Retraction Watch covers failed scholarship and worse in a range of areas. It has published a reasonably accurate account of the Designer Science quote fabrication scandal at New York University Press. That is, apart from the story’s headline, which is glaringly inaccurate. It says, “University press removes book about intelligent design for misquoting ID proponent.” The part about “misquoting” is echoed further down:
The misquote stemmed from a passage in a court ruling [C. W.] Howell “mistakenly” read as a direct quote from Behe and attributed as such, he told us.
What Howell did was not “misquote” Behe. He fabricated a quote.
The Cats from Mars
An example of a misquote would be, “Michael Behe said ‘The cat is white,’” when in fact he said, “The cat is orange.” An example of a fabrication would be, “Michael Behe said, ‘All cats come from Mars.’”
Behe never said what was attributed to him in quote marks by Howell, and the idea expressed there is one Behe explicitly rejects. What Howell in the book calls a “damning admission” from “Behe’s mouth himself,” that Behe “confessed on the stand” (p. 132), in Behe’s court “testimony” (p. 192), is Howell’s invention.
It forms the crucial linchpin of the argument in Designer Science. Even if committed through Howell’s sloppiness (as I assume) and not through intent, this is far more egregious and damaging than a mere misquote. That is why the publisher has undertaken the remarkable steps it has, including destroying inventory.
I have respectfully asked that Retraction Watch correct the mischaracterization.
Some Interesting Details
That said, the report has some interesting details. Our colleague Casey Luskin told the reporter he “discovered the quote as he prepared to write a review of Designer Science, which he told us ‘did not pass the smell test’ because ‘the quote did not sound like Dr. Behe.’” That’s for sure.
After further research, Luskin determined the false quote resulted from “a game of bad-scholarship-telephone,” he told us.
Behe said “the [fabricated] quote is not only inaccurate but ‘the polar opposite of my views.’” It “translated into an entirely fictional courtroom drama in [C. W. Howell’s] book.”
We hear from Howell himself about the matter, as well. “‘I believe correcting the mistake is the best course of action, and I welcome the opportunity to do so,’ Howell told us.” Well, what else is he going to say, or do? Try to defend the indefensible?