the promised quote...with a TWIST

Posted by anyman on Jul 11, 2002 at 06:40
(61.183.183.21)

in a post below i appended the following paraphrase of a quote as an aside, intended to be humorous but poignant

(sounds like darwin in a letter to his brother dated the day before origins was published when he said something like...***the ideas put forth in “origin” are so satisfying that if the facts be found to differ, then so much for the facts*** [rough paraphrase...i’ll post the actual quote when i find it] :-)

i appended it to the first point of “maier’s law” below

Maier's Law states:
~ "If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of" (ie my paraphrase was here – am)
~ "the bigger the theory, the better"
~ "the experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory."

i promised to locate and post the actual quote later...and here it is

In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling. ---Erasmus A. Darwin, in a letter to his brother Charles, after reading The Origin of Species. From: Francis Darwin, ed. (1902), The Life of Charles Darwin. London: Senate, 1995 reprint, p 215

the twist is...

after spending many hours scouring the internet for the quote, that i have seen dozens of times and used more than once, including once several years ago when i offered it as the “quote of the day” on this board, i contacted a friend for some help in locating the precise quote and an accurate reference...

well...

i said it was a letter from “darwin to his brother” and that is true enough but...it turns out that i and others have been perpetuating a misrepresentation by falsely attributing this quote to charles darwin in a letter to his brother, erasmus, dated the eve of the publication of origin, 23 november 1859...the quote is actually from a letter that his brother, erasmus (“ras”), wrote to charles instead of the other way around

i also find it interesting that no evolutionary guysngals have ever taken the time to check it out and correct me/us...at least, i have never seen a correction of this false attribution anywhere

it therefore seems that there is at least some justification to the claims of evolutionary folks that creationary folks misuse quotes...not nearly as often as they claim, but it does happen (and it happens on both sides...my experience is that the evolutionary camp far more frequently misuses or misrepresents creationary info and ideas :-)...my own misquote was accidental rather than intentional

regardless, one misuse is too many...and to my shame...too bad, so sad, my bad

sooooo...bring on the crow...i’m hungry...but do me a favor, eh...to help me choke that dude down, let me have one of those paradisian cheeseburgers on the side...mmm, i like mine with lettuce and tomatoes, heinz 57 and french fried potatoes...

thanx, jimmy buffet, for helping me choke this gaff, gaffe, and faux pas down with an ironic smile :->

i’m glad that rather than continuing in willful ignorance or saying, “so much for the facts” that i am able to acknowledge my error...albeit sheepishly :-)

let the feeding frenzy begin :-)

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