Answers in Genesis is great place to find misquotes.

Here is great example. In the following they try to show that the number of supernova remnants is an mystery that "evolutionist" astronomers can't solve:

As the evolutionist astronomers Clark and Caswell say, ‘Why have the large number of expected remnants not been detected?’ and these authors refer to ‘The mystery of the missing remnants’.4

Source

Lets first look at the context of the "The mystery...." The capital letter of "The" is false and the remainder of the sentence shows that creationists have made a rather dishonest misquote. Here is what the sentence actually says with what the creationists quoted in bold.

It appears that with the above explanation there is no need to postulate values of Eo/n differing greatly from those in the Galaxy, and the mystery of the missing supernova remnants is also solved.

"[i]s also solved" changes the meaning of that sentence a great deal.

You don't have to take my word for it. Check out the journal page where the quote came from.

The same page, but two paragraphs up shows that "Why have..." question is a rhetorical question.

You can read more about these misquotes here.

Indeed it is part of comprehensive document which shows the systematic errors and distortions made by Keith Davies, the creationist that Answers in Genesis used as its source.

I checked out your sources and read the original article (which was a bit difficult for a layman like myself) that AiG quoted from (more correctly AiG was quoting from an article by a Mr. Davies).

Here are my observations.

1) It doesn't seem as though the question, "Why have the large number of expected remnants not been detected" is a rhetorical one. Rather, it is a question that the two scientists are attempting to answer. In fact the line prior to the question states, "Thus two anomalies require explanation." The question quoted by AiG is the first anomaly that needs an explanation. The scientists then go on to offer a reason why the "expected number" was less than detected.

2) The gist of AiG's article doesn't rely on this one quote. In fact, in the AiG article the statement you quoted above only appears as a passing remark.

3) The summary statement by Clark and Caswell is, "It appears that with the above explanation there is no need to postulate values of E0/n differing greatly from those in the Galaxy..." doesn't seem to rebut the main thrust of the AiG article in question (to quote the main thrust, "...the predictions for the Milky Way’s satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud are also consistent with a young universe. Theory predicts 340 observable SNRs if the LMC were billions of years old, and 24 if it were 7000 years old. The number of actually observed SNRs in the LMC is 29."

Therefore, this descent into an alleged "misquoting" is irrelevant (in logic this is a fallacy called a red herring) to the point being made in the AiG article.

Thanks for the original post, it made for an interesting little study.

Today @ 03:50 AM
TheFiveSolas:

I checked out your sources and read the original article (which was a bit difficult for a layman like myself) that AiG quoted from (more correctly AiG was quoting from an article by a Mr. Davies).

Here are my observations.

1) It doesn't seem as though the question, "Why have the large number of expected remnants not been detected" is a rhetorical one. Rather, it is a question that the two scientists are attempting to answer. In fact the line prior to the question states, "Thus two anomalies require explanation." The question quoted by AiG is the first anomaly that needs an explanation. The scientists then go on to offer a reason why the "expected number" was less than detected.

Gee, the astronomers make a question and promptly answer that question. That is by any definition a rhetorical quesion.

2) The gist of AiG's article doesn't rely on this one quote. In fact, in the AiG article the statement you quoted above only appears as a passing remark.

I see that you ignore my reference to an extremely detailed debunking of the supernova remnants claims which originated from Davies and used by AiG.

3) The summary statement by Clark and Caswell is, "It appears that with the above explanation there is no need to postulate values of E0/n differing greatly from those in the Galaxy..." doesn't seem to rebut the main thrust of the AiG article in question (to quote the main thrust, "...the predictions for the Milky Way’s satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud are also consistent with a young universe. Theory predicts 340 observable SNRs if the LMC were billions of years old, and 24 if it were 7000 years old. The number of actually observed SNRs in the LMC is 29."
[/quote]

Talk about desperate attempt to save the honor of your heros. If the quote is not part of AiG's thrust then why did they quote it? And for heaven's sake why remove "is also solved"?

The number of SNR is discussed in detail in the article I referenced here. Basically the figures that Davies used and AiG uncritically repeated are false. Davies used a three decade old estimate for the number of SNRs in the Milky Way that existed for all time -- not the number of SNR that can actually be observed. Many are now too dim to be observed. The view for large volumes of space is blocked. There are other simple reasons as well. As for the LMC figures which you quote, the article I reference quotes that statement by Sarfati and gives the following comments:

The number of SNRs observed in the Large Magellanic Cloud in 1999 is actually 37 (Williams et al. 1999), although more are being discovered all the time - indeed it is recognised that, just like our own galaxy, there are many more SNRs yet to be discovered in the LMC (Milne et al. 1980; Dickel & Milne 1988; Chu & Kennicutt 1988). The discrepancy in Sarfati's figures can probably be explained by outdated references, and thus should not be counted against him.

However, both Davies and Sarfati make a more serious error. The estimate of 340 for the total number of SNRs in the LMC is from Mathewson & Clarke (1973). However, Clark & Caswell (1976), Clarke (1976) and Milne et al. (1980) all point out major problems with Mathewson & Clarke's estimate - basically, due to improved observations of SNRs in the LMC, Mathewson & Clarke's estimate is no longer valid. The true number of SNRs in the Large Magellanic Cloud is much, much lower.

Now, Davies has read at least one of these papers (the Clark & Caswell paper), thus he must be aware of the status of the Mathewson & Clarke estimate. Yet he uses this as one of the main supports of his theory, knowing that it is at the very least in serious dispute. When combined with the deliberate misquotation of the Clark & Caswell paper (detailed in Section 10.9), the only logical conclusion is that either Davies is seriously incompetent or he has deliberately set out to deceive (and Sarfati appears to have blindy copied from Davies' original paper, without verifying the original calculation).

Most of the cited references are online, just go to the article and follow the links.

Therefore, this descent into an alleged "misquoting" is irrelevant (in logic this is a fallacy called a red herring) to the point being made in the AiG article.

To called that misquote "alleged" is to ignore reality. It demonstrates an huge lack of honesty and competence in creationist circles. And for you ignore that I referenced an article that dealt the SNR claims in general and then say that I should not attacked Sarfati merely on this misquote is a red herring on your part. For shame.

Thanks for the original post, it made for an interesting little study.

You have made an interesting study in the ability of YECs to ignore what is right in front of them.

Keith Davies has a bit of a history of misquoting. He wrote the following:

When astronomers say things like that, "we are at out [sic] wits end", "we must be close to a breakthrough", "we're in a disaster situation if we trust the data", and "this is a shocking result", then something is happening. What is happening is that that [sic] the data fits a young universe. Now when I say a young universe, I really mean a young universe. I mean a biblical young universe of the order of 10,000 years or less. Let me tell you what the teamleader, Dr. Parice of the John Hopkins University said. When he showed the national press, this is in November of 1994, photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope, he said this: "We expected the image to be covered wall to wall by faint red stars. There were just a handful there. This was a disaster for the whole way that astronomers are developing the idea of an old universe." Those red dwarfs just have to be there because the models can't be wrong because the model of a star is so simple. A red dwarf particularly is very easy to model on a computer. They are very long lived. There should be that large number of red dwarfs there, but they are not there. That is just one evidence for a young universe. There are lots of others from astronomy.

The "Dr. Parice" quote turned out to be a complete fabrication as was documented at Missing Supernova Remnants as Evidence of a Young Universe?
A Case of Fabrication.

You come across as being rather defensive (offensive?). Your original post was in reference to "misquoting", and that was what I addressed in my response.

Your statement that I "ignored your referenced article that dealt (with) the SNR claims..." is simply mistaken. The reason is simple, I overlooked your link because you nowhere stated that it offered a detailed rebuttal to the CLAIMS of AiG's article but rather stated:

You can read more about these misquotes here.

There was NO indication in your original post that the link dealt with anything OTHER than more "misquotes" and since I had already looked up your MAIN "misquote" I wasn't interested in seeing any more fallacious examples.

So it was hardly an "evasion" but rather I had better things to do with my time than to read more "misquotes" (which as I've already explained is how your statement and link came across as dealing with). Now, if you had explained that the link ALSO contained a detailed rebuttal of the type of argument made by AiG then I might have been inclined to read it (which I will probably do tomorrow).

Lastly, according to the Cambridge Online Dictionary:

A rhetorical question is a question that is asked in order to make a statement and which does not expect an answer.

Since the question was asked and then answered, it doesn't count as a rhetorical question.

Keith Davies in Super Nova Remnants - How old is the universe anyway? makes yet another misquote. The bold is what Davies quoted. Non-bold is what he did not:

The final example is the SNR population of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The observations (many collected in Mathewson et al. 1983) have caused considerable surprise and loss of confidence in simple models such as those in this paper.

The page with the quote is online here.

I will again refer people to this article which debunks in detail the claims of Davies.

Here is an interesting quote from it:

One of the most important assertions that the YECs make is that there are no third-stage, i.e. SNRs in the radiative stage Indeed, the very presence of just one third-stage SNR would completely destroy the YEC argument for a young Universe, as the amount of time a SNR takes to reach this stage is way beyond anything that the YEC time scale allows.

So, are there any actual third-stage SNRs? There have been dozens of papers published over the last several decades examining and discussing actual radiative SNRs - quite an achievement considering how, according to YECs, they don't actually exist! Despite what the YECs say, radiative SNRs do actually exist. A brief reading of the relevant literature reveals the following Galactic SNRs that are in the radiative phase (and there are others):

G69.0 + 2.7 (Sarfi-Harb & Ogelman 1995).
G166.2 + 2.5 (Routledge et al. 1986).
G180.0 - 1.7 (Furst & Reich 1986).
G189.1 + 3.0 (Oliva et al. 1999).
G279.0 + 1.1 (Duncan et al. 1995).
G290.1 - 0.8 (Rosado et al. 1996)28.

Again most of the articles that it cites are online, just follow the links.

A few paragraphs latter:

In addition, Davies's assumption that the adiabatic phase of SNR evolution (i.e. the "second stage") always lasts 120,000 years and that the radiative phase always lasts 880,000 years is also completely wrong. As was mentioned in Section 5.1, the evolution of SNRs varies enormously.

Today @ 05:10 AM
TheFiveSolas:

You come across as being rather defensive (offensive?). Your original post was in reference to "misquoting", and that was what I addressed in my response.

Your statement that I "ignored your referenced article that dealt (with) the SNR claims..." is simply mistaken. The reason is simple, I overlooked your link because you nowhere stated that it offered a detailed rebuttal to the CLAIMS of AiG's article but rather stated:


There was NO indication in your original post that the link dealt with anything OTHER than more "misquotes" and since I had already looked up your MAIN "misquote" I wasn't interested in seeing any more fallacious examples.

So it was hardly an "evasion" but rather I had better things to do with my time than to read more "misquotes" (which as I've already explained is how your statement and link came across as dealing with). Now, if you had explained that the link ALSO contained a detailed rebuttal of the type of argument made by AiG then I might have been inclined to read it (which I will probably do tomorrow).

The quoting in this board does not show what TheFiveSolas
quoted of what I wrote.

He quotes me as saying:

You can read more about these misquotes here.

He pretends that I never mentioned that what I cite contained info besides the misquotes. This is false and that it is false is clear if one also quotes my next sentence:

You can read more about these misquotes here.

Indeed it is part of comprehensive document which shows the systematic errors and distortions made by Keith Davies, the creationist that Answers in Genesis used as its source.

Nailed!

You are hysterical! Your next sentence refers to the "systematic errors and distortions made by KEITH DAVIES". Aig's article was NOT written by him, nor was he quoted, rather it was HIS quotation of Clark and Caswell that was used.

I don't know who Mr. Davies is, apparently he doesn't have an advanced degree (thus the Mr.), and doesn't work for AiG, which was the original target of your Thread. Which is why I wasn't interested in reading about his "errors".

You seem to find things (i.e., falsehoods, evasions, pretenses, etc.) where they just don't exist.

I'll reiterate, your original post didn't critique the AiG article, but instead chose to focus on what you allege is a "misquote". That is what I focused on. Your statements that I could look up more misquotes was of no interest to me, nor was a link to errors and distortions made by an unknown Mr. Keith Davies. Your claim that those links contained MORE than what your statements implied is irrelevant since that is NOT how I understood them.

On a side note, why do you feel the need to impugn my motives when I've corrected your caricature once already?

Dr Sarfati expressly stated that he was writing a layman's summary of Mr Davies' paper. Therefore it is unreasonable to expect him to dot every t and cross every eye to please biblioskeptics like ardipithecus (and see his comments on that pathetic excuse for an "ape-man" at http://www.answersingenesis.org/news/kadabba.asp). It's like those misotheists who demand that every God had to kiss their patoots and mention things the 21st century provincialists deem important.

And Dr S. has answered critics of this before, on another debate board http://www.kipertek.com/cgi-bin/wsmb...ogetic+3.1157, where a cool guy calling himself Kerameus Trichonos or Dan posted a letter from him in response to the same criticism:

I have heard from Dr. Safarti. He asked that I refer you and Eagle to his response to Ken Miller's claim about the "backward vertebrate retina" at:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/pbs_...asp#bad_design

I urge you to check out also the URL cross-referenced in Dr. Sarfati's essay,

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1146.asp

The reference just above is to an interview with Dr. George Marshall, who holds a Ph.D. in Ophthalmic Science and is the Sir Jules Thorn Lecturer in Ophthalmic Science. His responsibilities include, "Lecturing to doctors in medicine who have specialized in ophthalmology and are attempting to gain fellowship with the Royal College of Ophthalmology (FRCOphth). (His main responsibility) is research into eye diseases using a combination of transmission electron microscopy and immunocytochemistry a technique that uses antibodies to locate specific proteins such as enzymes."

His qualifications speak for themselves.

Dr. Marshall says, "The idea that the eye is wired backward comes from a lack of knowledge of eye function and anatomy."

Dr. Sarfati also references an excellent article at:

http://www.trueorigin.org/retina.asp

On the same subject, you might also see:

http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od171/retina171.htm

It's clear that the behavior and detection of light is an area in which Dr. Sarfati very well versed. Combine that with the other essays and I think you are going to have a very hard time making a case for the "inefficient backward eye."

---

Dr. Sarfati says,

• "To be honest, this is a perfect example of why I've often advised that Internet debate forums are usually a waste of time, as you might have seen in our Negative Feedback section on our site. A lot of the same tired old arguments keep coming up, and it gets boring having to refute the same arguments over and over to people who aren't interested in learning. This critic certainly seems like that.
  
  I also notice that the evolutionists can’t grasp the point that evolution requires not just mutations, but informationally uphill mutations. Where are they? Why do we observe only informationally neutral or downhill mutations?
  
  This seems to come from blustery and verbose article on the essentially atheistic talk.origins site from a person called Moore who admits that he lacks qualifications in astronomy. Much TalkOrigins bilge is written by people unqualified in the areas they're talking about -- and it shows! Keith Davies, who research I acknowledged using, and I are well aware of this Moore article, and I understand that he is preparing a detailed response.
  
  Moore is also obsessed with the anti-creationist fetish that creationists quote out of context. He rails against the way Davies uses some of the unusual phrases found in journals that indicated surprise at the shortfall of galactic SNRs, and no doubt this is what your critic has picked up on.
  
  Moore makes the point that several of these phrases were written in the context of explanations of the problem and that Mr Davies should have made that clear.
  
  Moore omits completely one crucial fact. He fails to say that Davies introduce those phrases clearly and unambiguously by saying :
  
  'A number of astronomers, in the context of trying to find solutions to the shortfall have commented on the situation as follows.'
  
  The above completely unambiguous statements that Davies uses to introduce those phrases should at the very least have been included with the section Moore has excerpted from his paper. To have not only left out that important introductory statement but also not even to have referred to it is bordering on defamatory. My paper was necessarily condensed from Davies but gave all the references to him and his sources so people could check them."

If you find his answer unsatisfactory, write to him. I've done as you asked, but that's as far as I am willing to go in this matter.

You know, I have often heard that Dr. Gish, Dr. Sarfati, et al, have gone wrong in easy and obvious ways. When I check, however, it's ambiguous at best and untrue at worst. I have seen NOTHING to make me question, however slightly, the integrity of Dr. Gish, Dr. Sarfati, Dr. Dembski, Phillip Johnson, or any of the other people we've discussed.

Dan

Today @ 05:40 AM
TheFiveSolas:

You are hysterical! Your next sentence refers to the "systematic errors and distortions made by KEITH DAVIES". Aig's article was NOT written by him, nor was he quoted, rather it was HIS quotation of Clark and Caswell that was used.

Lets quote the sentence you quote in full:

Indeed it is part of comprehensive document which shows the systematic errors and distortions made by Keith Davies, the creationist that Answers in Genesis used as its source.

That clearly shows that I knew that Davies did not write the AiG article. Davies is the creationist AiG (in particular Jonathan Sarfati who wrote the AiG article) used as its source. To put it bluntly: all of AiG's claims in that article seem to originate with Davies.

The thing to point out with extreme emphasis is that I said that AiG used Davies as its source.

I would hope that everyone realizes that any article that has as its source an previous article with systematic errors and distortions is not reliable.

I don't know who Mr. Davies is, apparently he doesn't have an advanced degree (thus the Mr.), and doesn't work for AiG, which was the original target of your Thread. Which is why I wasn't interested in reading about his "errors".

As I made clear, Davies is where AiG got its falsehoods and that those falsehoods are dealt with in full in the refered to document.

You seem to find things (i.e., falsehoods, evasions, pretenses, etc.) where they just don't exist.

I'll reiterate, your original post didn't critique the AiG article, but instead chose to focus on what you allege is a "misquote".

I make no pretenses that the thrust of my first post of this thread was the misquotations. In that post, I merely mentioned in the last sentence that claims made by AiG's source was addressed in an online article.

That is what I focused on. Your statements that I could look up more misquotes was of no interest to me, nor was a link to errors and distortions made by an unknown Mr. Keith Davies. Your claim that those links contained MORE than what your statements implied is irrelevant since that is NOT how I understood them.
[snip]

I claim (factually) that me statements just say what they said. I said that falsehoods of AiG's source were debunked in detail in an online article.

Hello Dave. Didn't find the trueorigin list to your liking?

Sarfati's reply is just plain silly. The T.O. supernova FAQ was reviewed by several professional astronomers as can easily be verified by checking the acknowledgements ("credits")and checking the comments in the talk.origins newsgroup (preserved by Google) made while the FAQ was under review. And the errors documented are errors regardless.

Here is what Dr. Phil Plait, a professional astronomer, had to say about what Sarfai said.

Keith Davies' article on supernovae is utterly wrong. I rip it apart in my book, actually. He goes through quite a bit to say there are no SNR older than 10,000 years, which is completely wrong. Even a cursory search in the journal databases netted me many that were a lot older than 10,000 years.

Worse, it takes a long time to cook a star (at least a million years) before it can explode as a supernova. So even if I grant that there is none older then 10,000 years, that still means the universe is a million+10,000 years old at the very least.

Davies goes on for thousands of words confusing the truth, but in the end it's based on a false premise.

Note too that the picture at the top of his page is not of a supernova, as he claims, but an overexposed star in Orion's belt. The guy clearly hasn't a clue what he's talking about.

Those who want to discuss this matter with professional astronomers (as well as others interested in astronomy) might consider posting to the Against the mainstream topic of the forum of the Bad Astronomy site ran by Dr. Plait.

Solas responds to ardipithecus with:

You seem to find things (i.e., falsehoods, evasions, pretenses, etc.) where they just don't exist.

Forgive me if I am misunderstanding this thread. I thought the original premise is that the articles in AiG are sometimes written by people who are less than 100% honest in their assertions and representations.

This was documented by ardi in the following manner. A quote used to support a position was not merely taken out of context, it was altered surgically to mean something the opposite. A simple reading of the "quote" in the article compared with the original quote shows the following:

As quoted in the Aig article:

...and these authors refer to ‘The mystery of the missing remnants’.4

The actual words which I looked up are:

...and the mystery of the missing remnants is also solved.

The two quotes have diametrically opposed meanings.

Why would any apologetic tolerate sloppy (and that is a generous term) writing like this? When I find skeptics deliberately misquoting Christians, creationists, scripture, etc. (and some do) it infuriates me and I confront them. If a case can't be made on its own merits then that's tough.

What happens when you react like you did, Solas, by denying that there was a misquote and going to great lengths to "harmonize" it? The apologetic case is tarnished, the site is tarnished and the skeptic begins to think that the "inerrancy" idea is being extended to cover anything written by any apologetic anywhere. This is not just bad scholarship, it's self-defeating. It also raises the question of whether folks like you, Solas, are willing to defend dishonest work as long as it furthers your cause.

Just take the high road and admit that there are misguided, misleading, dishonest, unintelligent apologetics running around making real Christian academics look bad. (Just as there are misguided, misleading, dishonest, unintelligent skeptics running around making the rest of us look bad.)


Under most circumstances, I believe Socrates agree.

Ardipithecus and the emotional Woman continue with their inflammatory attacks, but can't actually refute the author's reply. They are evidently desperate to throw some mud in the hope that it sticks, since they can't refute the science.

Point is, the Davies original made this very clear: 'A number of astronomers, in the context of trying to find solutions to the shortfall have commented on the situation as follows.' Then they raised some ad hoc arguments to explain away the problem.

And if Ardy wants to argue from authority, I can do the same, because Dr Danny Faulkner, a prof. of astronomy at a secular university (University of South Carolina — Lancaster) has also supported the Davies thesis.

The Sexist Socrates says:

Ardipithecus and the emotional Woman continue with their inflammatory attacks, but can't actually refute the author's reply.

Holy COW, Soc - gimme a break here. I'm not arguing the science. I'm arguing the source of the interpretaion of the science! How can I put this in a clear, unemotional way so you will "get" what I'm talking about?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Suppose...

Mrs. Smith, the little old lady who lives next door to you is arrested for the murder of her sister. And you really, really think she is not capable of it. However, you do recall her telling you once,

"Family is so important, don't you think so Mr. Socrates? I'm still close to all my brothers and sisters, except Gertrude."

But you don't think anything of it, until the detectives show up at your door asking questions. You wind up giving a deposition where the following conversation takes place:

Detective to Socrates -"Did Mrs. Smith ever talk about her sister, Gertrude?"

Socrates -"Well, once she told me how important family was to her, mentioning that she was still close to all her brothers and sisters..."

In due course, Mrs. Smith is found innocent as it turns out her husband had been having an affair with his sister-in-law, ol' Gerty...and things got messy and he killed her.

Two flies on the wall who had seen and heard all the recent events discussed it.

Fly#1 Well, that Socrates sure can't be counted on as a reliable witness, that's for sure.

Fly#2 What??? Are you nuts? The old lady was innocent. Can't you stick to the important issues here?

Fly#1 Umm, I'm not talking about the murder, just saying I don't think Socrates was being fully honest with the cops.

Fly#2 (getting red in the face) Are you a female fly??? You sure are making emotional and inflamatory statements!! Can't you see that....

Mercifully, I happened along about that time and ended the discussion with my flyswatter!

Yeah, I'm being sarcastic.

Sue me.

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