by neat blue dog 16 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Steve said " In the overall scheme of things, it's not the worst instance of their misusing other's written work."
Agreed, but it shows they are still hard at it, in effect lying for their "truth".
If you have the Truth, you do not have to lie about it.
cognisonanance: "Awake is trying to make it sound like there are valid reasons to not believe in evolution, and is trying to use Sighn's statement of fact that a 'great many' of scientifically minded do not believe in evolution as an example of a valid reason."
Which is perfectly fine. It's apparent to pretty much anyone that they're quoting him because he's in the scientific community and has an opinion about his colleagues, not because of any sympathy to creationism. Anything anyone says in public is a fact, and doesn't need permission to be published in support of a certain cause.
For some reason this forum software truncated my post. I meant to explain why. As Memphis pointed out, the context of Signh's quote is that a great many (notice not a majority by the way) of educated peopled don't accept evolution because they haven't really understood it. That there are pedagogical issues with how biology is taught and students often aren't able or helped to see the connections between the life they study (and also see day to day) and evolutionary theory throughout their studies and lives. There are numerous reasons for this he brings out, beyond just conflicts of interest such as a religious bias before study. Most people haven't traveled the world and observed the variation in life to the extent needed to really see the results of evolution. These are just of a few points he made if I recall correctly.
The problem with the Awake quote is not one of quoting out of context at the sentence or paragraph. But one of quoting out of context at the level of a complete work, his entire essay. To fail to mention this context and the gist of his argument, is to distort what he was trying to say and use his statement to sound like evidence to support a very different claim. This is hiding information that disagrees with one's argument, and only providing the information to readers that seems to support it. This is what intellectually dishonesty is, and it's akin to only telling half the truth.
Put another way, Signh's argument could be summarized to be, "A great many of educated people oppose evolution, but this is in part due to the subset of their education dealing with biology being inadequate and pedagogically flawed." The Awake is effectively only quoting the first part of this paraphrase.
From the 1/1/2003 Watchtower, page 27:
A THEATER critic for a newspaper once went to see a certain play. He did not much like it and afterward wrote: ‘If triviality is what you happen to be wanting, by all means go and see this play.’ Later, the promoters of the play published an advertisement that featured a quote from the critic’s review. The quote was: ‘By all means go and see this play’! The advertisement accurately quoted the critic’s words, but it lifted them out of context and thus grossly misrepresented his view.
That example illustrates how important the context of a statement can be. Taking words out of context can distort their meaning, just as Satan distorted the meaning of Scripture when he tried to mislead Jesus. (Matthew 4:1-11) On the other hand, taking the context of a statement into account helps us to get a more accurate understanding of its meaning.
They condemn themselves. They have themselves stated that lifting a quote out of context in a way that misrepresents the VIEW of the author is akin to what Satan did when attempting to mislead Jesus. Rama Singh's view is that some educated people reject evolution, but this is not a valid stance. The Awake misrepresented his view by using this quote to substantiate that creationism IS a valid stance.
In no way can this be construed as anything other than outright deception. The hypocrisy is magnified first by their claim to be "the truth" and second by their constant criticism of others for the very kind of hypocrisy that they commit here.
In short, no this has not been blown out of proportion. We well know that they lie and misrepresent things constantly, but most of their lies are more subtle. In this case, it's right there in black and white. This was an intentional misrepresentation of the truth, and based on their claims about how thoroughly they research and that they can be trusted completely, this is clear evidence to the contrary.
cognisonance: "Put another way, Signh's argument could be summarized to be, "A great many of educated people oppose evolution, but this is in part due to the subset of their education dealing with biology being inadequate and pedagogically flawed.""
Ok, thanks, now I guess I understand where he was going with that thought.
cognisonance wrote:
Put another way, Signh's argument could be summarized to be, "A great many of educated people oppose evolution, but this is in part due to the subset of their education dealing with biology being inadequate and pedagogically flawed." The Awake is effectively only quoting the first part of this paraphrase.
I agree - which is why I maintain it is not a misquote but a selectively partial quote out of its fuller context. That does not make it any less dishonorable.
It is one of the commonest - and cheapest - forms of misrepresenting an authority's actual point of view. Quote out of context an acknowledgement the authority makes about an issue - and leave out their response to it, thereby creating the impression their acknowledgement is an admission of support for your view.
I am glad the author wrote a letter to the Watchtower making his strong grievance clear.
NBD: Look, the author of the quote in question felt the WTBTS misrepresented his thoughts in the quote. He wrote them and they changed it. They never do that.
I think that pretty much answers your question.
