Talk:Quoting out of context/Archives/2012

Merge and redirect with contextomy
The contextomy entry overlaps this entry. The word "contextomy" is a scientific-sounding replacement for the commonly-used "out of context," but both wikipedia entries refer to exactly the same concept. Since "taken out of context" returns over 1,000,000 google hits while "contextomy" returns only 429 (many of which are mirrors), preferring "contextomy" is linguistic prescription. --67.10.163.122 17:23, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't disagree though I would rename the whole article to Quoting out of context. Fallacy seems POV. Regan123 17:47, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * "POV"? Well, it is defined as a logical fallacy. Are you saying that the definition is POV, too? :)
 * But I agree, the name "quoting out of context" rings better and is more "canonical" (that is, can be linked in more contexts without a pipe) -- intgr 23:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It is a logical fallacy, but some may misunderstand and maybe I'm just being fussy :-). If two can make consensus then we have it on quoting out of context. Let me know if you need a hand with the merge.  Cheers, Regan123 00:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge. They are articles about the exact same subject.  Furthermore, the diatribe at the beginning of contextomy is unencyclopedic nonsense (and is nearly self referential).  The term "out of context" clearly means "in a context that sufficiently different form the original context to be misleading."  This stuff about how every quote is out of context is equivocation.— Randall Bart 01:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge. Contextomy is the exactly the same thing as quoting out of context. Contextomy seems to be a very little used word. The article on contextomy could be deleted/redirected to this one, and the examples from Contextomy moved here (and pared down a little/rewritten). cagliost 18:46, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge. The only issue is coming up with a name for the merger. Contextomy is, as Cagliost pointed out, very seldom used. Fuzzform 01:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Having the statement 'Fallacy' within the title is point of view. Why? Well, whether you like it or not, people can/have&do use quote mining to gain real advantage. It could be seen as not a fallacy to do something to gain an advantage - hence quote mining is not definately a fallacy.94.168.48.161 (talk) 18:29, 1 June 2010 (UTC)


 * "Quoting out of context" means taking somebody's words and imputing a meaning to them other than the meaning the author / speaker intended. It's a kind of misquotation. On the other hand, going through someone's published works looking for statements which contradict the author's main points is seen as (1) acceptable, even valuable by some; e.g., Bush said this once, but later he said that so we conclude that he's unreliable or that he finally admitted the truth - (2) illegitimate by some, particularly when the quoter pretends that he has found a contradiction, concession or admission (which is what evolution supporters say evolution opponents do). --Uncle Ed (talk) 19:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)


 * 94.168.48.161, Please read the fallacy article. It seems to me that "fallacy" doesn't mean what you think it means.Sjö (talk) 10:08, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

This looks like someone's school assignment
From the Microsoft Word autocorrect substitutions to the flowery prose to the use of the royal "we," much of this article looks like it was adapted from an essay someone wrote for a school assignment. This article really, really needs proper styling and referencing appropriate for an encyclopedia. I started the ball rolling. White 720 (talk) 22:34, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I am proposing that Quote mining be merged here, per WP:MERGE #2 'Overlap' & #4 'Context'.

As both are lengthy, sourced articles, I would object to either being merged into Misquotation (which has been suggested), as that article is short, superficial, unsourced and appears to be mainly WP:OR. Any attempt to merge a longer sourced article into it would result in either a very lopsided article or massive curtailment of sourced content, while leaving the unsourced content largely untouched. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 06:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * There is no good reason to have three or more articles upon the same topic. If some of them are short, superficial, etc. then merger will give us a better result.  Misquotation is the best title for the topic because it is brief and commonplace.  And it is supported by a separate list of examples.  The phrase Fallacy of quoting out of context is ponderous and little used and the current content is of lttle value. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * No, merger to Misquotation will not "give us a better result", as that article is in no condition to accept non-trivial coverage of any one of the subtopics without creating a severely lopsided article. Such a merge would meet none of the criteria of WP:MERGE. They are not duplicates, as coverage in Misquotation is vestigial there is no significant overlap, the exact opposite of text is true, and Misquotation is too short and superficial to give any significant context to the subject of the 'fallacy of quoting out of context'. Given that Misquotation is almost pure WP:OR, largely unimproved in its 5 1/2 years of existence, to claim that the contents of this article are "of lttle value" by comparison is patently absurd. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Also, I would point out that 'Fallacy of quoting out of context' is as much a sub-topic of False attribution as it is of Misquotation. As neither of these topics is sufficiently well-developed to accept non-trivial material on a sub-topic, it makes far more sense for this intersection between these two topics to remain as a (well-sourced) separate article. Additionally, moving it to either would be likely to lose its context as a sub-topic of the other. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree completely with Hrafn on Misquotation, but an argument can be made for a merge with 'Fallacy of quoting out of context'. Not a very good argument, IMO. For one thing, quote mining is more than just quoting out of context, as it also involves missatribution as well as unwarranted insertion, deletion and changing of words in the quote. That means that quote mining doesn't really fit in an article about quoting out of context. Also, a merge would break the interwiki links from 'Quote mining'.Sjö (talk) 16:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * 'Fallacy of quoting out of context' is explicitly described as a "type of false attribution", so I don't think the misattribution aspect of quote mining is a bad fit. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 16:52, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Also, a redirect would be maintained so "interwiki links" would not be broken. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It's a minor point, but contextomy is only a subset of false attribution. As I understand it, false attribution includes both attributing a quote correctly but taking it out of context and attributing a quote to an incorrect source.Sjö (talk) 07:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Support. As it stands, Fallacy of quoting out of context is the best candidate for a merge target, and would hopefully remove the need for so many examples in the first place. However, just because Misquotation is currently a mess doesn't mean that it can't be improved by a re-write or merger(s). As far as I see it, Quote Mining is a loaded synonym for Contextomy, which is a subset of False Attribution, itself a subset of Misquotation (I fought hard to resist using some &lt;math&gt; there). OrangeDog (talk • edits) 20:10, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * While contextomy is one of the techniques used it's by no means the only one. I quote from the Quote Mine Project: "In addition, some of the "quotes" were outright fabrications; others were actually taken from creationist authors or other people who doubted, rather than supported, evolution (making their designation as 'evolutionists' itself disingenuous); several were expressions of opinion by people with no expertise in fields related to evolution and many were so old as to be of no use at all in understanding present day evolutionary theory." Add to that the "cherry picking" that is an important factor in quote mining and you'll see that qoute mining doesn't fit in the article about contextomy. If it was to be merged to that article, I foresee that it would eventually be cut with the argument that "this doesn't belong here" and then the information would be gone from Wikipedia.Sjö (talk) 07:31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. The specific use of the phrase "quote mining" and its origins in the cre/evo field could form a useful section.--Dr Marcus Hill (talk) 18:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment: this proposal has dragged on for over two months, due to the thinness of response. We now have three for the proposal, one for a counter-proposal, one for retaining the current division. As such, unless any contrary opinions are registered in the next couple of days, I'll be taking this as a consensus for the proposed merge. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Synthesis 'Contextomy in political spin' section
[Moving this to talk, until such time as sources can be found for this interpretation of the primary sources. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:57, 2 March 2009 (UTC) ]

Contextomy is also a common spin tactic among unscrupulous political journalists. Consider the yew tree controversy that plagued former Vice President of the United States Al Gore in the late 1990s. The trouble began when David Ridenour, a conservative columnist for the Austin American-Statesman, wrote a piece criticizing the Vice President’s environmental policy agenda. Ridenour specifically criticized Gore’s willingness to put “environmental politics before people” as a moral failure and cited a passage from his 1992 book Earth in the Balance as evidence of this willingness. In the passage, Gore describes his stance on the preservation of the Pacific Yew, a tree with potentially important medicinal uses:


 * The Pacific Yew can be cut down and processed to produce a potent chemical, Taxol, which offers some promise of curing certain forms of lung, breast and ovarian cancer in patients who would otherwise quickly die. It seems an easy choice — sacrifice the tree for a human life — until one learns that three trees must be destroyed for each patient treated. (p. 119)

Proceeding from this quotation, Ridenour (1998) argued that the Vice President would rather sacrifice people than deplete the Yew population, and thus lacked human compassion. Following the publication of the article, numerous references to the quotation appeared in conservative op-ed columns, magazines, radio, and television shows across the country. A year later, it even surfaced in a discussion of environmental policy on the floor of the House of Representatives. After reading the excerpt to his House colleagues, Rep. David McIntosh (R-Indiana) took issue with the Vice President’s apparent preference for trees over human lives:


 * Three trees versus a human life, three trees versus the ability to prolong someone's life who is suffering from cancer? I would pick the individual, the person, the human being who is a cancer patient and suffering from that dreaded disease and say it is clear three trees are worth it. We can sacrifice three trees to save one human life. But the Vice President apparently does not think that is so clear (109th United States Congress, 2nd Session, 145 Cong. Rec. H3376, 1999).

If it were merely the ratio of trees to human lives that had bothered the Vice President, Rep. McIntosh’s outrage might be justified. However, a very different picture of Gore’s concerns emerges when the excerpt is examined in the context of the words immediately preceding and following it in his book (Ridenour’s excerpt appears in bold):


 * Most of the [tree] species unique to the rain forests are in imminent danger, partly because there is no one to speak up for them. In contrast, consider the recent controversy over the yew tree, a temperate forest species, one variety of which now grows only in the Pacific Northwest. The Pacific Yew can be cut down and processed to produce a potent chemical, Taxol, which offers some promise of curing certain forms of lung, breast, and ovarian cancer in patients who would otherwise quickly die. It seems an easy choice — sacrifice the tree for a human life — until one learns that three trees must be destroyed for each patient treated, that only specimens more than a hundred years old contain the potent chemical, and that there are very few of these Yews remaining on earth. Suddenly we must confront some very tough questions. How important are the medical needs of future generations? Are those of us alive today entitled to cut down all of those trees to extend the lives of a few of us, even if it means that this unique form of life will disappear forever, thus making it impossible to save human lives in the future? (p.119)

In its original context, Gore’s expression of reluctance to cut down Yews does not, as his critics alleged, appear to be motivated by a fanatical pro-flora platform. Rather, it is based on the decidedly pro-person concern that toppling too many now would limit the supply available to benefit cancer patients of future generations. By strategically omitting this and other legitimate reasons Gore offered for preserving the Yew, Ridenour reduced the Vice President’s sober assessment of the dilemma to an embarrassing blurb confirming his reputation among conservatives as a “radical” environmentalist.

Article violates its own definition of what is fair!
(I am not intending this "edit" to be added to the entry, but I do want someone who is an editor to read it and consider whether the person who wrote the entry "maintained a neutral and unbiased point of view." It is CLEAR that he/she displayed extreme bias against the view of creationists who quote Darwin.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_quoting_out_of_context

>>Since the mid-1990s, scientists and their supporters have used the term quote mining to describe versions of this practice as used by certain creationists in the creation-evolution controversy.[22] An example found in debates over evolution is an out-of-context quotation of Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species: To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. This sentence, sometimes truncated to the phrase "absurd in the highest degree", is often presented as part of an assertion that Darwin himself perceived his own theory of evolution as absurd. However, Darwin went on to explain that the apparent absurdity of the evolution of an eye is no bar to its occurrence.>>

This IS a good sample of how someone seeks to DECEIVE about what others say in their writings. It is TOTALLY FALSE that any young earth creationist (YEC) or one holding the view of intelligent design (ID) would assert that "Darwin himself perceived his own theory of evolution as absurd." And yet this author refers to a (supposed) practice of YEC's who are quoting Darwin...and the author MISREPRESENTS about what YEC's intend to say. YEC's cite Darwin's admission of how complex the eye is and how "apparently designed" it may seem to be, NOT to try to say that Darwin disagreed with his own theory, but simply to show that he also saw this as at least a perceived difficulty for his view, which he would admit had to be overcome.

I guess you have to EXPECT those non-YEC's at wiki who wrote the entry to be biased, but still it is ironic that they would violate the "fair quoting" concept WITHIN a definition they are writing for what is an unfair practice of misusing another's quotes!


 * The text above was added to the article by.
 * --Fama Clamosa (talk) 18:25, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Added a "citation needed" tag in reluctant agreement with the above IP. I have only seen this quote used in conjunction with the claim that Darwin's statements are similar to the idea of irreducible complexity, not the claim that Darwin viewed his theory as absurd. The entire quote, including the context in the article, is essentially suggesting the absurdity of irreducible complexity in structures like the eye, yet asserting that a path of reducibility may in fact be possible. Thus, this isn't a very good example of quote mining unless we can come up with a citation that actually asserts that Darwin thought his theory was absurd. Davidstarlingm (talk) 17:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Is this article about creationism?
This article focuses way too heavily on the evolution-creationism thing. I get that we want examples and that is a good source for them, but I don't think it is the ONLY source.

Also, I changed the line about creationists claiming that Darwin thought evolution was absurd--his quote does get mined, but the line itself is a straw man. If "citation needed" has been there for nearly a year now, it obviously shows that no, creationists do not "often" claim that Darwin didn't believe in evolution--I have toned it back a bit, but will leave the citation tag if someone wants to find an article that mines this quote and say how it specifically is being distorted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.100.247.138 (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2011 (UTC) Also, not that it should matter, but I'm not a creationist, so keep your flamethrowers away. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.100.247.138 (talk) 19:04, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Guys


 * The terminus "quote mining" indeed seems to be an internet neologism from the Creation–evolution_controversy, as a little 'googleing' has reavealed.
 * The word alone obtains much less results than in combination with the words "creationism" or "evolution", which is a typical phenomenon for young neologisms being closely related to a certain topic.
 * It might be, that this neologism was formed to misuse Wikipedia as an authority for the Argument_from_authority tactic from both 'sides'.
 * I have added a short note to the article.

Best regards,

--Docktor No (talk) 09:40, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * "a little 'googleing'" = WP:OR. Please cite reliable sources. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:52, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I think, a google analysis is a very reliable source, since it can be performed from anyone immediately. And the results can be interpretated meaningfully. So, if you remind me on good references, you must criticize me a bit more substantially.
 * I think you understand the point of my remark. How can I include it into the article?
 * Pleace advice.


 * Best regards,


 * --Docktor No (talk) 10:03, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * "Google analysis" = original analysis. Per WP:No original research that is not permitted. Search engine results are NOT considered WP:RS (for one thing because their results are subject to change, so are not WP:Verifiable). You may not "include it into the article". HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:23, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Hrafn! I understand your point. So, if I presented a 'valid' source containing my point, would it then be ok? Listen, as I said, I do not work for the creationists. I just found it remarkable that this neologism is very closely related to the Evolution-Creation-Controversy, and I think Wikipedia should not be misused as an authority for Argument_from_authority - approaches. No matter which 'side' is misusing it. However, thanks for useful hints. I am quite new here and stil consider myself as learning.


 * Best regards,


 * --Docktor No (talk) 10:40, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not really that remarkable -- this article is a three-way merge with contextomy and quote mining -- with the latter being such a fertile field that the TalkOrigins Archive have a whole Quote Mine Project dedicated to documenting Creationism's abuse of it. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 11:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It is a bit sad that creationists (Most of them are christians, right?) sometimes have a problem with honesty, which I remember as a christian duty. On the other hand, I wonder how honest the atheists are in this field. They also tend to be very agressive. In the german wikipedia, I just recently found one case of 'atheistic vandalism'. I think that should be chased in the same way as Kreationists vandalism. --Docktor No (talk) 22:00, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The relevant point is that almost all of them are conservative Christians, and so frequently have the psychological trait of Right-wing authoritarianism, leading to a heightened willingness to "uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs" and to demonise ideological foes. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:37, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Most of the 'atheistic vandalism' we get is simply drive-by insertion of pungent descriptions of creationists -- it's not really a significant problem, as long as articles are well-patrolled. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:39, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree! The preponderance of cherry-picked quotes makes this article seem to this reader like an unbalanced diatribe of a person with an agenda. Reducing the size of this section would restore balance and make the article more credible. Gordonwray (talk) 13:46, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

HrafnTalkStalk(P) 14:03, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Please don't put you comments into the middle of somebody else's.
 * 2) This topic is, to a considerable extent, about the cherry-picking of quotes -- so it is hardly surprising that they form a "preponderance". If you can find more prominent examples than the Gould and Darwin ones, then you're welcome to present them.

If a non-creationist does a misquote, is it legal to post them here as a counter-balance? Sincerely LimpSpider (talk) 12:03, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Should We Include Related In-Context Fallacy:False Appeal To Contextectomy
I find that politicians who get caught revealing their true thoughts constantly appeal to this fallacy, when in fact, their horrible statements were taken entirely in context. Is "False Appeal To Contextectomy" a separate fallacy, or does it belong in this article? It seems to me that such a "False Appeal To Contextectomy" is at least 10 times more prevalent than the "Fallacy Of Quoting Out Of Context" on which it is based. "False Appeal To Contextectomy" seems to rely on the high cost to and/or inability of the audience to go back and double-check what the context truly was. Should it be included in this article, or should it have its own? Ace Frahm (talk) 14:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It should first have a reliable source found for it. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 17:32, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Creationist quote mining
I thought it best to float the idea first. Should the creationist section of quote mining be placed in a separate article connected to creationism and both accurate (in context) and inaccurate (out of context) examples be given?

Sincerely LimpSpider (talk) 09:45, 26 June 2012 (UTC)