Are the writers in the writing department purposely misquoting people?

paulmolark

After reading that great post about the June 1 article on science I got to thinking.

Although it is great to believe there is this huge group of guys in the JW writing department that are constantly looking to mislead us by twisting the words of scientist etc... I really think it is more likely they are Google researchers that do not have the ability to grasp the thoughts that are being expressed in the scientific article they quote mine from.

I honestly believe the reason that this happens is because of the individuals they use to write these magazines. these are not college educated men. They are not men who have backgrounds as amateur writers for the most prt either.

My former assistant overseer at bethel Carlos West has been in the writing department since around 1999. He didn't write as a kid... He didn't even take any community college classes. He did however brown nose his way into the position. He made a friend in Ralph Walls and made sure at lunch and in every single interaction with everyone he spoke to he brought up his desire to be in the writing department. I swear to Shango that once he became a NAME amongst the "heavies" he would sit in his office in 30 cleaning with a fucking thesaurus reading through it is an effort to improve his vocabulary. He had no shame in telling us that is what he was doing. He even encouraged others to do the same thing in an attempt to better themselves.

In 3 years he went from having a normal voice that anyone from Illinois had to a slower and slightly higher pitched drawl that gave off an aire of intelligence as if he was trying to convince everyone he was something he was not. Let's not even touch on his constant use of the word mastication at lunch.

Once he finally got there he would always state how these "writers" like himself were just ordinary men that Jehobo was using in an extraordinary way.

Maybe he was right. These writers are just ordinary guys who like him wanted to do something they had no qualifications to perform adequately. In turn, a make believe sky God gave them the ability to be great Google researchers that can find the sentence or paragraph they need to prove the thought they have in their head, without worrying about what the full thought that is being expressed.

besides who would believe these guys have the time to read and fully grasp these articles and quotes they get from these journals.

Island Man

They have been misquoting people since long before Google and the Internet, so yes, I would say it is deliberate.

paulmolark

It's not just Google. It is just a matter of them looking for a sentence that supports what they want to say with little to no concern for the entire point of the article the are getting it from

Phizzy

If you have the skill to read and understand the quote, you cannot misquote, or part-quote accidentally.

This old favourite saying, much used on here, applies in this case :

"If you have the Truth, there is no need to lie about it".

prologos

If you want your (wt) theory to be true, you look for evidence everywhere. If these writers are believers, they may believe that the authors they quoted selectively really have the secret mindset that allows for the honest partial quote. Some of the quotes are really throwing down the gauntlet though.

nelim

Although there is Google now indeed, Google doesn't have a search button "look for support for this statement"... you'll have to enter an exact phrase (more or less). As Island Man said, thinking about the fact this quote mining is already going on for a long time (Trinity and Creator books, anyone?).... it boggles my mind how much effort they put in to find all these! Imagine.... the number of people required reading all these books, scientific articles, encyclopedias, .... to find a "suitable" quote. Because they do reference a variety of sources. Wow!

_Morpheus

Amd this is by no means limited to dubbie land. Its an age old newspaper ploy, the modern term being "pull quote" , to a one sentance snippet and run with it . You find snippet "A" that says what you want it to say, in context or not, and run with it knowing 99% will never verify it.

Magnum

I agree entirely that the writers are unqualified. I still have hundreds of JW publications that are marked with my notes indicating bad grammar, faulty logic, poor flow of meaning, poor wording, etc. However, I feel that their misquotes, such as those in the Trinity brochure and the Creation book, were deliberate.

Phizzy's right. "If you have the skill to read and understand the quote, you cannot misquote, or part-quote accidentally."

Marvin Shilmer

I honestly believe the reason that this happens is because of the individuals they use to write these magazines. these are not college educated men.

Lack of adequate training may contribute to misrepresentations found in Watchtower publications but the root cause is, in my opinion, a groping for justification. Take for example Watchtower's misuse of statements made by Bartholomeo Santinelli. The document quoted from is in Latin, so someone inside Watchtower had to have had training sufficient to translate Latin into English and then cherry-pick words from what Santinelli said. It is impossible to have selectively picked what Watchtower writers did of Santinelli's position without realizing it amounted to a wholesale lie. It took training to do what those writers did.

See: Watchtower misrepresents Santinelli

Vidqun

I agree with Marvin. They are pursuing their own agenda, no matter what.

Are the writers in the writing department purposely misquoting people?

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