Quote Mine: Azar asks for help and gets dishonestly quoted

From: Harlequin (usenet_at_cox.net)
Date: 09/10/04

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    [quote]
    "Are the authorities maintaining, on the one hand, that evolution is
    documented by geology and, on the other hand, that geology is documented by
    evolution? Isn’t this a circular argument?" Larry Azar, "Biologists, Help!"
    BioScience, Vol. 28, November 1978, p. 714.
    [/quote]
    _In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood_
    (7th Edition) by Walt Brown
    http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes65.html

    The article is from pages 712 to 715.

    This quote takes the cake for dishonesty. How this
    one is out of context is fairly unique though.

    Larry Azar at the time of this article was with the Philosopy
    Department of Iona College in New Rochell, New York
    ( http://www.iona.edu/about/description.htm ). He describes
    himself as a "philosophy teacher" and in the context of
    biology he calls himself an "outsider."

    His question, "Isn’t this a circular argument?" is not
    a rhetorical question, it is a real one. Basically this
    article is a philosopher who is _not_ an expert in the sciences
    asking a series of questions about biology including evolution
    in hopes that biologists would respond and clarify the
    issues for him. And they did exactly that. There were
    a number of letters to the editor on pages 208 to 209 of
    the April 1979 issue which also had an article
    in response called "Evolution: Help for the Confused"
    by Bradley T. Scheer on pages 238 to 241. In that
    article the quoted question was answered.

    The young-earthers might as well quote questions
    asked by students to instructors in freshman classes
    as "evidence" for young-earth dogma. 

    -- 
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