The Quote Mine Project is a response to the creationist tactic of quoting scientists as "evidence" against evolution. It is a group effort of many participants of the talk.origins newsgroup which documents what is wrong with how the creationists present their "evolution quotes." See the introduction for details.

This page acts details the evolution of the project and can be used as a what's new page.

Evolution/History of the Project

August 22, 2012

Added Quote #4.21: J.S. Jones statement that in human palaeontology the consensus depends on who shouts loudest.

October 31, 2006

Added Quote #4.20: Ehrlich and Birch on not being able to refute evolution by observation.

October 9, 2006

Added The Discovery Institute Quote Mines Stephen Jay Gould that discusses how the Discovery Institute selectively quoted what Gould and others wrote in a brief for Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, a United States Supreme Court case that addressed the admissibility of expert evidence in federal courts.

September 28, 2006

Added The Discovery Institute Quote Mines Judge Jones that discusses how the Discovery Institute selectively quotes Judge Jones' decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in aid of its "bait and switch" claim of scientific evidence in support of intelligent design.

September 3, 2006

Added Quote #3.15: Gould on experiments that disprove any evolutionary theory.

August 12, 2006

More information on Quote #4.17: Popper on Darwinism being a metaphysical research programme. The Project homepage had information on the origin of the term "quote mining" added to it as well.

August 1, 2006

Added Quote #4.19: George Wald on Spontaneous generation being impossible.

March 8, 2006

Added Quote #4.18: Bill Gates on DNA as a Computer Program.

November 29, 2005

Added three new quotes: Quote #3.14: Gould on no support for gradual change, Henry Gee on untenable missing links, and Sir Karl Popper on Darwinism being an untestable metaphysical research programme.

August 28, 2005

Added two new quotes: Quote #4.14: Henry Gee on fossils and stories and Quote #4.15: Sewall Wright on mutations and degeneration.

April 3, 2005

Added two new quotes: Quote #4.12: the fantasy eukaryotic cell of Dyer and Obar and Quote: $4.13: Sir Arthur Keith on the laws of Christianity and evolution.

February 22, 2005

Added three new quotes used by intelligent design advocates: Quote #3.13: Eldredge says that evolution never seems to happen was used by Phillip E. Johnson Quote #4.10: evidence for neo-Darwinism is weak and Quote #4.11: great Darwinian paradox where used by Michael Behe.

December 12, 2004

Added Quote #3.12: Gould on lack of 'vector of progress'.

November 30, 2004

Added the fourth addition to the project on Geologic Column Quotes used by young-earth creationists to deny that the Earth is ancient. Added Quote #3.11 and Quote #4.9. This adds up to seven new quotes. New material was added to the response to Quote #33: Kemp on circular reasoning.

October 10, 2004

Added nine new quotes: Quotes #4.6 - #4.8, Quotes #3.7 - #3.10, and Quotes #2.10 - #2.11.
Additional response to Quote #3.3: Gould and Eldredge on Archaeopteryx. This page added.

August 30, 2004

Additional response to Quote #67: Fleischmann quote.

August 22, 2004

Third addition to the project was a collection of Assorted Quotes used by anti-evolutionists.

July 29, 2004

Second addition to the project: Gould, Eldredge and Punctuated Equilibria Quotes.

June 20, 2004

Creationists love to quote Darwin on evolution and other subjects. Thus the first addition was a collection of Darwin Quotes.

September 21, 2003

Quote Mine Project officially goes online at The Talk.Origins Archive.

March 6, 2003

First use of the phrase "Quote Mine Project".

March 5, 2003

John Pieret makes the first collection of responses to the creationist poster's list of quotes.

February 28, 2003

A creationist poster posts a large list quotes under the title of "Famous quotes from famous evolutionists" which he copied without attribution from a creationist website. Not all the people quoted accepted evolution or where by any means famous. Very quickly other posters provided numerous demonstrations of out-of-context quoting.