Why do creationist posters quote so?

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Often (as in the case of the countless quotes DNAunion offered) the authors are more or less conventional scientific researchers, but their words can be misread to support claims with which the authors themselves would almost certainly disagree.

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Exactly which quotes that I have posted at this site do you contend misrepresent the authors' actual statements?

I doubt many of you even know when an appeal to authority is legitimate and when it’s not. In support of my use of quotes, I’ll provide quotes!!!

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Description of Appeal to Authority
An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:

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1. Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
2. Person A makes claim C about subject S.
3. Therefore, C is true.

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This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.

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This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. ...

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Since this sort of reasoning is fallacious only when the person is not a legitimate authority in a particular context, it is necessary to provide some acceptable standards of assessment. The following standards are widely accepted:

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1. The person has sufficient expertise in the subject matter in question.

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2. The claim being made by the person is within her area(s) of expertise.

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3. There is an adequate degree of agreement among the other experts in the subject in question.

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4. The person in question is not significantly biased.

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5. The area of expertise is a legitimate area or discipline.

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6. The authority in question must be identified.

(emphasis added, Page not found - Nizkor)

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Appeal to Authority
(argumentum ad verecundiam)

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Definition:
While sometimes it may be appropriate to cite an authority to support a point, often it is not. In particular, an appeal to authority is inappropriate if:

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(i) the person is not qualified to have an expert opinion on the subject,

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(ii) experts in the field disagree on this issue.

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(iii) the authority was making a joke, drunk, or otherwise not being serious

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A variation of the fallacious appeal to authority is hearsay. An argument from hearsay is an argument which depends on second or third hand sources. (emphasis added, Forbidden )

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Five conditions for a legitimate argument from authority

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1. The authority must have competence in an area, not just glamour, prestige, rank or popularity.

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2. The judgement must be within the authority's field of competence

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3. The authority must be interpreted correctly

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4. Direct evidence must be available, at least in principle

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5. A technique is needed to adjucate disagreements among equally qualified authorities. (emphasis added, Wikipedia)

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[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 12-24-2003]

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Your own quotes refute you, don't you think?

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Nope. For example, even if we accept your logic without question (which we shouldn’t), your argument would refute the author of the web page, who is not me. But there are problems with your offerings that prevent us from even getting that far.

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[a quote from a web site on logical fallacies]"Direct evidence must be available, at least in principle"

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If you have the direct evidence, then why do you need the authority?

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Sloppy statement (you’ve possibly also created a false dichotomy with your next point - we’ll have to wait for you to clear up your sloppy statements to tell).The material doesn't say you - the person doing the quoting - has to have direct evidence, despite what your use of "you" in that statement (and some of your others too) suggest. So that we can discuss this more accurately, let me help you out by correcting your statements some, to more accurately reflect the original authors' point.If direct evidence is available (even if only in principle), then why does anyone need the authority?One reason the authority would be needed is to convey the direct evidence to us. For example, each person here can ask himself/herself the following.Do you believe that there is such a thing as an electron? I hope so. Have you ever actually seen an electron? Nope. Then why do you believe that electrons exist? Because many competent authorities on atomic structure have told us they exist. Appeal to authority. Now, is there direct evidence that electrons exist? Yep. Have you ever actually produced this evidence yourself? Nopeyou rely upon competent authorities in the field to inform us of the direct evidence for electrons exists.Do you believe that your cells contain DNA? I hope so. Have you ever actually seen actual DNA in your cells? Nope. Then why do you believe that it is there? Because many competent authorities on cellular biology have told us it is. Appeal to authority. Is there direct evidence that actual DNA is in human cells? Yep. Have you every actually produced this evidence yourself? Nopeyou rely upon competent authorities in the field to tell you that the direct evidence exists.PS: Any refutations to the above logic cannot themselves rely upon authority. For example, one can’t claim to have produced direct evidence of the existence of electrons by rubbing a balloon on his/her hair and then sticking the balloon to the wall. All that shows is that the balloon sticks to the wall. In other words, the person would still be relying upon authority for the underlying explanation of the observation: the experiment fails the needed test.

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Either quotation from authority is redundant (you have the direct evidence) or else it's invalid (the authority is making a statement without evidence to support it).

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More sloppy language, and possibly invalid logic too. Who needs to have the evidence switches: first it is you, then it is basically anyone. If we keep the criterion consistent, such that the authority is the one who has to have the direct evidence (obviously the web page I quoted didn’t mean the person doing the quoting needed the direct evidence himself/herself), then the first one isn’t redundant: it’s simply conveying information.

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In either case there's no use in making appeals to authority.

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So please convince us that your cells contain DNA!

Next point..."Creationists" aren't the only ones who quote others. Below we see Darwin and Dawkins and several other mainstream scientists doing it too.(The quotes of others are highlighted with bold).

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It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed. (Darwin, C., 1871, Letter to Hooker. Reproduced in Calvin, M. (1969). Chemical Evolution pp 1-8. Oxford University Press, London: as quoted in Did minerals perform prebiotic combinatorial chemistry?, Alan W. Schwartz, Chemistry & Biology 1996, 3:515-518)

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In 1813, Dr. W. C. Wells read before the Royal Society ‘An Account of a White female, part of whose skin resembles that of a Negro’; but his paper was not published until his famous ‘Two Essays upon Dew and Single Vision’ appeared in 1818. In this paper he distinctly recognizes the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated; but he applies it only to the races of man, and to certain characters alone. After remarking that Negroes and mulattoes enjoy an immunity from certain tropical diseases, he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then, he adds, but what is done in this latter case "by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit. Of the accidental varieties of man, which would occur among the first few and scattered inhabitants of the middle regions of Africa, some one would be better fitted than the others to bear the diseases of the country. This race would consequently multiply, while the other would decrease; not only from their inability to sustain the attacks of disease, but from their incapacity of contending with their more vigorous neighbours. The colour of this vigorous race I take for granted, from what has been already said, would be dark. But the same disposition to form varieties still existing, a darker and a darker race would in the course of time occur: and as the darkest would be the best fitted for the climate, this would at length become the most prevalent, if not the only race, in the particular country in which it had originated." (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (By Means of Natural Selection Or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life), The Modern Library, 1998, p7-8)

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Among the most commonly encountered ideas concerning the origin of life is the one that involved and RNA Word at an early stage. The term was coined by Gilbert (2), who also stated The first stage of evolution proceeds, then, by RNA molecules performing the catalytic activities necessary to assemble themselves out of a nucleotide soup. The existence of such a soup has generally been taken for granted. For example, Eigen and Schuster (3) wrote The building blocks of polynucleotides — the four bases, ribose, and phosphate were available too under prebiotic conditions. Material was available from steadily refilling pools for the formation of polymers, among them polypeptides and polynucleotides. The experimental evidence to date, however, does not appear to support such claims.

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If the replicator was complex, chemically, and the steps numerous, than an explanation of this type would portray the origin of life as a highly improbable event. This position has been captured by Jacques Monod in his book Chance and Necessity (73):

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Life appeared on earth: what, before the event, were the chances that this would occur? The present structure of the biosphere far from excludes the possibility that the decisive event occurred only once. Which would mean a priori probability was virtually zero. This idea is distasteful to many scientists. Science can neither say nor do anything about a unique occurrence. If it was unique, as may perhaps have been the appearance of life itself, then before it did appear its chances of doing so were infinitely slender. The universe was not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man. Our number came up in the Monte Carlo game.

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As scientists, we have not yet been forced into this position. Alternatives remain yet for the origin of life that do not involve the difficulties of the chemistry of RNA-like substances. (Robert Shapiro, Prebiotic Cystosine Synthesis: A Critical Analysis and Implications for the Origin of Life, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 96, April 13 1999, pages 4396-4401)

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"R. A. Fisher, the great mathematical geneticist and founder of the modern science of statistics, put the point in 1930, in his usual meticulous style (I never met him, but one can almost hear his fastidiously correct dictation to his long-suffering wife):

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An organism is regarded as adapted to a particular situation, or to the totality of situations which constitute its environment, only in so far as we can imagine an assemblage of slightly different situations, or environments, to which the animal would on the whole be less well adapted; and equally only in so far as we can imagine an assemblage of slightly different organic forms, which would be less well adapted to that environment.

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Eyes, ears, and hearts, the wing of a vulture, the web of a spider, these all impress by their obvious perfection of engineering no matter where we see them (Richard Dakwins, Climbing Mount Improbable, W. W. Norton and Company, 1996, p79)

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As Gould and Edlredge put it:

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We applaud the burgeoning emphasis on change in regulatory genes as the stuff of morphological evolutionif only because one of us has written a book to argue that the classical, and widely ignored data on evolution by heterochrony should be exhumed and valued as a primary demonstration of regulatory change. We do not see how point mutations in structural genes can lead, even by gradual accumulation, to new morphological designs. Regulatory changes in the timing of complex ontogenetic programs seems far more promising — and potentially rapid, in conformity with our punctuational predilections. The near identity of humans and chimps for structural genes, and the evidence of major regulatory change indicated by human neotony provides an important conformation.

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Clearly, even though they share virtually their entire suite of structural genes, humans and chimpanzees are members of different species. (Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species, John Wiley and Sons Inc., 1999, p326)

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[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 12-27-2003]

A quick search of Crashfrog's posts - looking at just one of the thread's s/he's posted in recently - turned up several instances of him/her relying upon authority in his/her arguments.http://EvC Forum: Can Chromosome Counts Change? -->EvC Forum: Can Chromosome Counts Change?http://EvC Forum: Can Chromosome Counts Change? -->EvC Forum: Can Chromosome Counts Change?http://EvC Forum: Can Chromosome Counts Change? -->EvC Forum: Can Chromosome Counts Change?http://EvC Forum: Can Chromosome Counts Change? -->EvC Forum: Can Chromosome Counts Change?http://EvC Forum: Can Chromosome Counts Change? -->EvC Forum: Can Chromosome Counts Change?Crashfrog cannot, without directly contradicting his/her own claim, assert that we can't rely upon information we know only from having it conveyed to us by competent authorities in the field.I have also shown that mainstream scientists - including Dawkins and Darwin - quote others.So Crashfrog:1)The act of quoting scientists itself is not illegitimate (unless you are going to "convict" just about everyone, including Dawkins and Darwin).2) In our arguments, it is not illegitimate to rely upon information we know because competent authorities in the field have conveyed it to us and others (unless you are going to directly contradict yourself).Neither act is illegitimate. Now, if we are using information that we know because competent authorities in the field have told us, which is legitimate, and we want to quote them stating such, which is also legitimate, then what's the problem?There is none. In fact, there are benefits. First, the person is showing that he/she is not making unsupported assertions or offering his/her own personal opinion. Second, it shows the exact wording that the person's argument is based on, allowing the other side to scrutinize the support and point out potential problems that arose when going from scientist->argument.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 12-27-2003]

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The tricky part is when someone tries to mess with a quote from someone else to make it appear to say something that the "quotee" disagrees with (that is quote mining).

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Yes, quoting out of context or otherwise misrepresenting the original author's statements is illegitimate...but doesn't apply to me.In this thread, I have been accused of a being a Creationist and of a presenting notoriously misleading quotes, without any support.

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As with everything else they offer in support of their position, the quotes offered by creationists are notoriously selective and misleading. If (as in the case of the Milton quotes WILLOWTREE offered) the quoted author is anti-evolution, then his word is taken as absolute, objective truth. The assumption is always that the author's sole intent is to destroy the insidious materialist/naturalist/whateverist conspiracy, and his motives are assumed to be pure. Often (as in the case of the countless quotes DNAunion offered) the authors are more or less conventional scientific researchers, but their words can be misread to support claims with which the authors themselves would almost certainly disagree. In this case, the assumption is that the author must have had a rare epiphany in which the truth appeared to him despite his brainwashing by the etc.ist conspiracy.

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I’ve asked the accuser — Mr Hambre - to back up his charge against me, but he hasn’t. Why? Because the two charges are bogus. I am not a Creationist nor am I guilty of presenting notoriously misleading quotes.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 12-27-2003]

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No experiment to date has demonstrated that undirected, non-biological chemistry alone can generate biological information of the kind needed for a "simple" RNA self-replicator. There is more to life than just chemistry; there is also information processing.

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This type of assertion (you made it in the "Abiogenesis" thread) is typical of creationists.

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No, it’s typical of people who state facts. Or do you know of any experiment that has been performed to date using undirected, non-biological chemistry alone that counters my statement? Didn’t think so.

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You're not the first guy to come down the pike singing the praises of DNA's 'information'-processing prowess, amigo.

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You’re confused. The statement of mine you quoted above deals with RNA, not DNA, and with the RNA being one of the first self-replicators, not with it being found in today’s cellular life. Abiogenesis and current cellular life are two very different subjects.So far you have failed in your attempt to demonstrate that I am a Creationist (which you can’t do, since I’m not one), and have STILL not provided any support for your claim that I provided notoriously misleading quotes. In fact, after reading the rest of your post, you still don’t.

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Very few of DNA's fanatical cheering section seem content to marvel at the near-miraculous properties of this wonder of biochemistry.

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Loaded phrasing - melodramatic word choices used in an attempt to sway readers (instead of sticking to reason).

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We have every reason to believe the reason you're still beating the dead horse of 'INFORMATION' is that you want to ascribe magic properties to DNA that (all together now) can't conceivably be accounted for by Darwinian evolution.

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Flat out wrong.1) I’m an evolutionist. I accept that all extant life forms descended from a single common ancestor over billions of years by undirected evolution.2) I made it perfectly clear that I was not making statements about HOW the information in DNA got there, just that it WAS there.

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I think every quote you've offered concerning 'information in DNA' derives from sources that would not agree that DNA has properties that call into question the standard evolutionary explanation for the complexity of life on Earth.

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Agreed, and I never stated or implied otherwise. Your imagination is running wild.

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Since your latest post quotes Richard Dawkins asserting that DNA contains information, I feel justified in calling your methods absolutely disingenuous.

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Why? Because you don’t like me for some reason? Great logic.Fact is, Dawkins does state that DNA contains information in his 2003 book, just as I said. I did not misrepresent him.

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If, of course, I am guilty of misrepresenting your position concerning Darwinism, by all means set me straight.

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See above.

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I made it perfectly clear that I was not making statements about HOW the information in DNA got there, just that it WAS there.

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And the only thing of which I accused you was quoting the words of people who would probably disagree with the conclusions you are using their words to support.

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False. You also accused me of being a Creationist, which is flat out wrong.

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And the only thing of which I accused you was quoting the words of people who would probably disagree with the conclusions you are using their words to support.

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The argument I was making was that DNA contains information, nothing more: not how it got there, and especially not that it got there by some supernatural agent.all of which was abundantly clear from my statements in the two threads about DNA information. So your position must be that the author’s I quoted don’t believe DNA contains information? You’re wrongthey do.Of course the alternative is that you are being obstinate, refusing to listen to reason, and are still letting your imagination run wild, causing you to draw completely wacky conclusions.

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You think Dawkins and Loewenstein are good enough to quote when they use the word 'information.' I'm sure you'll have no reason to quote either when he talks about the nature and origin of this 'information.'

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Can you read? My argument had nothing to do with HOW information got into the DNA of extant life forms, just that it IS there (contrary to Crashfrog’s and Peter’s misguided assertions that it wasn’t).You are being very dishonest here Mr Hambre. Please grow up.

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Like I said, you quote the author as an authority when it fits your aims and ignore his words when it doesn't.

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Read my lipsmy argument had NOTHING to do with HOW the information we see in DNA today got there, just that it IS there. Since what you are addressing is completely irrelevant to the point I was making, a fact that shows us all your dishonesty, there is no reason whatsoever that I should have quoted the authors on such things: I needed to support MY position, not some position you are trying to stuff into my mouth.

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Since you quoted and answered every word of my last post except the part where I accused you of having an anti-Darwinist agenda, it's clear you don't want to come clean.

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Grow up. I stated this:

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Flat out wrong.

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1) I’m an evolutionist. I accept that all extant life forms descended from a single common ancestor over billions of years by undirected evolution.

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See, I had already addressed the point, showing a lack of an anti-Darwinist agenda.

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I gather that you think undirected Darwinian evolution is incapable of producing the 'information' processing system that DNA represents for you.

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Can you read? How warped are you?

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If you are using Dawkins's words to lend credence to such an assertion, then you are guilty as charged.

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Which I am not, as I have made clear.THE ONLY PERSON GUILTY OF GROSS MISREPRESENTATION HERE IS YOU, MR HAMBRE!

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Read my lipsmy argument had NOTHING to do with HOW the information we see in DNA today got there, just that it IS there.

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And by any chance would you agree with Dawkins and Loewenstein that all this wonderful 'information' evolved through RM&NS? Or how did it, uh, 'get there'?

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So far (1) you've completely failed to support either of the two charges you made against me in this thread, (2) you've ignored, several times, my statements that show your charges to be wrong, and now (3) you're trying to change the subject completely. You lose.

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Argument from authority must always give way to argument from evidence.

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A legitimate appeal to authority is already based on evidence: multiple competent authorities in the field who are familiar with the various experimental and observational evidences related to the particular position all agree that the evidence points to a particular conclusion. The evidence is there, supporting their statements, even if not explicitly given. When "my" geneticists stated that DNA contains information they weren't a couple of weirdos contradicting the view of a vast many other geneticists; the others would agree with their statement because of the evidences they all know of that support that position.If anyone knows something about genetics, s/he already knows both the view of geneticists at large on the matter and the evidences that back it up. The material that explains all of this covers entire chapters in college texts and I wasn't about to reread chapter and chapter, then copy paragraph after paragraph to try to support all of the logic with quotes. I did spend a great deal of time and effort explaining how the information is stored in base sequences, how that information is processed by a ribosome, what that information does in the cell, how that information produces higher-level (tissue, organ, organism) traits, and so on. It is hardly as though I did nothing but quote authors who were making unsupported personal statements.Now, since you bring it up, can you show us legitimate evidence that forces my "argument from authority" to give way? No, you can't. In this case, my "argument from authority" is an argument based on evidence, just transitively.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 12-29-2003]

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if we're just arguing about what words mean, then we're saying the same thing differently. I know - or at least, assume you're reasonable enough to realize - that you don't think "Stephen Jay Gould says so" is a compelling argument. If you believe that "Stephen Gay Gould says so because of such-and-such evidence" is an argument from authority, then I'll accept that as a "legitamate argument from authority." But personally I don't believe that's what is meant by "argument from authority" because to me, that's an argument from evidence.

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That's good enough for me. My main point has been that my quotes were legitimate.In fact, the only reason I'm even posting in this thread is because one Mr Hambre falsely accused me of being a Creationist who used notoriously misleading quotes. Mr Hambre has failed to support either position...he's lost. Now that that has been settled I no longer have any real reason to continue, or interest in continuing, to post in this thread.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 12-30-2003]

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Well, okay, but I, for one, am still confused about why so vehement an evolutionist as yourself would say this in Message 81 of the "Abiogenesis - Or Better Living Through Chemistry" thread:

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No experiment to date has demonstrated that undirected, non-biological chemistry alone can generate biological information of the kind needed for a "simple" RNA self-replicator. There is more to life than just chemistry; there is also information processing.
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Why would I say that? Because it's true...would you want me to lie?And as every evolutionist knows (and as Nosy Ned alluded to), the origin of life, and life's subsequent evolution over billions of years into what we see now, are two completely separate things.

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Is the "there is also information processing" your entire answer to "There is more to life than just chemistry"?

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Not necessarily. There's also controlled energy flow through cells, which, unlike their abiotic surroundings, are always maintained far from thermodynamic equilibrium.My stating, quite correctly, that there is more to life than just chemistry does not mean I am a Creationist.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 12-31-2003]

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You will find that DNAUnion deliberately avoids stating his own stances, so that he can criticize other people for their stances without having to have scrutiny come to his own.

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More like..."You will find that when DNAunion states something as self-evidenct and non-controversial as "DNA contains information" that he gets accused of being a Creationist and must defend his obviously true statements from attacks from multiple people over the course of multiple weeks."Now, if people will be so obstinate and dishonest when it comes to something that I can fully support with tons of mainstream material and logical explanations, imagine what would happen if I made an even somewhat controversial statement! Basically, it would be pointltess to try to discuss controversial matters with people who are so irrational and disingenuous.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 12-31-2003]

Yes, the concern is completely without merit.