Lessons in quote-mining #1

Lesson #1: Don't quote-mine the person you're trying to convince

You may remember Dana Ullman, noted homeopath who doesn't know the difference between this page and this page, and who thinks magic water can cure cancer. Well, he's now taken the stupid to another level.

Right at the moment, an arbitration case is going on at Wikipedia looking specifically at his behavior (arbitration is Wikipedia's equivalent of the Supreme Court), and also surrounding issues related to Homeopathy. To put it metaphorically, Dana's in a hole. Now, everyone knows that the first thing you're supposed to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging. However, Dana's a homeopath, and he believes that like cures like. So he keeps digging himself deeper. (He did consider briefly diluting the digging process, but he reminded himself that dilution was only to remove side-effects. It's the succussion (shaking) that does all the work, so he mixes in beating himself in the head with his shovel.)

To break from the metaphor, what a smart person would do when they find themself in this position would be to refrain from any possibly argumentative behavior and compose themself as well as possible. Not Dana. He keeps up arguing all over the place, causing just the same problem. You know, in case the other evidence against him gets stale. I could dig into a lot of it, but I'll stick the one most idiotic example. In this, Dana quote-mines the very person he's arguing with, and then argues that his quote-mined version is correct and this person is wrong about what he means.

The idiocy in question takes place at the talk page for Potassium dichromate. You can read through the linked section yourself to get the full picture, but allow me to sum events up. On this page, one editor, Scientizzle, made the following comment:

I am not as against the inclusion of homeopathy information as others here...Assuming the case for this being a remedy of note is solid, I support a simple inclusion that directs the reader to List of homeopathic preparations, which is an appropriate place to deal with the topic. (Even at List of homeopathic preparations, I can't see the published state of the research--i.e., Frass et al, & nothing else--meriting more than a minimalist "it's use has been investigated to treat COPD symptoms.^[ref]" statement). — Scientizzle 22:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Later on, Dana tries to use this to justify including a mention on the current article:

Scientizzle, no, not at all. Did you see your words: "I am not as against the inclusion of homeopathy information as others here...Assuming the case for this being a remedy of note is solid, I support a simple inclusion that directs the reader to List of homeopathic preparations, which is an appropriate place to deal with the topic.... I can't see the published state of the research--i.e., Frass et al, & nothing else--meriting more than a minimalist "it's use has been investigated to treat COPD symptoms. " [30] It is interesting how you chose to not give the entire quote from your posting at that same time. You clearly say that you're NOT against inclusion...this strongly suggests that the conversation is open. I hope that you will stop stonewalling. You did recommend providing reference to this study in at least a minimalistic way. Therefore, I continue to assert that the archiving of the active conversation is part of a bullying behavior conducted without consensus, in a WP:TE manner with the audacity to inaccurately blame me for TE. DanaUllman^Talk 05:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Note the ellipsis in Dana's quote. Now go back to what Scientizzle actually said (section that was cut out now bolded):

I am not as against the inclusion of homeopathy information as others here...Assuming the case for this being a remedy of note is solid, I support a simple inclusion that directs the reader to List of homeopathic preparations, which is an appropriate place to deal with the topic. (Even at List of homeopathic preparations, I can't see the published state of the research--i.e., Frass et al, & nothing else--meriting more than a minimalist "it's use has been investigated to treat COPD symptoms.^[ref]" statement).

Note how the section that Dana cut out completely changes the meaning (which is exactly what you want to do when quote-mining). The problem, however, was that he was quote-mining the very person he was arguing with. Of course Scientizzle knew that wasn't what he meant, and he could easily point out this quote-mine. How the hell did Dana expect this to convince him of anything?

Let me spell this out: Quote-mining is a dishonest tactic that makes you look bad when it's discovered. When you quote-mine the person you're arguing with, you're not only guaranteeing you'll be found out, but you're also ensuring that you'll not only look dishonest, but stupid too. That, in a nutshell, is Dana Ullman.

Proceed with your information binge...

Too much information!

Maybe they're just stupid

A lot of skeptics have written about how intelligent people can be tricked into believing incredibly stupid things. But I think that sometimes, we get so caught up in listing the human fallacies in thinking that lead to such conclusions that we fail Occam's Razor: Maybe these people are just stupid.

Bringing this to mind is the recent event you've all surely heard of by now: PZ Myers was expelled from Expelled, while Richard Dawkins wasn't. There's no way around that one. It was simply a stupid move.

However, a few other examples you probably haven't heard of, coming from my dealing with homeopaths over at Wikipedia:

First, there are my interactions with Dana Ullman, prominent homeopath. There are many things I can point to, but I'll limit it to one instance completely divorced from homeopathy. In this portion of a conversation, I try to explain to him how to link to a specific edit made on Wikipedia, and he's completely unable to see how this is different from linking to a section of a page. The conversation on Wikipedia is a bit disjointed, but you can see it here and here. Piecing together the relevant portions of the conversation (with some formatting changes):

...For future reference, when discussing particular actions, what's most useful to others here is pointing them to the record of the specific edit which was made (the "diff"). In this case, it's at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Wanderer57/Problem_with_Homeopathy_Discussions&diff=194939851&oldid=194900463. I generally get these by going to either the modification history of the article or the user's contributions, and then clicking on "last" of the line of the applicable edit and copy that address. The advantage to this method is that it goes directly to the relevant message and you also don't have to worry about forgeries, deletions, or archiving. --Infophile (Talk) (Contribs) 00:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I got your response. Thanx...but didn't I do just what you have suggested in the original posting that I made at Randy's user-page to which I linked in my Incident report. I am relatively new to wiki and am trying to be as collaborative as possible. Even though you and I don't usually agree, I hope that we can move beyond our own POV to create good NPOV stuff. DanaUllmanTalk 00:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The difference is that you're linking to the sections in which the comment is made. When these are large, it can be harder to find the relevant comment. Try comparing the link you used with the link I showed you above. You see how the one I used shows his comment directly?

Also, be careful about exaggerating. On the admin's noticeboard, you claimed that Randy was wishing death, though I see none of this here. Though if he did do this someplace else, I (and some admins as well) would be interested in seeing it. --Infophile (Talk) (Contribs) 00:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

(I posted this at my user-page, but to make your life easier, here it is) I assume that you somehow didn't read what Randy wrote: "You are a monster who sells nonsense to the sick, and the sooner you die the sooner the world will be a better place. Randy Blackamoor (talk) 00:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Is being called a "monster" and wishing me to die soon any type of civility? Do you still think that this is civil and that it warrants a simple week's penalty, while many anti-homeopathy editors are seeking to ban Whig primarily because he has a good backbone for defending a minority viewpoint. DanaUllmanTalk 01:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Witness how in his last comment, Dana doesn't make any further reference to how to use Diffs, and demonstrates that he still doesn't get it by failing to use one where it would be appropriate. Maybe he's just stupid.

And for a final example, I present to you a homeopath who doesn't understand what it means to be banned: Dr. Jhingadé. There's just no way to sum up the distilled stupid of this "doctor." I'd recommend you simply read the following sections of the talk pages: "Placebo? Quackery!!", "Read this Dr. Jhingadé", and finally, proving that even Dana Ullman thinks he's an idiot: "Hmm..."

If there's a lesson to take here, it's that not all woos are simply deluded by fallacies. Some are simply idiots.

Proceed with your information binge...

Too much information!

A Skeptic's Guide to Wikipedia (Part 1)

Why Wikipedia Matters

Imagine, if you will, a Mr. Joe Blow. Joe's your typical guy, unversed in the complexities of medicine, who one day finds an odd rash on his neck. He shows it to a couple of colleagues at work. One of them recommends he goes in to have a dermatologist look at it. The other, however, argues that that would be a waste of money. It would be a lot cheaper for Joe to go to the alternative medicine portion of his local pharmacy. There are plenty of things there that could cure a rash like that. Maybe some Homeopathy would be all he really needs.

Now, Joe hasn't heard much about Homeopathy before, and he's getting conflicting messages from his colleagues on whether it's worth trying. So, when he gets home from work, he logs onto the internet and runs a quick Google search for Homeopathy. The first search result is from "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Well, that sounds good, so Joe goes to read Wikipedia's article on Homeopathy. He starts by just reading the first paragraph:

Homeopathy (also homœopathy or homoeopathy; from the Greek ὅμοιος, hómoios, "similar" + πάθος, páthos, "suffering" or "disease") is a form of alternative medicine first defined by Samuel Hahnemann in the 18th century.^[1] Homeopathic practitioners contend that remedies for diseases can be created by ingesting substances that can produce, in a healthy person, symptoms similar to those of the disease. According to homeopaths, serial dilution, with shaking between each dilution, removes any negative effects of the remedy while the qualities of the substance are retained by the diluent (water, sugar, or alcohol). The end product is often so diluted that it is indistinguishable from pure water, sugar or alcohol by laboratory tests but is still claimed to have an effect on consumers.^[2][3][4] Practitioners select treatments according to a patient consultation that explores the physical and psychological state of the patient, both of which are considered important to selecting the remedy.

Now, what Joe takes from this paragraph depends a lot on his previous biases and knowledge. He might zero in on the part which says that homeopathic remedies generally are nothing but diluted water, and if there is anything left, it would just harm him. Or, he might focus on how it's been used since the 18th century and is argued to be able to cure his ailment. Or maybe he'll note from the last sentence that if he really wants it to work, he should be visiting a professional homeopath rather than simply picking something out from the drug store.

Each person will be different here. Many will only read the lead section, a few will read the whole article, while others might skip down to sections that interest them to read about it. But the net result is that Wikipedia is the primary source of information for many people in the current age of the internet.

Homeopaths realize this. So do Chiropractors, Creationists, Scientologists, and people who think Waterboarding isn't torture (or at least don't want others to think it is). You can see their incentive to go in and edit Wikipedia to be more favorable to their viewpoints, so that people who read these articles will come out with a positive view of their subject, and maybe then they'll go see a Homeopath to treat their ailments.

On the other hand, the pro-reality viewpoint doesn't have quite the same incentive to edit there. There's no direct benefit to us like there is for the anti-reality types. All we have to go on is the general incentive for why we do this: To help others avoid wasting their money or risking their lives. All of our reasons for blogging on skeptical topics apply also to Wikipedia. It's just one more place to reach an audience who's seeking information.

But most don't bother. In a conversation on Wikipedia recently, one notable skeptic described editing Wikipedia as seeming like "a long run for a short slide." Personally, I disagree. If we put as much effort into improving Wikipedia's articles as we did into blogging, I think it would have just as much, if not more, impact. The other problem he raised was that it just seemed futile. Well, maybe alone it is. That's why I'm making this post, so that perhaps as a group, we can make a difference.

So, I'm now encouraging all of you to start editing Wikipedia in order to bring its articles more in line with reality. I plan to make further posts on this subject, time permitting, in order to give you all a brief primer on Wikipedia editing and some brief tips that I've gleaned from experience. If you'd prefer to just jump in right away, though, then go here to start off, then register an account and get to work.

Proceed with your information binge...

Too much information!

A-slood-ism

I ran into this comment on Wikipedia this morning which I couldn't help ripping apart:

Atheism as pseudo-skeptic

This seems like a pretty obvious part of the subject - atheism (or a-supernatural, if you wish - Buddhists sometimes claim to be atheistic without the "skeptic" label) relies on claiming the negative, and when they commonly claim that they are skeptics, they are following this topic to the letter. Is there really no sources commenting on this, or is it just being removed every time it's mentioned?

I mean, I know that I can't put it in here myself, because no matter how obvious it is, it would be OR [Original Research]. But surely some scholar somewhere has noticed that this pretty much applies to any atheist, right?KrytenKoro 08:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

You know, it's been a long time since I mocked anyone's grammar. So before further ado, let's laugh at "Atheism as pseudo-skeptic." Anyways, I left a reply to it there, but I'll expand on it a bit in this post. First, what I said in reply:

In order to be a pseudoskeptic, you have to deny something even when there's significant evidence for it (and of course, claim to be a skeptic). This is different from simply assuming the null hypothesis until otherwise is shown to be true. Almost all atheistic skeptics fall into the latter category, as they haven't seen sufficient evidence for any religion, so they simply proceed on with their lives as if no god exists.

As a parallel, let's say I come up to you and talk about Slood, a miraculous substance on the importance level of fire or water, which has gone previously undiscovered by humanity. However, I never actually show you any slood or give you evidence that it exists, instead asking you to believe it on faith. If, after you're sufficiently frustrated with me, you give up on me ever showing you evidence for slood and go on with your life as if slood doesn't exist, are you any less of a skeptic? Replace "slood" with "God" and you have your typical atheist. --Infophile (Talk) (Contribs) 12:19, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course, that's a gross oversimplification of what it's like to be an atheist. To get that feeling, you'd have to add in years being brought up by parents telling you about the existence of slood, preachers claiming they see slood regularly but never showing it to you, and others promising to show you slood sometime in the future but never following through. If you express any doubt in the existance of slood, you'll either simply be executed as a slood-heretic or (if you're in a somewhat more civilized society) be read a random sampling of ten or so Doggerel.

If you ask people why you should believe in slood, you're told stories about all the great things slood is useful for, and why believing in slood makes you a better person. And then there are appeals to how bleak life would be if slood didn't exist. All this actually goes to show is that it might be nice if slood did exist, but it does nothing to show that this is actually the case.

You could try to get people to pin down what they believe slood actually does, but you'll end up with conflicting accounts. In the past, it seems that people believed slood was responsible for everything they didn't understand, from gravity to genetic transfer. When physical mechanisms for those were discovered, slood was no longer appealed to as an explanation for those, but was still used to fill in any other gaps in human knowledge. As more and more gaps closed, the definition of slood became fuzzier and fuzzier, until it was just some nice thing that helped out people somehow.

Almost by accident, a few testable claims about slood were actually made over the years. A few enterprising people then went and actually tested these claims to see if they would find evidence for slood. When tested, no evidence ever showed up. If slood existed one would have expected to find evidence for it, but since none showed up, isn't it logical to assume the non-existence of slood? Or at least, isn't it reasonable to go on with life as if slood doesn't exist?

Nope. If you assume slood doesn't exist, then you're a slood-denier. In the sloodist's world, there's no difference between not believing something and denying it. Especially since, to them, there actually is good "evidence" for the existence of slood (based on slood-faith, spurious "slood proofs," and poorly-controlled experiments). If you deny slood exists after all of that "proof," then there's just no helping you. And you claim to be skeptical on top of that? Oh, so you're a pseudoskeptic too.

* * * * *

You can see how crazy things get if you accept just any claim that's made without evidence for it. Go back up into that post and replace "slood" with virtually any ridiculous claim. It makes just as much sense to believe in the existence of slood without evidence for it as it does for God, fairies, or invisible pink unicorns. Just because you go on with your life as if they didn't exist doesn't make you a "pseudoskeptic."

Proceed with your information binge...

Too much information!

Somehow this is flattering

(Yes, this is a bit of a delayed reaction, but I just found this today.)

Okay, well I haven't gotten an argument ad Hitlerum quite yet, but it seems I did get the next best thing: an argument ad Stalinum. And no, this isn't some random troll comparing me to Stalin, this is infamous neurosurgeon Michael Egnor. You might think he'd be smarter than to compare a grad student (then under-grad) with enough extra time on his hands to delete a sentence from Wikipedia to a mass-murdering tyrant, but then I'd have to remind you that this is Michael Egnor we're talking about.

Here's the story: For a while, Orac challenged Dr. Egnor to back up his assertion that the design inference was "of great value" to medicine. Eventually, Egnor responded with the following convoluted chain of logic:

The natural place to start showing examples of the inference to design in medical research is the seminal biological discovery of the 20th Century—Watson’s and Crick’s discovery of the structure of DNA.

Notice that Watson and Crick aren’t standing next to a pair of dice. To untangle the structure of DNA, they inferred design, not chance. They reversed-engineered DNA. They collected physical data about the structure of DNA (X-ray diffraction studies, Chargaff’s rules, the physical chemistry of nucleotides, etc), and then they designed a model of the molecule to understand its structure and function.

Let them speak for themselves, in their famous April 25, 1953 letter to Nature:

It is probably impossible to build this structure with a ribose sugar in place of the deoxyribose, as the extra oxygen atom would make too close a van der Waals contact.

Full details of the structure, including the conditions assumed in building it, together with a set of coordinates for the atoms….

Furthermore, the design specifications revealed an elegantly simple method by which the genetic material could be copied:

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.

What exactly is reverse engineering? From Wikipedia:

Reverse engineering... is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device or object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation…Reverse engineering is essentially science, using the scientific method. Sciences such as biology and physics can be seen as reverse engineering of biological 'machines' and the physical world respectively. (Emphasis mine)

Watson’s and Crick’s work of course had nothing to do with Darwinism (except perhaps their laboratory politics, which is another matter).

This is not to say that Watson and Crick believed that DNA was designed by God. They were both atheists. Even molecular biologists who are avowed atheists use the design inference in their work.

Much of modern biological research, and most research in molecular biology, is reverse engineering. Some scientists infer design explicitly. Some use the design inference implicitly, even if they disagree with its philosophical implications. We can’t do modern biology, at least at the molecular level, without using reverse engineering, which is the inference to design.

Now, let's look at one little point: Did Watson and Crick ever use the term "Reverse Engineering" to describe what they were doing? Nope. Egnor came up with that application of the term himself, based on what he read about it in Wikipedia, that science such as biology could be described as "reverse engineering of biological 'machines.'" Then, from the use of "machines," he takes his own impression that all machines are designed, and assumes the Watson and Crick must have also been working with the assumption that they were reverse engineering designed machines. Of course, he apparently didn't notice the scare quotes around "machines" which indicated that it wasn't to be taken literally, so inferring that it meant designed machines is a stretch.

Ask yourself this question: Did he even need to bring up Watson and Crick here? Try substituting in any other biological advance and apply the same logic, such as figuring out the structure of the cell. It works just as well/poorly, doesn't it? The reason for this is that his entire argument hinges on what that one paragraph in Wikipedia says and his interpretation of the word "machine" used therein. If he wanted to make the argument that biology was reverse engineering of designed machines, that would be one thing, but the problem was that he only used Wikipedia as a source for this.

Now, while I love Wikipedia and use it all the time, I'll be the first to admit it's not perfect. In the end, it can be no better that the best of what's contributed to it. Often, the best of the contributions don't end up staying and you get something sub-par. What we had in the reverse-engineering article was the opinion of one editor that natural sciences were like reverse engineering. Now, this wasn't completely out of line, but the problem is that almost no scientist actually thinks of it that way. The editor, to his/her credit, did put in scare quotes around "machines" to imply that it wasn't to be taken literally, but it still served to foster misinterpretations.

So, seeing this, I looked around a bit. Orac was definitely of the opinion that it wasn't really a good analogy between science and reverse engineering. I looked around the internet, and I didn't see any reliable, verifiable sources making this analogy. Given that it also lead to misinterpretations, by the standards of Wikipedia, the sentence really shouldn't be in there. Thus, I deleted it.

But I'll admit, cleaning up Wikipedia wasn't my primary goal. What I wanted to do was make it clear to Egnor and all who read it that his point hinged entirely on a single paragraph in Wikipedia, and Wikipedia wasn't a perfectly reliable source. A single paragraph in a trusted source (like, Watson and Crick's own statements) would have been fine for his argument, but he's using his own interpretation of the words of some random Wikipedia editor to infer about a completely different subject. Just as bad information can be put into Wikipedia, bad information can be taken out of it. And when it is taken out, all of a sudden he has zero argument at all. This wouldn't have been a problem if he'd used an actual source on the actual subject, such as Watson and Crick saying they used the design inference, but he instead had to play word games with an analogy made up by a Wikipedia editor.

Frustrated that his entire argument could be taken down so easily, Egnor went into a tirade where he compared my correcting of Wikipedia to Stalin's offing of Trotsky (yes, seriously):

In the Soviet Union, censors would routinely make out-of-favor party leaders disappear from photographs. In this photograph, Trotsky was made "photographic history" not too long before he was made "history" in a more tangible sense.

Darwinists, who are scientific, rather than political, materialists, have an affinity for airbrushing as well. When sneering, name-calling, and obfuscation don’t make the evidence go away, Darwinists just wipe it away. A recent example of Darwinian airbrushing is worth noting.

I recently noted that the discovery of the structure and function of DNA was a good example of reverse engineering in biology and that the discovery of DNA had nothing to do with Darwin’s theory. Reverse engineering in biology is an inference to design, even if the inference is implicit and not explicit, and even if the scientist using the reverse engineering methodology doesn’t agree with the philosophical implications of the design inference. Much of modern molecular biology is the reverse engineering of biological molecules.

To illustrate my point, I linked to the "Reverse Engineering" entry in Wikipedia, which had a nice succinct definition:

Reverse engineering... is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device or object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation…Reverse engineering is essentially science, using the scientific method. Sciences such as biology and physics can be seen as reverse engineering of biological 'machines' and the physical world respectively. (emphasis mine)

My post was published on Evolution News and Views on April 3rd.

On April 4th, the Wikipedia reference to biological reverse engineering was airbrushed out. It was changed to:

Reverse engineering … is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device or object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation. It often involves taking something (e.g. a mechanical device, an electronic component, a software program) apart and analyzing its workings in detail, usually to try to make a new device or program that does the same thing without copying anything from the original. The verb form is to reverse engineer.

This was airbrushed:

Reverse engineering is essentially science, using the scientific method. Sciences such as biology and physics can be seen as reverse engineering of biological 'machines' and the physical world respectively.

The biological reverse engineering analogy was part of the original definition, and had been present until the day that I linked to it in my post. Someone (perhaps a Darwinist?) went to work with an eraser.

(For those reading his entire article, DrLeebot (no capital B) was the name I went by back then. I recently had it changed for unrelated reasons.)

You know what he could have done to save his argument? He could have linked to another source that makes this same analogy to show how it wasn't just one Wikipedia editor who made it up. But he didn't.

Aside from that, it seems Egnor doesn't quite know how Wikipedia works. I can't really blame him for that; not many people spend significant time behind the scenes there. So, for his benefit and yours, here's a little summary of the key points:

1. What Wikipedia says is not evidence of anything (other than trivially evidence of what Wikipedia says). Wikipedia saying biology is reverse engineering is not evidence that biology is reverse engineering; it's the opinion of (at least) one editor that it is.

2. Information isn't deleted by editing it out. Anyone who knows enough can access the page as it appeared when Egnor read it and confirm that that sentence was indeed there. Of course, I didn't expect many people to see it, which is what I was hoping for: That they would see it wasn't there and realize how much Egnor's argument hinged on it.

3. Wikipedia is ruled by consensus. If a change is unpopular, it gets reverted. If more people want the article to stay one way, they can keep editing it that way to show this consensus, and the lone dissenter can't stop them. (Editors are limited to three reverts a day.) Since I made that change, not one person has even tried to revert it, and it's stayed that way to today.

4. You can change it yourself. This one is right in the summary to Wikipedia: "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." If you think that sentence should stay in, then revert it back in. If others think it should go, then we go through a series of talking about it on the discussion page, asking others for their opinions, and seeing where consensus lies.

Dr. Egnor, using one paragraph from Wikipedia and claiming it as evidence that biology is reverse engineering and that reverse engineering always uses the design inference was just pathetic. Removing that paragraph served to show how weak your argument was. Rather than give better support for you argument, your argument ad Stalinum just makes you look more pathetic.

Proceed with your information binge...

Too much information!