The use of primary references is preferred, but my sense is that it is most often NOT DONE in practice by scientists---unless there is something so critical to the work that you must be completely sure about it.
Just like other people, scientists do not have a lot of extra time to burn. Journals and contract reports most often have deadlines. In many cases, one's personal library does not contain all of the original references and neither does the university library. You cannot wait for weeks on interlibrary loan to verify one little fact. Furthermore, many journal articles are written in Danish or some other foreign language---and you do not read Danish. Luckily, your secondary source did, and you just have to depend upon him to have gotten the translation right.
My M.A. thesis depended heavily on secondary references---as has a lot of my other scientific work over the years. The same is true of my past colleagues at assorted work places over the years.
Interestingly, I almost got my head chopped off with that on my M.A. thesis. My thesis was all turned in, approved, and ready to print---and I was just a hair's diameter away from a degree in hand. Suddenly, while I was in my Committee Chairman's office one morning, he saw something in my thesis (from a secondary source) that didn't look right to him. I remember exactly what he said: "This doesn't look right to me. Maybe we've been passing you through a little too fast on this thesis. Let's just check the original reference here on my shelf and we'll just see if this is right." The moth was obviously cornered by the spider as he reached confidently for his library shelf. Opening up the reference to the page number that I had cited, he read it carefully and then said. "By damn John, that is exactly what he said!!! I never knew that!!! Good job John. Good job!!!" The degree was clenched.
I didn't really do a good job---my colleague who wrote the original reference did. Yours truly was just lucky to escape the spider's web.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If you're going to hold someone responsible for the death of more than six million people, you better do better than a distorted second hand quote.
The reason Weikart did it, was to conceal the original context to fool those foolish enough to put their trust in his scholarship.
Oh, I wasn't defending her or him Pat, and I would hardly call anything that comes out of the Discovery Institute science. Even third hand references would be a better bet than anything they do out in Seattle.
And yes, I agree fully that this willful abuse of second hand references to obfuscate the truth is reprehensible beyond compare. The Bible says that men will put together many clever and original "devices" to commit evil. This be one of them.
I disagree strongly with AmeriChristian's statement that scientists rarely use primary references. In my own papers, I use primary references at least 90% of the time and expect the same of my colleagues - that way I can check facts like results and methods most easily.
To promote Creationism is to be determined to be utterly dishonest, especially with oneself.
Let's have a brief but serious look at what really paved the way for genocide. I think you can trace it back a bit further than Darwin:
Deuteronomy 7:2
The Hittites, Grigashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites--you must put them all under the curse of destruction. Show them no pity.
Deuteronomy 20:16-17
And you must not spare the life of any living thing. Lay them under the curse of destruction: Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, as Yahweh your God has commanded you.
Numbers 31:9-10, 14
The Israelites took the Midianite women and children as captives. They took their cattle, their flocks, and all their wealth.
Then they burned down all the cities in which the Midianites had lived.
Moses was furious at army commanders who had returned from the battle. 'Why have you spared the lives of all the women?' Moses asked.
Joshua 11:8-9
Yahweh put them at Israel's mercy and they struck them down and chased them all the way to Greater Sidon, Misrephoth Maim, and the Mizpah Valley to the east.
They struck them down until not one of them was left alive.
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Historical revisionism is an ugly thing. As always, thank you for the chance to comment.
When Weikart says
"If one looks at p. 75 of Diane Paul’s book, one will readily see that I did not misconstrue her position."
...is he saying it's not Well's but Paul's position that 'inferiors' should be eliminated?
To cast off blame for a misleading citation onto a secondary source is unethical scholarship. As a scientist, I take personal responsibility that anything that I say is supported by the primary reference, whether I choose to cite that reference or a secondary source. The only case in which I don't cite primary references is when it would put me over a journal's limit on the number of references, because I would have to cite too many references to make the point. Even then, I always check the primary sources to verify that they are being correctly summarized in the secondary reference.
This appears to be more than simply citing a secondary source. It's laundering a mined quote to obscure contextual inaccuracy.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it
"Pat Hayes of Red State Rabble criticizes the ID-friendly historian Richard Weikart, but ironically engages in some historical revisionism himself." ...
Read the rest of this entry:
http://telicthoughts.com/?p=932
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