Special question on cherry picking (tribute to ******)?

Question

This question is not about climate science but is certainly related to climate science. We hear the term "cherry picking" all the time from both sides of the debate. It could relate to the start and end dates of temperature time series to show a particular trend. Or it could be selecting specific quotes out of a larger group of words.

As an illustration, here is a letter I wrote about my wife:

"Honey, I love you so much. Our life with the kids is great and I always look forward to coming home from work to be with you. I would like to have sex with my secretary. I can't wait for our next romantic vacation together. I wish to spend the rest of my life with you. All my love, Mike."

Everything in that letter is the truth however it was meant to be private. Well sure enough my wife found it and was really upset with the secretary comment. I told her that she was cherry picking and that a guy I know at YA called ****** would drop by to explain why what she did was wrong.

******, please help.

Answer 1

Actually, your letter is hopelessly confusing. It's clear you don't understand cherry picking either. The line about the secretary is a non sequitur, and placing it where you do makes it read so that the next sentence might in fact refer to the secretary, not your wife. Given that, the final sentence is bizarre and you might in fact be psychotic, writing your wife a love letter, but in it admitting you want to take your secretary on a romantic vacation. Is this in fact a real letter sent by Newt Gingrich to one of his wives?



A great example of cherry picking in the context of marital infidelity would be when Jimmy Carter was pilloried for saying he had lusted after women in his heart, making it sound like he was constantly thinking of other women. The complete statement had more to do with temptation, human frailty, and forgiveness than adultery. A second example of cherry picking is how the right wing likes to make fun of Al Gore for saying he invented the internet. Aside from the fact he never actually said that, the actual quote shows more that he was saying he recognized it would be important in its early stages of development and provided legislative support for its funding.



Cherry picking in the climate science context is when a skeptic focuses on the one proxy temperature record that shows no warming in the 20th century and a large MWP signal, and ignores the twelve other proxy series showing dramatic warming in the 20th century and a relatively small MWP signal. In contrast, skeptics claim that it is cherry picking to include the dozen proxy series along with the one that shows no warming, since to be totally objective you would throw out the dozen that agree with each other since they are clearly wrong because they show warming in the 20th century and no MWP. Do you see why I say there is a measure of cognitive dissonance associated with being a climate skeptic?

Answer 2

Something is quote-mining if the quote, taken in context, means something vastly different than the quote taken out of context.



A good example of quote mining would be if you had sent a letter saying "I love my new secretary. She's so efficient, she always keeps my information perfectly organized, and she's already learned how I like my coffee. I'm glad I hired her.", and that person told your wife that you said "I love my new secretary." In context, what you said clearly means "She's a very good secretary, and I like that"; out of context, it sounds more like "I want to boff my secretary". Your example is a case where, *even with the context*, what you said sounds bad.



Similarly, cherry picking is when you look at data, and ignore all the data that says things you don't want, only paying attention to the data that says things you *do* want. For example, in a system as "noisy" as the climate, it's easy to find a several-year period with a downward trend even when the overall, long-term trend is upward. So, it's cherry picking to find 10 years when climate is trending downwards, say "See? This means there's no global warming", and ignore the 30-year average that shows that temperatures are higher than ever.

Answer 3

well Ian, I guess this little rant of yours shows your intelligence does it not? You have been told time and time again that 'hide the decline' and 'mikes nature trick' deals with two different things. One deals with northern tree ring proxies and how they don't follow REAL RECORDED DATA after 1961 and 'Mikes nature trick' deals with adding real instrumental data over top or instead of proxy data after 1981. This is why you are labelled a denier. You're like a young Earth creationist that doesn't want to believe in evolution and only looks at data that meets their expectations, disregards all other data by assuming it is false, and so on. The actual quote you are referring to is "I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline." I would suggest you learn to understand what you read.



As for the original question: The person spoken about above gives a great example of cherry picking. Heck he even changes the quote somewhat and cherry picks specific words out of the full sentence to give it a completely different meaning.

Answer 4

I'm not really finding a question here to answer directly, so I'll kind of guess that the real question is something along the lines of "Will the scenario I describe in the letter entrap people who object to cherry picking into cherry picking?"



And my answer to that is no, it did not. Neither do your added comments about taking the comment about having sex with your secretary literally out of context bolster whatever point it is you are trying to make. Your use of language in the 'letter' in context or out does not say or imply that you sometimes fantasize about having sex with your secretary but would never actually do it. It says that you love your wife but would like to have sex with your secretary. ****** is right-the letter clearly says that you would like to have sex with your secretary.



Part of the problem here IS context, and that context is you have taken a scientific issue that has been pointed out-cherry picking data-and put it in the context of how politics is played nowadays. Even the corrupted example you provide reflects the general tenor of politics, where people in or aspiring to high office make remarks that get them into trouble and they have to hastily backtrack.



Mike, I appreciate that you might have intended to just have a little fun here with this question, but frankly, after the quality of several of your recent questions, I'm a little disappointed that you would stoop to baiting ******-or anyone else-even in fun. To me, it undermines your credibility as a skeptic. I've almost certainly undermined my own cyber credentials in similar ways though, judging by the number of thumbs-down my answers seem to regularly, quickly and automatically get from the contingent of denial regulars with agendas here in this category who systematically give thumbs down to every answer from every person they consider an opponent to their views regardless of the answer itself. I believe there are right around eight individuals doing that at the moment. In some ways I take pride in the number of thumbs down I get, often equal to others of much more convincing status here...I'm not even a scientist, but I rank right up there with pegminer and a number of others who actually know what they are talking about in scientific terms and provide credible links to back up their statements. If pegminer and the other regular warmers here all get at least eight thumbs down, I usually do too. That's kinda cool, makes me feel all scientifical and whatnot.

Answer 5

That's not cherry picking, or quote mining as is the more common name in dealing with the other major group of science deniers, creationists.



Quote mining is taking a quote out of context to change the meaning. Your statement's meaning doesn't change in or out of context.



The most famous example of science denialists like yourself quote mining comes from Darwin himself.



The quote:

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. "



The context, in this case the next paragraph:

"Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound."



See the difference context makes? What seems to oppose evolution is just setting up a rhetorical argument.

Answer 6

I'll cherry pick from you're paragraph.



"I ... can't .... spend the rest of my life with you. ....Mike."



This is a great example of cherry picking. Select what supports you preconceived message, ignoring other relevant parts of your message. This is the denialist standard. You said every word in the sentence - do you deny it? You told her you wanted to have sex with your secretary - do you deny that? If you are weren't going to leave her, why do you want to have sex with your secretary? How can we think your truthful if you admit you said the words and want to have sex with your secretary? Everything you say has to be a lie.

Answer 7

You really don't get it.



Cherry-picking is the subtle art of choosing specific quotes to make it appear something was said which in reality wasn't. As such it is not applicable to your little letter to your wife because you clearly want to have sex with your secretary.



A proper cherry-picked example, using your letter would be:



"I always look forward to coming home to have sex"



Nowhere in your example letter did you actually say that so the cherry-picked phrase above achieves its objective of distorting the intended meaning of the whole letter. That's cherry-picking.



Got it now or do you need some more examples?



Edit @ Mike:



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But I am not proud of you because you still do not get it. Your fundamental error is the fact that both you as your wife know the contents of the whole letter leaving little room for distortion. Quote mining only works successfully when the audience is unaware of the full text and only is informed about part of the text (without knowning that important bits and pieces have deliberately been left out)



I'll give it one last try.



Imagine it was not your wife who found your little secret letter but her mother, your mother-in-law. She'd read the whole letter and then tells her daughter that there is really, really nothing to worry about because you said "I love you so much. Our life with the kids is great and I always look forward to coming home from work to be with you. I can't wait for our next romantic vacation together. I wish to spend the rest of my life with you. All my love, Mike."



In this case the cherry-picking consists in omitting to mention your desire to have sex with your secretary, a little detail which undermines the love and devotion for your wife as expressed in the sentences your mother in law did quote.



<>



This is not about me but about your wife, remember, after she found and read your letter? "Well sure enough my wife found it and was really upset with the secretary comment."



Your wife read the WHOLE letter and was upset about the secretary comment. That is not cherry-picking. Cherry-picking is your wife being quoted the whole letter EXCEPT the secretary comment.

Answer 8

You mean like "Hiding the decline" using "Mike's nature trick"?



Skeptic: Wow, he really wants to fudge the data.



Alarmist: This is taken totally out of context. "Hiding the decline" means that we want the data to go away completely. That's not "hiding it". If the data doesn't support our theory, we ignore the data and then substitute in adjusted data that does. Every scientist does that now. It's perfectly legit and not a "Trick".

Answer 9

Cherry-picking is all about distorting what someone else said in order to mislead third parties. When you are a liar-denier who needs a break from lying, cherry picking scientists is safer than cherry plucking your secretary.

Answer 10

I read a book called The Hockey Stick Illusion by A. W Montford. Talk about cherry picking. I think Mann should work in an orchard.



My wife is a 2nd grade teacher in a mostly Spanish speaking neighborhood. My wife is ethnic Chinese. She used that expression once, that they were cherry picking. A mother got offended and said how would you like it if called you a "rice picker" so even using "cherry picking" can be politically incorrect I guess. I think my wife would probably just say dream on about the secretary because she isn't the jealous type. If I said I did have sex, that would be another story however. But I digress

Answer 11

I am laughing so hard I can't type.