcribe the relevant few minutes, please? My DSL has been wonky the last two days so I'm on a dialup backup and it's getting frustrating.

Here's Mr. Saenz's full session in front of the Board: http://www.upload-mp3.com/pfiles/34966/Saenz.mp3 (About 4 1/2 megabytes.) At about 07:20 on that Saenz.mp3 file he says: "And umm, and by the way, umm, all this talk about status and people not being from Texas, Darwin was from England and Einstein was from Germany. So." And then there's about 4 minutes of stuff, and then at about 11:20 on that Saenz.mp3 file he says: "Oh, well not to mention people that have testified today and been, you know, been laughed at and been ridiculed, I mean, the eliticism and arrogance that, that has been going on is, is really not what Texas is about."

Richard,

Thank you for demonstrating the difference between science and ID: responsible scientists move to correct misleading statements as quickly as possible; cdesign proponentsists base their entire movement upon them.

I'd like to echo the sentiments of the above comment.

Regards

James F said: Richard, Thank you for demonstrating the difference between science and ID: responsible scientists move to correct misleading statements as quickly as possible; cdesign proponentsists base their entire movement upon them.

steve said: Which do you think is the most blatant quote-mine by the IDiots that they base their entire movement on?

Mike said:

steve said: Which do you think is the most blatant quote-mine by the IDiots that they base their entire movement on?

The quotemining of Gould has to be the most blatant of the dishonesty of the thoroughly dishonest creation science movement.

steve, it seems reasonable to read the comments as referencing the practice of quotemining, and perhaps not specific quotemines. There are many lists establishing that it is a creationist practice, see for example The TalkOrigins Archive The Quote Mine Project and its link list.

I think you can get answers to some of your questions there, it looks like people have put in a lot of effort to try to rid the internet from the weed of repeated lies.

Torbjörn Larsson, OM said: steve, it seems reasonable to read the comments as referencing the practice of quotemining, and perhaps not specific quotemines. There are many lists establishing that it is a creationist practice, see for example The TalkOrigins Archive The Quote Mine Project and its link list. I think you can get answers to some of your questions there, it looks like people have put in a lot of effort to try to rid the internet from the weed of repeated lies.

Steve,

At the bottom of the page is an arrow that has a link to the quotes, as well as other arrows that allow searching, etc. At least the link works for me.

These guys have been at this for some time. I guess they don't waste their time with research or anything scientific. I am also unaware of any creationist that has ever admitted that the quote was actually a quote mine. That is why Richard deserves kudos.

steve said: I went there but there are a lot of broken links. Can you give me a good example of a quote mine and who said it? Thanks.

Cheryl Shepherd-Adams said: Soon to appear in Conservapaedia? eliticism (n): Any attitude displayed by any person who might have more intelligence or edumacation than you do. Especially pronounced when you are spewing forth on any topic in which he or she claims expertise.

Have you seen the Conservapedia entry for Obama? Unfathomable.

steve said: Which creotards use these quotemines? Are they published somewhere? Does Behe or Dembski quote mine Gould etc.?

That the fossil record is in important respects hostile to a Darwinist interpretation has long been known to insiders as the "trade secret of paleontology," and the secret is now coming out in the open.

Johnson also trotted out the old creationist yarn about Stephen Jay Gould's supposed admission "that the absence of transitional fossils was the trade secret of paleobiologists." What Gould really said, in Natural History 86(5), May 1977 was that

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology."

It goes without saying that "extreme rarity" is not the same as "absence." Johnson did not quote Gould correctly in Albuquerque, and repeated his error in Los Alamos. Gould had this to say about earlier, similar disinformation campaigns in the May 1981 Discover magazine:

"Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists -whether through design or stupidity, I do not know - as admitting that the fossil record contains no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but are abundant between larger groups. The evolution from reptiles to mammals...is well documented."

Phillip Johnson has seized and reworded Gould's 24-year old quote, while ignoring Gould's 20-year-old explanation - selective advocacy at its most obvious. It's no wonder the "Intelligent Design" movement's leader is a lawyer and not a scientist.

The Creationist movement's quote-mining of Darwin on the evolution of the eye is littered all over the web.

This is one of their stock-standard quote mines, and it really is used all the time.

lkeithlu said:

Cheryl Shepherd-Adams said: Soon to appear in Conservapaedia? eliticism (n): Any attitude displayed by any person who might have more intelligence or edumacation than you do. Especially pronounced when you are spewing forth on any topic in which he or she claims expertise.

Have you seen the Conservapedia entry for Obama? Unfathomable.

Thanks for showing such a *great* example of how science discovers and acknowledges mistakes!

Wonder why it is that one never sees intelligent design or creationist sites following this ethos . . .

Dave Thomas said:

steve said: Which creotards use these quotemines? Are they published somewhere? Does Behe or Dembski quote mine Gould etc.?

The prime Founder of ID, Philip Johnson, is fond of quote mining Stephen Jay Gould. Here's one:

That the fossil record is in important respects hostile to a Darwinist interpretation has long been known to insiders as the "trade secret of paleontology," and the secret is now coming out in the open.

and here's one I witnessed in person:

Johnson also trotted out the old creationist yarn about Stephen Jay Gould's supposed admission "that the absence of transitional fossils was the trade secret of paleobiologists." What Gould really said, in Natural History 86(5), May 1977 was that

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology."

It goes without saying that "extreme rarity" is not the same as "absence." Johnson did not quote Gould correctly in Albuquerque, and repeated his error in Los Alamos. Gould had this to say about earlier, similar disinformation campaigns in the May 1981 Discover magazine:

"Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists -whether through design or stupidity, I do not know - as admitting that the fossil record contains no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but are abundant between larger groups. The evolution from reptiles to mammals...is well documented."

Phillip Johnson has seized and reworded Gould's 24-year old quote, while ignoring Gould's 20-year-old explanation - selective advocacy at its most obvious. It's no wonder the "Intelligent Design" movement's leader is a lawyer and not a scientist.

Cheers, Dave

PvM said: Shameless innuendo. The conservatives are surely hurting. Thank God.

lkeithlu said:

Cheryl Shepherd-Adams said: Soon to appear in Conservapaedia? eliticism (n): Any attitude displayed by any person who might have more intelligence or edumacation than you do. Especially pronounced when you are spewing forth on any topic in which he or she claims expertise.

Have you seen the Conservapedia entry for Obama? Unfathomable.

Didn’t Texas once have a governor who said something like: “If English was good enough for Jesus its good enough for me”?

_____________________________________________

That's from Ma Ferguson, first female governor of Texas.

"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for our little Texas school children."

lkeithlu said: Have you seen the Conservapedia entry for Obama? Unfathomable.

steve said: I went there but there are a lot of broken links. Can you give me a good example of a quote mine and who said it? Thanks.

Not that you need one more person saying this, but I'd just like to congratulate you on showing one of the stark differences between the creotards/IDiots and the scientific community, which is that, confronted with the evidence, a scientist will admit to a mistake. Kudos.

Johnson also trotted out the old creationist yarn about Stephen Jay Gould’s supposed admission “that the absence of transitional fossils was the trade secret of paleobiologists.

This is a quote mine. Johnson did not say the above. I think another confession to quote-mining is needed.

steve said: Johnson also trotted out the old creationist yarn about Stephen Jay Gould’s supposed admission “that the absence of transitional fossils was the trade secret of paleobiologists. This is a quote mine. Johnson did not say the above. I think another confession to quote-mining is needed.

RBH said:

steve said: Johnson also trotted out the old creationist yarn about Stephen Jay Gould’s supposed admission “that the absence of transitional fossils was the trade secret of paleobiologists. This is a quote mine. Johnson did not say the above. I think another confession to quote-mining is needed.

Talk to Dave Thomas about it.

steve said:

RBH said:

steve said: Johnson also trotted out the old creationist yarn about Stephen Jay Gould’s supposed admission “that the absence of transitional fossils was the trade secret of paleobiologists. This is a quote mine. Johnson did not say the above. I think another confession to quote-mining is needed.

Talk to Dave Thomas about it.

Yes I agee with you. Dave Thomas should not have quote-mined. It is wrong for either side of this issue.

Martín Pereyra said: Funny thing coming from a guy with a Spanish last name.

Um, this thread is deader than a doornail, Jonathan. I'd close it, but it's way back in the archives. Let it go, please.