Ed Brayton Exposes Sal Cordova’s Cherry Picking

It was pointed out in a comment in our FRC post how much cherry picking resembles rank dishonesty.

That’s because it is. Deception is inherent in denialist arguments, and there are few better examples than Sal Cordova’s selective quotation as demonstrated by Ed Brayton in Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Check out the Sal Cordova version:

Charles Darwin, perhaps medicine’s most famous dropout, provided the impetus for a subject that figures so rarely in medical education. Indeed, even the iconic textbook example of evolution–antibiotic resistance–is rarely described as “evolution” in relevant papers published in medical journals. Despite potentially valid reasons for this oversight (e.g., that authors of papers in medical journals would regard the term as too general), it propagates into the popular press when those papers are reported on, feeding the wider perception of evolution’s irrelevance in general, and to medicine in particular.

Then check out the full version from PLoS Biology

It is curious that Charles Darwin, perhaps medicine’s most famous dropout, provided the impetus for a subject that figures so rarely in medical education. Indeed, even the iconic textbook example of evolution–antibiotic resistance–is rarely described as “evolution” in relevant papers published in medical journals [1]. Despite potentially valid reasons for this oversight (e.g., that authors of papers in medical journals would regard the term as too general), it propagates into the popular press when those papers are reported on, feeding the wider perception of evolution’s irrelevance in general, and to medicine in particular [1]. Yet an understanding of how natural selection shapes vulnerability to disease can provide fundamental insights into medicine and health and is no less relevant than an understanding of physiology or biochemistry.

Emphasis mine.

Denialists have no problem being deceptive, and as in this case, willfully misrepresenting the words of others to make their point, at any cost. There is no intellectual honesty. Intelligent design creationism is not a “science” as they suggest. It’s a systematic distortion of the truth.

Good job Ed, read the rest of his post for a full demonstration of the dishonesty of Cordova who has used this tactic many times in the past – including the time he did it to advance the idea that Charles Darwin liked to kill puppies. And Sal, here’s your reward.