Here is an article I put together a while ago on the subject. It's a lot easier to read in MS-word format, so if you would like me to e-mail you a copy, let me know. My thanks to countless places from where this stuff was gleaned from and recorded.
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QUOTATIONS
Often, the society will quote from secular authorities to back up its stand and logic on matters. If you take the quotes at face value, they can be quite convincing. However, if you take the time to check the sources, you are sometimes surprised.
1.Authorities quoted are often unqualified.
2.At times, quotations are selected in very misleading manners. Sometimes they are taken out of context. Other times phrases are extracted from sentences and misrepresented.
3.Scientific quotations are sometimes outdated, being 50 to 300 years old, with no reference to the age of the document.
4.Persons quoted have at times spoken out regarding the twisting of their words.
1. Qualifications of Authorities
Francis Hitching:
He is cited as one of the main sources for the Creation book, and is quoted several times in the Gods Word or Mans book.
The reference work Contemporary Authors (Vol. 103, page 208) lists him as a member of the Society for Psychical Research, the British Society of Dowsers and the American Society of Dowsers. His writings include: Earth Magic; Dowsing: The Psi Connection; Mysterious World: An Atlas of the Unexplained; Fraud, Mischief, and the Supernatural and Instead of Darwin.
He is a tabloid TV writer, paranormalist and major figure in the dowsing community. He has written on Mayan pyramid energy and for some In Search Of episodes on BBC television. He has no scientific credentials, not even a degree.
Johannes Greber:
"It comes as no surprise that one Johannes Greber, a former Catholic clergyman, has become a spiritualist and has published the book entitled Communication with the Spirit World, Its laws and Its Purpose." - w 55 10/1 p603
So, if they knew he was a spiritist in 1955, why did they continue to quote from him?
* w61 1/1 30 Was There a Resurrection?
* "The Word" -- Who Is He? According to John (1962) p.5 [Not available on 1993/1995 CD-ROMs]
* w62 9/15 p.554
* Make Sure of All Things: Hold Fast to What is Fine (1965) p. 489 [Not available on 1993/1995 CD-ROMs]
* Aid to Bible Understanding (1969) p. 1134 [Not available on 1993/1995 CD-ROMs]
* Aid to Bible Understanding (1969) p. 1669 [Not available on 1993/1995 CD-ROMs]
* w75 10/15 640 Questions from Readers
* w76 4/15 231 Insight on the News
Questions From Readers
Why, in recent years, has The Watchtower not made use of the translation by the former Catholic priest, Johannes Greber?
This translator relied on "God's Spirit World" to clarify for him how he should translate difficult passages. It is stated: "His wife, a medium of God's Spirit world was often instrumental in conveying the correct answers from God's Messengers to Pastor Greber." The Watchtower has deemed it improper to make use of a translation that has such a close rapport with spiritism. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12) - w83 4/1 31 Questions From Readers
John S. Thompson:
In the 1985 edition of the NWT Interlinear Bible, John S. Thompson is cited as an authority for the translation of John 1:1.
According to The American Quarterly Review, Sept 1830, Vol 8, p 227, he held many different faiths and experienced spirit voices which bade him to write and translate.
C. Piazzi Smyth
He is quoted as a reference in the book Survival into a New Earth, 1984, p 49. The Guide to Edinburghs Popular Observatory describes him like this:
"Piazzi Smyth had a major obsession with the pseudo-science of pyramidology, which is founded in the belief that the measurements of the Great Pyramid contain a mystical significance. Indeed he was the only person ever to have resigned his fellowship of the Royal Society, following their refusal to publish his pyramid papers."
Zoologist Coffin:
"Clearly, the impartial inquirer would be led to conclude that fossils do not support the theory of evolution. On the other hand, fossil evidence does lend strong weight to the arguments for creation. As zoologist Coffin stated: ..." - Creation p70
Coffin is really a young-earth creationist, and the quote is from an Adventist paper. He has no scientific credentials.
2. Misleading quotations
The Quote:
"Fossil hunter Donald Johanson acknowledged: No one can be sure just what any extinct hominid looked like." - Creation p 89
What it really said:
"No one can be sure what any extinct hominid looked like with its skin and hair on. Sizes here are to scale, with afarensis about two feet shorter than the average human being." - Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey, Lucy - the Beginnings of Humankind, New York: Warner Books, Inc, 1981, p. 286
The Quote:
"At this point a reader may begin to understand Dawkins comment in the preface to his book: This book should be read almost as though it were science fiction." - Creation p39
What it really said:
"This book should be read almost as though it were science fiction. It is designed to appeal to the imagination. But it is not science fiction: it is science. Cliche or not, stranger than fiction expresses exactly how I feel about the truth." - Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976, p. 9
The Quote:
"Zoologist Richard Lewontin said that organisms appear to have been carefully and artfully designed. He views them as the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer." - Creation p 143
What it really said:
"The manifest fit between organisms and their environment is a major outcome of evolution.... Life forms are more than simply multiple and diverse, however. Organisms fit remarkably well into the external world in which they live. They have morphologies, physiologies and behaviors that appear to have been carefully and artfully designed to enable each organism to appropriate the world around it for its own life. It was the marvelous fit of organisms to the environment, much more than the great diversity of forms, that was the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer. Darwin realized that if a naturalistic theory of evolution was to be successful, it would have to explain the apparent perfection of organisms and not simply their variation." -Richard C. Lewontin, Adaptation, Scientific American, vol. 239, September 1978, p. 213
The Quote:
"Carl Sagan, in his book Cosmos, candidly acknowledged The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a great designer." - Reasoning from the Scriptures, 1985, p124
What it really said:
"The fossil evidence sould be consistent with the idea of a great designer; perhaps some species are destroyed when the Designer becomes dissatisfied with them, and new experiments are attempted on an imperfect design. But this notion is a little disconcerting. Each plant and animal is exquisitly made; should not a supremely competent Designer have been able to make the intended variety from the start? The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer (although not with a designer of a more remote and indirect temperment)." - Cosmos, p29
3. Out of date information presented as current
Wallace Platt:
"This geologist, Wallace Platt, also noted that the order of events from the origin of the oceans, to the emergence of land, to the appearance of marine life, and then to birds and mammals is essentially the sequence of the principal divisions of geologic time." - Creation p 36
Wallace Platt said this in a lecture in 1928. He was a young-earth creationist who discounted all scientific evidence.
W Sullivan:
"The hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present, still an article of faith." - Creation p. 52
The present time is, of course, 1933.
Jean Baptiste Denys
"It is of no consequence that the blood is taken into the body through the veins instead of the mouth. Nor does the claim by some that it is not the same as intravenous feeding carry weight. The fact is that it nourishes or sustains the life of the body. In harmony with this is a statement in the book Hemorrhage and Transfusion, by George W. Crile, A.M., M.D., who quotes a letter from Denys, French physician and early researcher in the field of transfusions. It says: In performing transfusion it is nothing else than nourishing by a shorter road than ordinary - that is to say, placing in the veins blood all made in place of taking food which only turns to blood after several changes." (The Watchtower, Sept. 15, 1961, p. 558)
Jean Baptiste Denys lived in the 1600s.
4. MISQUOTED PERSONS SPEAK OUT
Richard Lewontin:
"But the point of my article, 'Adaptation' in Scientific American, from which these snippets were lifted, was precisely that the 'perfection of organisms' is often illusory and that any attempt to describe organisms as perfectly adapted is destined for serious contradictions. Moreover, the appearance of careful and artful design was taken in the nineteenth century before Darwin as 'the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer.' The past tense of my article ('It was the marvelous fit of organisms to the environment ... that was the chief evidence of Supreme Designer') has been conveniently dropped by creationist [Gary] Parker in his attempt to pass off this ancient doctrine as modern science."
Lewontin, "Misquoted Scientists Respond," Creation/Evolution, VI, Fall 1981, p. 35.
Note: Gary Parker is the author of a Seventh Day Adventist book on evolution from which most of the Societys Creation book was copied.
George Howard:
"If Kims dating is correct, it would show that in a Pauline MS of the first century, the Tetragram was not used as I suggested. This weakens my theory, at least in regard to the Pauline letters. Whether or not first century manuscripts of the gospels and other writings would follow the pattern of P46 would still be a matter of conjecture... The Jehovahs Witnesses have made too much out of my articles. I do not support their theories." - George Howard, Department of Religion, University of Georgia, July 8, 1988
Note: Not only has this person been misquoted, but subsequent developments that change his theory are never reported.
Keiiti Aki:
"I feel strongly that the seismicity has been stationary for thousands of years. I was trying to convince Jehovahs Witnesses about the stationarity of seismicity, using the data obtained in China for the period 1500 through 1700, but they put only weak emphasis in the published statement... It is clear that they quoted the part they wanted, eliminating my main message." - Professor Keiiti Aki, June 16, 1986, after reading a Watchtower article based on an interview with him.
Torben Lund:
What the Watchtower said: "Denmarks minister of health also disagreed with the bad publicity Dans doctors received. He stated that the doctors had done the right thing in respecting Dans mature decision and well-founded faith." (WT 02/01/96 p 15)
His response: "'I absolutely do not agree with Jehovahs Witnesses brainwashing their young members to get them to refuse blood. On the contrary I find their methods bordering on the criminal, so you can safely say that I have been misquoted.' says Torben Lund." (Ekstra Bladet, Danish newspaper, Jan 25, 1996)
Edited by - RunningMan on 29 August 2002 15:32:19
Edited by - RunningMan on 29 August 2002 15:34:41
