Great moments in the history of quote-mining

If you follow Tim Lambert's Deltoid blog you'd be aware of his running series of posts about The Australian's (the major national newspaper in Australia) history of pseudo-science. Fitting in with its laughable tradition of intellectual dishonesty and incompetence, John Quiggin of Crooked Timber recounts his being quote-mined by the paper. Here's what the paper said he said:

mainstream science is on the verge of being overturned by the efforts of a group of dedicated amateurs

And here's what he actually said

While most media outlets give at least some space to these conspiracy theorists, the central role has been played by The Australian. Not only its opinion columnists (with a handful of honorable exceptions) and its editorials, but even its news reporting is dominated by the idea that mainstream science is on the verge of being overturned by the efforts of a group of dedicated amateurs, publishing their findings not in the peer-reviewed literature but through blogs, thinktanks and vanity presses

Another case of "you can hammer ..." thinking in action.