Hi Coragyps, greyseal,
... and the most persuasive explanation I've seen for the popularity of quote-mining is as you say - an appeal to authority. An odd thing about these appeals is that the typical creationist ... don't seem to care much if the Authority appealed to is terribly relevant: ...
It is used because it agrees with the worldview of the quoter, not so much as an appeal to authority, but as confirmation of one's views. Most users of such quotes mines don't see this as a logical fallacy for this reason.
It's confirmation bias, and it doesn't matter if the author also contradicts it, the point is made that is in agreement with the worldview.
I think, with no proof at all, that the practice grew out of the Sunday School teaching method of memorizing selected Bible verses.
I think its more pervasive that that. It has to do with how people are taught things in general, with the well known parent phrase "because I said so" establishing behavior based on authority.
We could also point out that kids are also taught to ignore contradictory information by the same process, so cognitive dissonance is dealt with by using authority to overwhelm the contradictions.
We could also point out that rote learning is frequently taught in public schools (in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue...), rather than understanding and logical analysis.
In other words, the fundamentalists don't necessarily come to this behavior due to their faiths, they've been taught this behavior independently, and have trouble understanding that this is a false approach to learning. I've seen atheists make similar arguments.
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : fixed number
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