Philosophy

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Philosophy of Science, Practice of Science

Science and Religion, Scientists and Religion

Evolution and Science

Evolution and Philosophy and Religion

Teleology

Views of Individual Scientists and Intellectuals

Philosophy of Science, Practice of Science:

"...There will be well-testable theories, hardly testable theories, and non-testable theories. Those which are non-testable are of no interest to empirical scientists. They may be described as metaphysical." (Popper, Karl, Conjectures and Refutations (New York: Basic Books, 1963), p. 257.)

"A hypothesis is empirical or scientific only if it can be tested by experience. A hypothesis or theory which cannot be, at least in principle, falsified by empirical observations and experiments does not belong to the realm of science." (Francisco J. Ayala, "Biological Evolution: Natural Selection or Random Walk?," American Scientist, Vol. 62, November-December 1974, p. 700)

“A primary tool used in all scientific activity is testing. Every new fact and every new explanation must be tested again and again, preferably by different investigators using different methods. Every confirmation strengthens the probability of the “truth” of a fact or explanation, and every falsification or refutation strengthens the probability that an opposing theory is correct. One of the most characteristic features of science is this openness to challenge. The willingness to abandon a currently accepted belief when a new, better one is an important … [characteristic of] science.” (Ernst Mayr in an excerpt from the book, "This is Biology: The Science of the Living World" (1997) by Ernst Mayr as quoted in Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science (National Academy of Sciences, 1998, pg. 43))

"What gambler would be crazy enough to play roulette with random evolution? The probability of dust carried by the wind reproducing Durer's 'Melancholia' is less infinitesimal than the probability of copy errors in the DNA molecule leading to the formation of the eye; besides, these errors had no relationship whatsoever with the function that the eye would have to perform or was starting to perform. There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it." (French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grasse in _Evolution of Living Organisms_ (New York: Academic Press, 1977), 104)

“Much of present-day biological knowledge is ideological. A key symptom of ideological thinking is the explanation that has no implications and cannot be tested. I call such logical dead ends antitheories because they have exactly the opposite effect of real theories: they stop thinking rather than stimulate it. Evolution by natural selection, for instance, which Charles Darwin originally conceived as a great theory, has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong. Your protein defies the laws of mass action? Evolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken? Evolution! The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate? Evolution is the cause!" (Robert B. Laughlin, A Different Universe (New York: Basic Books, 2005), pp. 168-169.)

"Multiple hypotheses should be proposed whenever possible. Proposing alternative explanations that can answer a question is good science. If we operate with a single hypothesis, especially one we favor, we may direct our investigation toward a hunt for evidence in support of this hypothesis." (Campbell N.A., Reece J.B. & Mitchell L.G., "Biology," [1987], Benjamin/Cummings: Menlo Park CA, Fifth Edition, 1999, p.14)

"There are obvious the difficulties in discussing unique events that happened a long time ago. How can we ever know that our suggested explanations are correct? After all, historians cannot agree about the causes of the Second World War. We accept that certainty is impossible, but there are several reasons why we think the enterprise is worth while. First, we have one grat advantage over historians: we have agreed theories both of chemistry and of the mechanism of evolutionary change. We can therefore insist that our explanations be plausible both chemically, and in terms of natural selection. This places a severe constraint on possible theories. Indeed, the difficulty often lies, not in choosing between rival theories, but in finding a theory that is chemically and selectively plausible. Further, theories are often testable by looking at existing organisms." (John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry, The Major Transitions in Evolution, New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1995)

"Certainly science has moved forward. But when science progresses, it often opens vaster mysteries to our gaze. Moreover, science frequently discovers that it must abandon or modify what it once believed. Sometimes it ends by accepting what it has previously scorned." (Eiseley, Loren C., [Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania], "The Firmament of Time," The Scientific Book Club: London, 1960, p.5)

"A scientist commonly professes to base his beliefs on observations, not theories. Theories, it is said, are useful in suggesting new ideas and new lines of investigation for the experimenter; but "hard facts" are the only proper ground for conclusion. I have never come across anyone who carries this profession into practice--certainly not the hard-headed experimentalist, who is the more swayed by his theories because he is less accustomed to scrutinise them. Observation is not sufficient. We do not believe our eyes unless we are first convinced that what they appear to tell us is credible. It is better to admit frankly that theory has, and is entitled to have, an important share in determining belief." (Eddington A., "The Expanding Universe," Penguin: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1940, p.25)

"Medawar admonishes the young to formulate hypotheses but not to identify with them. 'The intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or false'. Voltaire put it more strongly: 'In fact, no opinion should be held with fervour. No one holds with fervour that 7 x 8 = 56 because it can be shown to be the case. Fervour is only necessary in commending an opinion which is doubtful or demonstrably false'. I am told that when anybody contradicted Einstein, he thought it over, and if he was found wrong he was delighted, because he felt that he had escaped an error." (Max Perutz, "Is Science Necessary?" (p.196), in a review he wrote of Peter Medawar's book "Advice to a Young Scientist")

"The scientific establishment bears a grisly resemblance to the Spanish Inquisition. Either you accept the rules and attitudes and beliefs promulgated by the 'papacy' (for which read, perhaps, the Royal Society or the Royal College of Physicians), or face a dreadful retribution. We will not actually burn you at the stake, because that sanction, unhappily, is now no longer available under our milksop laws. But we will make damned sure that you are a dead duck in our trade." (Gould, Donald [former editor of New Scientist], "Letting poetry loose in the laboratory," New Scientist, 29 August 1992, p.51)

"There must be no barriers for freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors."

"As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never to be lost, and science can never regress." (J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, Manhatten Project, Life Magazine 10/10/1949)

"What has kept design outside the scientific mainstream these last 130 years is the absence of precise methods for distinguishing intelligently caused objects from unintelligently caused ones. For design to be a fruitful scientific theory, scientists have to be sure they can reliably determine whether something is designed. Johannes Kepler, for instance, thought the craters on the moon were intelligently designed by moon dwellers. We now know the craters were formed naturally. This fear of falsely attributing something to design only to have it overturned later has prevented design from entering science proper ... [w]ith precise methods for discriminating intelligently from unintelligently caused objects, scientists are now able to avoid Kepler's mistake" (Dembski, W. A., "Introduction: Mere Creation", Mere Creation Science Faith & Intelligent Design, edited by William Dembski (InterVarsity Press, 1998) pg. 16)

"While the admission of a design for the universe ultimately raises the question of a Designer (a subject outside of science), the scientific method does not allow us to exclude data which lead to the conclusion that the universe, life and man are based on design. To be forced to believe only one conclusion--that everything in the universe happened by chance --would violate the very objectivity of science itself."
"The inconceivability of some ultimate issue (which will always lie outside scientific resolution) should not be allowed to rule out any theory that explains the interrelationship of observed data and is useful for prediction."
"It is in that same sense of scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom." (Werner Von Braun, Ph.D., the father of the NASA space Program, in an open letter to the California State Board of Education on September 14, 1972.)

"During the period of nearly universal rejection, direct evidence for continental drift-that is, the data gathered from rocks exposed on our continents-was every bit as good as it is today. .... In the absence of a plausible mechanism, the idea of continental drift was rejected as absurd. The data that seemed to support it could always be explained away. ... The old data from continental rocks, once soundly rejected, have been exhumed and exalted as conclusive proof of drift. In short, we now accept continental drift because it is the expectation of a new orthodoxy. I regard this tale as typical of scientific progress. New facts, collected in old ways under the guidance of old theories, rarely lead to any substantial revision of thought. Facts do not `speak for themselves', they are read in the light of theory." (Gould, Stephen Jay [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University], "The Validation of Continental Drift," in "Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History," [1978], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p161.)

"But our ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective 'scientific method,' with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots, is self-serving mythology." (Gould, Stephen Jay, "In the Mind of the Beholder," Natural History, vol. 103 (February 1994), page 14)

"Most scientific theories, however, are ephemeral. Exceptions will likely be found that invalidate a theory in one or more of its tenets. These can then stimulate a new round of research leading either to a more comprehensive theory or perhaps to a more restrictive (i.e., more precisely defined) theory. Nothing is ever completely finished in science; the search for better theories is endless. The interpretation of a scientific experiment should not be extended beyond the limits of the available data. In the building of theories, however, scientists propose general principles by extrapolation beyond available data. When former theories have been shown to be inadequate, scientists should be prepared to relinquish the old and embrace the new in their never-ending search for better solutions. It is unscientific, therefore, to claim to have "proof of the truth" when all that scientific methodology can provide is evidence in support of a theory." (Stansfield, William D. [Professor of Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University],"The Science of Evolution," [1977], Macmillan: New York NY, 1983, Eighth Printing, pp.8-9)

"As noted in the Preface, one often sees it said that `evolution is not a fact, but a theory.' Is this the essence of my claim? Not really! Indeed, I suggest that this wise-sounding statement is confused to the point of falsity: it almost certainly is if, without regard for cause, one means no more by `evolution' than the claim that all organisms developed naturally from primitive beginnings. Evolution is a fact, fact, FACT!" (Ruse, Michael [Professor of History and Philosophy, University of Guelph, Canada], "Darwinism Defended: A Guide to the Evolution Controversies," [1982], Addison-Wesley: Reading MA, 1983, Third Printing, p.58. Emphasis Ruse's.)

"Now and then a scientist stumbles across a fact that seems to solve one of the great mysteries of science overnight. Such unexpected discoveries are rare. When they occur, the scientific community gets very excited. But excitement is not the best barometer of scientific validity. Science, said Adam Smith, should be "the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm". The case of the disappearing dinosaurs is a fascinating demonstration that science is not based on facts alone. The interpretation of the facts is even more important." (Robert Jastrow, Ph.D. (physics), Director, Institute for Space Studies, USA), "The dinosaur massacre", Omega Science Diegest, March/April, 1984, pg. 23).

"I encourage [students] to be skeptical-as long as their skepticism is based on logic and evidence. . . .Questions are what drives science, not answers. . . . Take nothing for granted, I counsel my students: that is what makes a scientist" (Michigan State physiology professor Robert S. Root-Bernstein "Darwin's Rib," in Discover, September 1995, pp. 38-41)

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen." (Lewontin, Richard, "Billions and Billions of Demons", New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 28)

"Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule. Rule No. 1: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behavior of the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and material causes, without invoking the supernatural." (Richard E. Dickerson [evolutionist scientist]: "The Game of Science." Perspectives on Science and Faith (Volume 44, June 1992), p. 137)

"Like Kamin, I am, myself rather more harsh in my view. Scientists, like others, sometimes tell deliberate lies because they believe that small lies can serve big truths." (Lewontin, Richard C., "The Inferiority Complex," review of The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen J. Gould, New York Review of Books (October 22, 1981), in which Gould argued that the sociopolitical bias of a scientist might have an unconscious effect on his scientific results)

"There is superstition in science quite as much as there is superstition in theology, and it is all the more dangerous because those suffering from it are profoundly convinced that they are freeing themselves from all superstition. No grotesque repulsiveness of mediæval superstition, even as it survived into nineteenth-century Spain and Naples, could be much more intolerant, much more destructive of all that is fine in morality, in the spiritual sense, and indeed in civilization itself, than that hard dogmatic materialism of to-day which often not merely calls itself scientific but arrogates to itself the sole right to use the term. If these pretensions affected only scientific men themselves, it would be a matter of small moment, but unfortunately they tend gradually to affect the whole people, and to establish a very dangerous standard of private and public conduct in the public mind." (Theodore Roosevelt, History As Literature, 1913 )

"The study of paradigms, including many that are for more specialized than those named illustratively above, is what mainly prepares the student for membership in the particular scientific community with which he will later practice. Because he there joins men who learned the bases of their field forms the same concrete models, his subsequent practice will seldom evoke overt disagreement over fundamentals. Men whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice. That commitment and the apparent consensus it produces are prerequisites for normal science, i.e. for the genesis and continuation of a particular research tradition." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")

"In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that could possibly pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant. As a result, early fact-gathering is a far more nearly random activity than the one that subsequent scientific development makes familiar. Furthermore, in the absence of a reason for seeking some particular form of more recondite information, early fact-gathering is usually restricted to the wealth of data that lie read to hand. The resulting pool of facts contains those accessible to casual observation and experiment together with some of the more esoteric data retrievable from established crafts like medicine, calendar making, and metallurgy. Because the crafts are one readily accessible source of facts that could not have been casually discovered, technology has often played a vital role in the emergence of new sciences" (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")

"in the early stages of the development of any science different men confronting the same range of phenomena, but not usually all the same particular phenomena, describe and interpret them in different ways. What is surprising, and perhaps also unique in its degree to the fields we call science, is that such initial divergences should ever largely disappear. For they do disappear to a very considerable extent and then apparently once and for all. Furthermore, their disappearance is usually caused by the triumph of one of the pre-paradigmatic schools, which, because of its own characteristic beliefs and preconceptions, emphasized only some special part of the too sizeable and inchoate pool of information. … To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", (Pgs. 17-18))

"In a science, on the other hand, a paradigm is rarely an objection for replication [i.e. an explanation meant for simple re-usage over and over again]. Instead, like an accepted judicial decision in the common law, it is an object for further articulation and specification under new or more stringent conditions." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" pg. 23--I am not sure if the brackets are mine or his--I think they are his!)

"Paradigms gain their status because they are more successful than their competitors in solving a few problems that the group of practitioners has come to recognize as acute." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 23)

"To be more successful is not, however, to be either completely successful with a single problem or notably successful with any large number. The success of a paradigm--whether Aristotle's analysis of motion, Ptolemy's computations of planetary position, Lavoisier's application of the balance, or Maxell's mathematization of the electromagnetic field--is at the start largely a promise of success discoverable in selected and still incomplete examples. Normal science consists in the actualization of that promise, an actualization achieved by extending the knowledge of those facts that the paradigm displays as particular revealing, by increasing the extend of the match between those facts and the paradigm's predictions, and by further articulation of the paradigm itself. (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 23-24.)

"Few people who are not actually practitioners of a mature science realize how much mop-up work of this sort a paradigm leaves to be done or quite how fascinating such work can prove in the execution. And these points need to be understood. Mopping-up operations are what engage most scientists throughout their careers. They constitute what I am here calling normal science." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")

"No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; in deed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others. Instead, normal-scientific research is directed to the articulation of those phenomena and theories that the paradigm already supplies." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")

"The project whose goal is paradigm articulation does not aim at the unexpected novelty. But if the aim of normal science is not major substantive novelties -- if failure to come near the anticipated result is usually failure as a scientist" (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")

"Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none. New and unsuspected phenomena are, however, repeatedly uncovered by scientific research, and radical new theories have again and again been invented by scientists. His-tory even suggests that the scientific enterprise has developed a uniquely powerful technique for producing surprises of this sort. If this characteristic of science is to be reconciled with what has already been said, then research under a paradigm must be a particularly effective way of inducing paradigm change. That is what fundamental novelties of fact and theory do. Produced inadvertently by a game played under one set of rules, their assimilation requires the elaboration of another set. After they have become parts of science, the enterprise, at least of those specialists in whose particular field the novelties lie, is never quite the same again." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 52)

"In science, as in the playing card experiment, novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation. Initially only the anticipated and usual are experienced even under circumstances where anomaly is later to be observed. Further acquaintance, however, does result in awareness of something gone wrong or does related the effect to something that has gone wrong before. That awareness of anomaly opens a period in which conceptual categories are adjusted until the initially anomalous has become the anticipated. At this point, the discovery has been completed." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 64)

"In the development of any science, the first received paradigm is usually felt to account quite successfully for most of the observations and experiments easily accessible to that science's practitioners. Further development, therefore ordinarily calls for the construction of elaborate equipment, the development of an esoteric vocabulary and skills, and a refinement of concepts that increasingly lessens their resemblance to their usual common-sense prototypes. That professionalization leads, on the one hand, to an immense restriction of the scientists' vision and to a considerable resistance to paradigm change. The science has become increasingly rigid. On the other hand, within those areas of which the paradigm directs the attention of the group, normal science leads to a detail of information and to a precision of the observation-theory match that could be achieved in no other way. Furthermore, that detail and precision of match have a value that transcends their not always very high intrinsic interest. Without the special apparatus that is constructed mainly for the anticipated function, the result that lead ultimately to novelty could not occur. And when the apparatus exists, novelty ordinarily emerges only for a the man who, knowing with precision what he should expect, is able to recognize that something has gone wrong. Anomaly appears only against the background provided by the paradigm. The more precise and far-reaching that paradigm is, the more sensitive an indicator it provides of anomaly and hence of an occasion for paradigm change." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 64)

"In the normal mode of discovery, even resistance to change has a use that will be explored more fully in the next section. By ensuring that the paradigm will not be too easily surrendered, resistance guarantees that scientists will not be lightly distracted and that the anomalies that lead to paradigm change will penetrate existing knowledge to the core. The very fact that a significant scientific novelty so often emerges simultaneously from several laboratories is an index both to the strongly traditional nature of normal science and to the completeness with which that traditional pursuit prepare the completeness with which that traditional pursuit prepares the away for its own change." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 65)

"Furthermore, the changes in which these discoveries were implicated were all destructive as well as constructive. After the discovery had been assimilated, scientists were able to account for a wider range of natural phenomena or to account with greater precision for some of those previously known. But that gain was achieved only by discarding some previously standard beliefs or procedures and, simultaneously, by replacing those components of the previous paradigm with others. Shifts of this sort are, I have argued, associated with all discoveries achieved through normal science, excepting only tile unsurprising ones that had been anticipated in all but their details. Discoveries are not, however, the only sources of these destructive-constructive paradigm changes. In this section we shall begin to consider the similar, but usually far larger, shifts that result from the invention of new theories." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 66)

"...a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternative candidate is available to take its place. No process yet disclosed by the historical study of scientific development at all resembles the methodological stereotype of falsification by direct comparison with nature. ..the act of judgment that leads scientists to reject a previously accepted theory is always based upon more than a comparison of that theory with the world. The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously the decision to accept another, and the judgment leading to that decision involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other" (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 77)

"Consider now, as a third and final example, the late nineteenth century crisis in physics that prepared the way for the emergence of relativity theory. One root of that crisis can be traced to the late seventeenth century when a number of natural philosophers, most notably Leibniz, criticized Newton's retention of an updated version of the classic conception of absolute space.1o They were very nearly, though never quite, able to show that absolute positions and absolute motions were with-out any function at all in Newton's system; and they did succeed in hinting at the considerable aesthetic appeal a fully relativistic conception of space and motion would later come to display. But their critique was purely logical. Like the early Copernicans who criticized Aristotle's proofs of the earth's stability, they did not dream that transition to a relativistic system could have observational consequences. At no point did they relate their views to any problems that arose when applying Newtonian theory to nature. As a result, their views died with them during the early decades of the eighteenth century to be resurrected only in the last decades of he nineteenth when they had a very different relation to the practice of physics." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")

"There is, in addition, a second reason for doubting that scientists reject paradigms because confronted with anomalies or counterinstances. In developing it my argument will itself foreshadow one of this essay's main theses. The reasons for doubt sketched above were purely factual; the were, that is, themselves counterinstances to a prevalent epistemological theory. As such, if my present point is correct, they can at best help to create a crisis, or ore accurately, to reinforce one that is already very much in existence. …themselves they cannot and will not falsify that philosophical theory, for its defenders will do what we have already seen scientists doing when confronted by anomaly. They will devise numerous articulations and ad hoc modifications of their theory in order to eliminate any apparent conflict. Many of the relevant modifications and qualifications are, in fact, already in the literature. If, therefore, these epistemological counterinstances are not constitute more than a minor irritant, that will be because they help to permit the emergence of a new and different analysis of science in which they are no longer a source f trouble. Furthermore, if a typical pattern, which we shall alter observe in scientific revolutions, is applicable here, these anomalies will then no longer seem to be simply facts. Form within a new theory of scientific knowledge, they may instead seem very much like tautologies, statements of situations that could not conceivably have been otherwise." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 77-78)

"To reject one paradigm without simultaneously substituting another is to reject science itself." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 79)

"The puzzles that constitute normal science exist only because no paradigm that provides a basis for scientific research ever completely resolves all its problems. The very few that have ever seemed to do so (e.g. geometric optics) have shortly cased to yield research problems at all and have instead become tools for engineering." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 79)

"Einstein saw as counterinstances what Lorentz, Fitzgerald, and others had seen as puzzles in the articulation of Newton's and Maxwell's theories. Furthermore, even the existence of crisis does not by itself transform a puzzle into a counsterinstance. There is no such sharp dividing line. Instead by proliferating versions of the paradigm, crisis loosens the rules of normal puzzle solving in ways that ultimately permit a new paradigm to emerge." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Pg. 79-80)

"When, in the development of a natural science, an individual or group first produces a synthesis able to attract most of the next generation's practitioners the older schools gradually disappear. In part their disappearance is caused by their members conversion to the new paradigm … But there are always some men who cling to one or another of the older views, and they are simply read out of the profession, which thereafter ignores their work. The new paradigm implies a new and more rigid definition of the field. Those unwilling or unable to accommodate their work to it must proceed in isolation or attach themselves to some other group" (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")

"In time, research becomes focused. Findings are no longer written in groundbreaking books. Groundrules of the paradigm are taken for granted, and researchers no longer justify the bases for their conclusions through references to the principles which established the paradigm. In short, the paradigm becomes taken for granted. At this point, new research becomes much more esoteric, and is published in journals often only accessible to the professional colleagues of the scientist who conducts the research." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Please note: This seems to be an actual quote, but I am not 100% positive--it could be my notes, although it looks too good to be something I wrote, definitely check before using)

"Today in the sciences, books are usually either texts or retrospective reflections upon one aspects or another of the scientific life. The scientist who writes one is more likely to find his professional reputation impaired rather than enhanced. Only in the earlier, pre-paradigm stags of development of the various sciences did the book ordinarily possess the same relation to professional achievement that it still retains in other creative fields." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")

"Philosophers of science have repeatedly demonstrated that more than one theoretical construction can always be placed upon a given collection of data. History of science indicates that, particularly in the early developmental stages of a new paradigm, it is not even very difficult to invent such alternates, But that invention of alternates is just what scientists seldom undertake except during the pre-paradigm stage of their science's development and at very special occasions during its subsequent evolution. So long as the tools a paradigm supplies continue to prove capable of solving the problems it defines, science moves fastest and penetrates most deeply through confident employment of those tools. The reason is clear. As in manufacture so in science-retooling is an extravagance to be reserved for the occasion that demands it. The significance of crises is the indication they provide that an occasion for retooling has arrived." (Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")

Science and Religion, Scientists and Religion

"I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame." (Science, Philosophy, And Religion: A Symposium, 1941, CH.13. )

"As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency-or, rather, Agency-must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit? Do we not see in its harmony, a harmony so perfectly fitted to our needs, evidence of what one religious writer has called "a preserving, a continuing, an intending mind, a Wisdom, Power and Goodness far exceeding the limits of our thoughts?" A heady prospect. Unfortunately I believe it to be illusory. As I claim mankind is not the center of the universe, as I claim anthropism to be different from anthropocentrism, so too I believe that the discoveries of science are not capable of proving God's existence-not now, not ever. And more than that: I also believe that reference to God will never suffice to explain a single one of these discoveries. God is not an explanation." (Greenstein, George [Professor of Astronomy, Amherst College, USA]., "The Symbiotic Universe: Life and Mind in the Cosmos," William Morrow & Co: New York NY, 1988, pp.27-28.)

"It turns out that the physical constants have just the values required to ensure that the Universe contains stars with planets capable of supporting intelligent life...The simplest interpretation is that the Universe was designed by a creator who intended that intelligent life should evolve. This interpretation lies outside science." (Maynard Smith, John [Emeritus Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex] & Szathmary, Eors [Institute for Advanced Study, Budapest], "On the likelihood of habitable worlds," Nature, Vol. 384, 14 November 1996, p.107)

"I know the questions in the minds of many of you who have followed me to this point: "Does not science prove that there is no Creator?" Emphatically, science does not prove that!" (Paul A. Moody, PhD. (zoology) (Emeritus Professor of Natural History and Zoology, University of Vermont) in Introduction to Evolution, Harper & Row, New York, second edition, 1962, p 513)

"Faith tells us what the senses cannot, but it is not contradictory to their findings." (Blaise Pascal)

"There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said Sherlock Holmes, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers." (Arthur Conan Doyle, in "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty" (Strand Magazine, 1893))

"Another reason that scientists are so prone to throw the baby out with the bath water is that science itself, as I have suggested, is a religion. The neophyte scientist, recently come or converted to the world view of science, can be every bit as fanatical as a Christian crusader or a soldier of Allah. This is particularly the case when we have come to science from a culture and home in which belief in God is firmly associated with ignorance, superstition, rigidity and hypocrisy. Then we have emotional as well as intellectual motives to smash the idols of primitive faith. A mark of maturity in scientists, however, is their awareness that science may be as subject to dogmatism as any other religion." (Peck, M. Scott* [psychiatrist and Medical Director of New Milford Hospital Mental Health Clinic, Connecticut, USA], "The Road Less Travelled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth", [1978], Arrow: London, 1990, p.238)

"I have always thought it curious that, while most scientists claim to eschew religion, it actually dominates their thoughts more than it does the clergy." (Hoyle F., "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections," Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol. 20, 1982, pp.1-35, p.23)

"Another major reason that scientists are prone to throw the baby out with the bath water is that they do not see the baby. Many scientists simply do not look at the evidence of the reality of God. They suffer from a kind of tunnel vision, a psychologically self-imposed psychological set of blinders which prevents them from turning their attention to the realm of the spirit." (Peck, M. Scott, [psychiatrist and Medical Director of New Milford Hospital Mental Health Clinic, Connecticut, USA], "The Road Less Travelled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth," [1978], Arrow: London, 1990, p.241)

"Nor should we forget that the structure of the Judeo-Christian myth was largely responsible for the development of modern science. The former was founded on the doctrine of a prevailing order in a universe created by a God who was himself not part of nature, but who directed it by means of laws intelligible to human reason." (Francois Jacob states in his 1998 book 'Of Flies, Mice and Men (p.128-129, Harvard U. Press)

Evolution and Science

"...Darwin did not show in the Origin that species had originated by natural selection; he merely showed, on the basis of certain facts and assumptions, how this might have happened, and as he had convinced himself he was able to convince others."
"The success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity. This is already evident in the reckless statements of Haeckel and in the shifty, devious and histrionic argumentation of T. H. Huxley ... To establish the continuity required by the theory, historical arguments are invoked even though historical evidence is lacking. Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypotheses based on hypotheses, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion." (Thompson, W. R., Canadian entomologist, (1956), Introduction to The Origin of Species, (Reprint of the first edition, Centennial Edition), Charles Darwin, Everyman Library, no. 811, Dent, E.P. Dutton and Co., New York, 1956)

"...I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme*a possible framework for testable scientific theories." (Popper, Karl, Unended Quest (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Pub. Co., 1976), p. 168.)

"I now wish to give some reasons why I regard Darwinism as metaphysical, and as a research programme. It is metaphysical because it is not testable. One might think that it is. It seems to assert that, if ever on some planet we find life which satisfies conditions (a) and (b), then (c) will come into play and bring about in time a rich variety of distinct forms. Darwinism, however, does not assert as much as this. For assume that we find life on Mars consisting of exactly three species of bacteria with a genetic outfit similar to that of three terrestrial species. Is Darwinism refuted? By no means. We shall say that these three species were the only forms among the many mutants which were sufficiently well adjusted to survive. And we shall say the same if there is only one species (or none). Thus Darwinism does not really predict the evolution of variety. It therefore cannot really explain it. At best, it can predict the evolution of variety under "favourable conditions". But it is hardly possible to describe in general terms what favourable conditions are except that, in their presence, a variety of forms will emerge." (Popper, Karl R., [Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of London], "Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography," Open Court: La Salle Ill., Revised Edition, 1982, p.171)

"However, Darwin's own most important contribution to the theory of evolution, his theory of natural selection, is difficult to test. There are some tests, even some experimental tests; and in some cases, such as the famous phenomenon known as "industrial melanism," we can observe natural selection happening under our very eyes, as it were. Nevertheless, really severe tests of the theory of natural selection are hard to come by, much more so than tests of otherwise comparable theories in physics or chemistry." (Popper, Karl R., [Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of London], "Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind," Dialectica, Vol. 32, Nos. 3-4, 1978, pp.339-355, p.344)

Chapter IV of the Origin, entitled "Natural Selection; or the Survival of the Fittest," occupies 44 pages in the 1958 Mentor edition. In this chapter Darwin used the language of speculation, imagination, and assumption at least 187 times. For example, pages 118 and 119 contain the following phrases: "may have been," "is supposed to," "perhaps," "If we suppose," "may still be," "we have only to suppose," "as I believe," "it is probable," "I have assumed," "are supposed," "will generally tend," "may," "will generally tend," "If," "If...assumed," "supposed," "supposed," "probably," "It seems, therefore, extremely probable," "and "We may suppose."

"...I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science...It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] and holes as sound parts." (Charles Darwin to Asa Gray, cited by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991) p. 456, 475.)

"There are obvious the difficulties in discussing unique events that happened a long time ago. How can we ever know that our suggested explanations are correct? After all, historians cannot agree about the causes of the Second World War. We accept that certainty is impossible, but there are several reasons why we think the enterprise is worth while. First, we have one grat advantage over historians: we have agreed theories both of chemistry and of the mechanism of evolutionary change. We can therefore insist that our explanations be plausible both chemically, and in terms of natural selection. This places a severe constraint on possible theories. Indeed, the difficulty often lies, not in choosing between rival theories, but in finding a theory that is chemically and selectively plausible. Further, theories are often testable by looking at existing organisms." (John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry, The Major Transitions in Evolution, New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1995)

"For example, the assertion that populations of organisms can change in their genetic composition from one generation to another (i.e., evolve) is undisputed, even by the creationists. To say without qualification that "all present life has evolved from more primitive forms" is unscientific because such a statement is an absolute. A scientifically acceptable restatement is that `scientists have found a great deal of evidence from many sources which they have interpreted to be consistent with the theory that all present life has evolved from more primitive forms.'" "The purpose of science is not to find "facts" or discover "truth," but rather to formulate and use theories in order to solve problems and ultimately to organize, unify, and explain all the material phenomena of the universe. Scientists attempt to avoid the use of "fact, "proof," and "truth," because these words could easily be interpreted to connote absolutes. Nothing in science is deemed absolute. Science deals only with theories or relative "truth,"-a temporary correctness so far as can be ascertained by the rational mind at the present time." "In some instances, the evidence for evolution is meager and/or equivocal. Creationists focus attention on any tendency to acceptance of such evidence carte blanche. Perhaps the greatest contribution creationists are currently making to science is their recognition of "creeping dogmatism" in the science of evolution Through their efforts, it is likely that science textbooks in California will have to retreat from such dogmatic statements as "Life began in the primordial sea at least three billion years ago." An acceptable revision of this concept might be "Most scientists have interpreted from the fossil record that life began in the primordial sea at estimates exceeding three billion years ago." This is as it should be. Absolutes have no place in science. The scientist should carefully avoid dogmatic statements, couching all conclusions in relativistic terms. When the scientist fails to do this, other members of the scientific community must be ready to correct such errors. If evolutionists do not keep their own house in order, the creationists stand ready to attack their veracity." (Stansfield, William D. [Professor of Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University],"The Science of Evolution," [1977], Macmillan: New York NY, 1983, Eighth Printing, p9, 7, 11)

"I know that, at least in paleoanthropology, data are still so sparse that theory heavily influences interpretations. Theories have, in the past, clearly reflected our current ideologies instead of the actual data." (Dr. David Pilbeam (Physical Anthropologist, Yale University, USA), 'Rearranging our family tree'. Human Nature, June 1978, pg. 45)

"Quirks, by definition, are exceptions to the rule; facts that do not fit into an otherwise perfect hypothesis. The word quirk has been employed by the protagonists of any prevailing hypothesis, so as to render contradictions innocuous. A short excursion into history tells us that the quirk may really be a gift of nature. Thus, black body radiation was a quirk in an otherwise perfect theory of electromagnetic radiation until the quirk became the rule in form of the quantum theory. The relativity theory -an aberration as far as the Nobel Committee was concerned, at least until Einstein's death* -is presently our key to the universe. Boltzmann's constant, mobile genes and evolution itself, all took time to evolve from that dreaded minority status to legitimacy.

Not every quirk, when attended to, pays off that handsomely but more often than not they help uncover the deeper realms of natural laws, and in that sense, the original hypothesis that created these exceptions at its fringes has also fulfilled an important function. The quirks I want to elaborate upon are being excoriated at every opportunity by their unwitting creators, the protagonists of the New Synthesis or neo-darwinian hypothesis of evolution.

The hypothesis states that the primary structures2,3 (sequences of homologous proteins) can be used to construct phylogenetic trees, and indeed the branching sequence of taxa deduced from some proteins appears to coincide within reasonable limits with the tree structure proposed by paleontologists4,s. Why would one expect this to be so? Consider species A suddenly divided into AI, A2 and A3 by insurmountable obstacles. Population Al accumulates mutations different from those spreading through the population A2 and A3 and if millions of years later, for example, their insulin molecules are compared, they should differ from one another proportionately to the time of speciation, which is a single event in this case. If instead of the expected equal distribution of differences one were to observe that the insulins of Al and A2 differ by four residues whereas the insulin of A3 differs by 25 residues from both Al and A2 then one would have discovered an exception to the neo-darwinian hypothesis. There are virtually no degrees of freedom in this scenario so that contradiction can be smoothed over only by ad hoc arguments such as faster rates of evolution2, lateral gene migra-tion6 or gross errors committed by paleontologists in determining the time of branching of AI, A2 and A3. Without such corrections, the insulins in this example will appear to give rise to different geneologies whereas the paradigm, by its very nature, can only accommodate one branching sequence. Thus cats and dogs branched from each other either at time X or at time Y but not at both times." ("On the validity of molecular evolution" by Christian Schwabe (TIBS 11 - July 1986 pg. 280-283).)

"...Personal convictions, simple possibilities, are presented as if they were proofs, or at least valid arguments in favor of the theory... The demonstration can be modified without difficulty to fit any conceivable case. It is without scientific value, since it cannot be verified; but since the imagination has free rein, it is easy to convey the impression that a concrete example of real transmutation [change of one species to another] has been given." (Thompson, W. R., Canadian entomologist, (1956), Introduction to The Origin of Species, (Reprint of the first edition, Centennial Edition), Charles Darwin, Everyman Library, no. 811, Dent, E.P. Dutton and Co., New York, 1956)

"Evolution, at least in the sense that Darwin speaks of it, cannot be detected within the lifetime of a single observer." (Kitts, David B. [Professor of Geology, University of Oklahoma], "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution, Vol. 28, September 1974, p.466)

"In China its O.K. to criticize Darwin but not the government, while in the United States its O.K. to criticize the government, but not Darwin." (Chinese Paleontologist Dr. J.Y. Chen)

"The fact that a theory so vague, so insufficiently verifiable, and so far from the criteria otherwise applied in 'hard' science has become a dogma can only be explained on sociological grounds." (Ludwig von Bertalanffy, biologist)

"Virtually all the fundamentals of the orthodox evolutionary faith have shown themselves to be either of extremely doubtful validity or simply contrary to fact.... So basic are these erroneous [evolutionary] assumptions that the whole theory is now largely maintained in spite of rather than because of the evidence...... As a consequence, for the great majority of students and from that large ill-defined group, 'the public,' it has ceased to be a subject of debate. Because it is both incapable of proof and yet may not be questioned, it is virtually untouched by data which challenge it in any way. It has become in the strictest sense irrational...... Information or concepts which challenge the theory are almost never given fair hearing...."
"Evolutionary philosophy has indeed become a state of mind, one might almost say a kind of mental prison rather than a scientific attitude...... To equate one particular interpretation of the data with the data inself is evidence of mental confusion..... The theory of evolution... is detrimental to ordinary intelligence and warps judgment." (Arthur Constance, PhD (Anthropology), "Evolution: An Irrational Faith" in Evolution or Creation? Vol. 4- The Doorway Papers (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1976), 173-74)

"The extreme difficulty of obtaining the necessary data, for any quantitative estimation of the efficiency of natural selection makes it seem probable that this theory will be re-established, if it be so, by the collapse of alternative explanations which are more easily attacked by observation and experiment. If so, it will present a parallel to the theory of evolution itself, a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." (Watson D.M.S. [British palaeontologist], "Adaptation", Nature, No. 3119, Vol. 124, August 10, 1929, pp.231-234)

"The problem was, as so often, that adaptive explanations were just too powerful. They could explain anything. If they are, in Daniel Dennett's phrase, 'a universal acid', capable of eating through everything, they will eventually consume even the subjects we want them to illuminate. It's not much use having a magic substance that will unblock your intellectual drains if it eats out the bottom of the sink as well." (Brown A., "The Darwin Wars: How Stupid Genes Became Selfish Gods," Simon & Schuster: London, 1999, p.119)

"it is difficult to pin down the precise identity of ancestors, and there is a good case for not even trying to do so." (Richard Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker, 1996, p. 284)

"A peculiarity of Darwinism, both in biology and in other fields, is that it explains too much. It is very hard to imagine a condition of things which could not be explained in terms of natural selections. If the state of various elements at a given moment is such and such then these elements have displayed their survival value under the existing circumstances, and that is that. Natural selection explains why things are as they are: It does not enable us, in general, to say how they will change and vary. It is in a sense rather a historical than a predictive principle and, as is well known, it is rather a necessary than a sufficient principle for modern biology." (MacRae D.G., "Darwinism and the Social Sciences," in Barnett S.A., ed., "A Century of Darwin," [1958], Mercury Books: London, 1962, p.304)

"Finally, there is the question of natural selection. In one sense, the influence of the theory of natural selection on sociology was enormous. It created for a while, in fact, a branch of sociology. It seems now to be felt that the influence on sociology of the doctrine of 'survival of the fittest' was theoretically speaking, unfortunate, chiefly because it seemed to offer an explanatory short cut, and encouraged social theorists to aspire to be Darwin's when probably they should have been trying to be Linnaeuses or Cuviers. As Professor MacRae points out, in sociology the principle explains too much. Any state of affairs known to exist or to have existed can be explained by the operation of natural selection. Like Hegel's dialectic and Dr Chasuble's sermon on The Meaning of Manna in the Wilderness, it can be made to suit any situation." (Burrow J.W., "Evolution and Society: A Study in Victorian Social Theory," [1966], Cambridge University Press: London, 1968, reprint, p.115)

"Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus "outside of empirical science" but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems, have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training." (Birch L. Charles, [Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Sydney, Australia] & Ehrlich, Paul R., [Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, USA], "Evolutionary History and Population Biology," Nature, Vol. 214, 22 April 1967, p.352)

"If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection." (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 302.)

"It is sometimes suggested that Darwin's theory is systematically irrefutable (and hence scientifically vacuous), but Darwin was forthright about what sort of finding it would take to refute his theory. "Though nature grants vast periods of time for the work of natural selection, she does not grant an indefinite period" (Origin, p. 102), so, if the geological evidence mounted to show that not enough time had elapsed, his whole theory would be refuted. This still left a temporary loophole, for the theory wasn't formulatable in sufficiently rigorous detail to say just how many millions of years was the minimal amount required, but it was a temporary loophole that made sense, since at least some proposals about its size could be evaluated independently." (Dennett D.C., "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," 1996, p.46)

"Critique of Current Theories of Evolution. We believe that it is possible to draw up a list of basic rules that underlie existing molecular evolutionary models: 1. All theories are monophyletic, meaning that they all start with the Urgene and the Urzelle which have given rise to all proteins and all species, respectively. 2. Complexity evolves mainly through duplications and mutations in structural and control genes. 3. Genes can mutate or remain stable, migrate laterally from species to species, spread through a population by mechanisms whose operation is not fully understood, evolve coordinately, splice, stay silent, and exist as pseudogenes. 4. Ad hoc arguments can be invented (such as insect vectors or viruses) that can transport a gene into places where no monophyletic logic could otherwise explain its presence. This liberal spread of rules, each of which can be observed in use by scientists, does not just sound facetious but also, in our opinion, robs monophyletic molecular evolution of its vulnerability to disproof, and thereby of its entitlement to the status of a scientific theory." (Schwabe, Christian [Department of Biochemistry, Medical University of South Carolina, USA] & Warr, Gregory, "A Polyphyletic View of Evolution: The Genetic Potential Hypothesis," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp.465-485, Spring 1984, p.467. Footnotes omitted.)

"Creationists have looked forward to the day when science may actually create a "living" thing from simple chemicals. They claim, and rightly so, that even if such a man-made life form could be created, this would not prove that natural life forms were developed by a similar chemical evolutionary process. The scientist understands this and plods on testing theories." (Stansfield, William D. [Professor of Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University], "The Science of Evolution," [1977], Macmillan: New York NY, 1983, Eighth Printing, pp10-11)

"The concept of organic evolution is very highly prized by biologists, for many of whom it is an object of genuinely religious devotion, because they regard it as a supreme integrative principle. This is probably the reason why severe methodological criticism employed in other departments of biology has not yet been brought to bear on evolutionary speculation." (Conklin, Edwin G. [Professor of Biology , Princeton University, USA], "Man Real and Ideal", Scribner, 1943, p.147, in Macbeth N., "Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason", Gambit: Boston MA, 1971, pp.126-127)

"One of the ironies of the history of biology is that Darwin did not really explain the origin of new species in The Origin of Species, because he didn't know how to define species. The Origin was in fact concerned mostly with how a single species might change in time, not how one species might proliferate into many." (Futuyma, Douglas J. [Professor of Evolutionary Biology, State University of New York, Stony Brook], "Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution," Pantheon: New York NY, 1982, p.152)

"The pathetic thing is that we have scientists who are trying to prove evolution, which no scientist can ever prove." (Dr. Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize winner and eminent evolutionist)

"Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable." (Arthur Keith)

"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." (Dawkins, Richard [Atheist, Zoologist, and Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford University], "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.1)

"Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." (Crick F.H.C., [Co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, Nobel laureate 1962, Professor at the Salk Institute, USA], "What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery," [1988], Penguin Books: London, 1990, reprint, p.138.)

"The evolutionary divergence of a single species into two has never been directly observed in nature, primarily because speciation can take a long time to occur." (Darren E. Irwin, et al., Speciation in a ring, NATURE 409, 333-337, 2001)

"Here, I assume without proof that natural selection was the key evolutionary mechanism and that, consequently, the organic world is to be understood as highly adapted." (Ruse M., "Homosexuality: A Philosophical Inquiry," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1988, p.131)

"To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of one thousand volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence! (Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. London: Burnett Books, 1985, p. 351.)

"Our hypothetical nucleic acid synthesis system is therefore analogous to the scaffolding used in the construction of a building. After the building has been erected the scaffolding is removed, leaving no physical evidence that it was ever there. Most of the statements in this section must therefore be taken as educated guesses. Without having witnessed the event, it seems unlikely that we shall ever be certain of how life arose" (Voet D. & Voet J.G., "Biochemistry," John Wiley and Sons: New York, 1995 p23, in Ashton J.F., ed., "In Six Days: Why 50 Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation," New Holland: Sydney, Australia, 1999, p.165. (emphasis in the original)

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." (Theodosius Dobzhansky in Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution, American Biology Teacher, 35, 125-129

"The Origin of Species converted the majority of its readers to a belief in Darwinian evolution. We must now ask whether this was an unadulterated benefit to biology and to mankind. ... I do not contest the fact that the advent of the evolutionary idea, due mainly to the Origin, very greatly stimulated biological research. But it appears to me that owing precisely to the nature of the stimulus, a great deal of this work was directed into unprofitable channels or devoted to the pursuit of will-o'- the-wisps. I am not the only biologist of this opinion. Darwin's conviction that evolution is the result of natural selection, acting on small fortuitous variations, says Guyenot, was to delay the progress of investigations on evolution by half a century. Really fruitful researches on heredity did not begin until the rediscovery in 1900 of the fundamental work of Mendel, published in 1865 and owing nothing to the work of Darwin.." (Thompson W.R.*, F.R.S., [entomologist and Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Ottawa, Canada], "Introduction," in Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1967, reprint, pp.xix-xx)

"The subject of evolution occupies a special, and paradoxical, place within biology as a whole. While the great majority biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky's dictum that 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution', most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. 'Evolution' would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one." (Introduction December 2000 issue of BioEssays, a special issue on evolution)

"..Darwin introduced historicity into science. Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry, is a historical science -- the evolutionist attempts to explain events and processes that have already taken place. Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques for the explication of such events and processes. Instead one constructs a historical narrative, consisting of a tentative reconstruction of the particular scenario that led to the events one is trying to explain." (Ernst Mayr, July 2000 issue of Scientific American)

"The account of the origin of life that I shall give is necessarily speculative; by definition, nobody was around to see what happened. There are a number of rival theories, but they all have certain features in common." (Dawkins, Richard [Zoologist and Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford University], "The Selfish Gene," [1976], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, New Edition, 1989, p.14)

"A growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp ... moreover, for the most part these 'experts' have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on scientific grounds, and in some instances, regretfully."
"The evolutionist thesis has become more stringently unthinkable than ever before." (Wolfgang Smith, Ph.D., physicist and mathematician)

"The theory of evolution suffers from grave defects, which are more and more apparent as time advances. It can no longer square with practical scientific knowledge." (Dr A Fleishmann, Zoologist, Erlangen University)

"Biologists are simply naive when they talk about experiments designed to test the theory of evolution. It is not testable. They may happen to stumble across facts which would seem to conflict with its predictions. These facts will undoubtedly be deprived of continuing research grants." (Professor Whitten, Professor of Genetics, University of Melbourne, Australia, 1980 Assembly Week address.)

"In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general. these have not been found-yet the optimism has died hard and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks. This is illustrated by other statements in the Root-Bernstein letter, such as: "Evolution postdicts certain immutable trends of progressive change that can be falsified." This is simply not the case!" (Raup, David M. [Professor of Geology, University of Chicago], "Evolution and the Fossil Record," Science, Vol. 213, No. 4505, 17 July 1981, p.289)

"Another beauty - and an important weakness - of the theory of evolution by natural selection is that with a little imagination it is possible to come up with an explanation of anything. Evolutionary biologists like to spend their time making up stories about how selection has moulded the most unlikely characteristics. Sometimes they even turn out to be right." (Jones, Steve, [Professor of Genetics, University College, London], "The Language of the Genes: Biology, History and the Evolutionary Future," [1993], Flamingo: London, 1994, p.196)

"Today, our duty is to destroy the myth of evolution, considered as a simple, understood, and explained phenomenon which keeps rapidly unfolding before us. Biologists must be encouraged to think about the weaknesses of the interpretations and extrapolations that theoreticians put forward or lay down as established truths. The deceit is sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and the falsity of their beliefs." (Grasse, Pierre-P. [editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie", former Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation", Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.8)

"When evolution is said to be a fact, not a theory, what is actually meant? That now-living things have descended from ancestors, with modification, over time? Or that the modifications came by chance, not by design? Or, in addition, that all living things ultimately had the same ancestor? Or, still further, that the "first living thing" had as its ancestor a nonliving thing? Context indicates that when evolution is asserted to be a fact, not a theory, the view actually being pushed includes that of common origin, ultimate inorganic ancestry, and modification through nonpurposive mechanisms: a set of beliefs that goes far beyond the mountain of fact that is actually there, which consists largely of fossils that demonstrate some sort of relationship and some sort of change over time." (Bauer H.H., "Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method," [1992], University of Illinois Press: Urbana and Chicago IL., 1994, p.65. Emphasis in original)

"Paleontologists (and evolutionary biologists in general) are famous for their facility in devising plausible stories; but they often forget that plausible stories need not be true." (Stephen Jay Gould (Prof. of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), Dr. David M Raup (Curator of Geology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago), J. John Sepkoski, Jr, (Dpt of Geological Sciences, University of Rochester, New York), Thomas J.M. Schoph (Dpt of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago), and Daniel S. Simberloff (Dpt of Biology, Florida State University), 'The shape of evolution: a comparison of real and random clades'. Paleobiology, vol 3(1), 977, pp 34-35)

"Although the comparative study of living animals and plants may give very convincing circumstantial evidence, fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life evolved from simpler to more and more complex forms." (Carl O. Dunbar, PhD. (geology) (Professor Emeritus of Paleontology and Stratigraphy, Yale University, and formerly Asst. Editor, American Journal of Science) in Historical Geology, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1960, pg. 47)

"In any confrontation [with creationists], you should be prepared to show that evolution is scientific, not that it is correct...One need not discuss fossils, intermediate forms, or probabilities of mutation. These are incidental. The question is, what is scientific, and what is religious.Therefore, if you must confront the creationists, we suggest you discuss the nature of science, the kind of knowledge it can provide, and the kind it cannot provide. " (article in American Journal of Scientific Anthropology entitled "A Recommendation to the Association Concerning Creation," Volume 2, 1983, 457-458)

"Evolution is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless." (Dr Louise Bounoure, Director of Research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Director of the Zoological Museum and former president of the Biological Society of Strasbourg)

"Paleontologists disagree about the speed and pattern of evolution. But they do not--as much recent publicity has implied--doubt that evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution simply does not depend upon the fossil record. Some palaeontologists maintain that animals have evolved gradually, through an infinity of intermediate stages from one form to another. Others point out that the fossil record offers no firm evidence of such gradual change. What really happened, they suggest, is that any one animal species in the past survived more or less unchanged for a time, and then either died out or evolved rapidly into a new descendant form (or forms). Thus, instead of gradual changes, they posit the idea of "punctuated equilibrium". The argument is about the actual historical pattern of evolution; but outsiders, seeing a controversy unfolding, have imagined that it is about the truth of evolution--whether evolution occurred at all. This is a terrible mistake; and it springs, I believe, from the false idea that the fossil record provides an important part of the evidence that evolution took place. In fact, evolution is proved by a totally separate set of arguments--and the present debate within palaeontology does not impinge at all on the evidence that supports evolution."
"In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation." (Mark Ridley (zoologist, Oxford University), 'Who doubts evolution?' New Scientist, vol. 90, 25 June 1981, p. 830 (Emphasis Added), 831)

"The united efforts of paleontology and molecular biology, the latter stripped of its dogmas, should lead to the discovery of the exact mechanism of evolution, possibly without revealing to us the causes of the orientations of lineages, of the finalities of structures, of living functions, and of cycles. Perhaps in this area biology can go no farther: the rest is metaphysics."
"Biochemists and biologists who adhere blindly to the Darwinism theory search for results that will be in agreement with their theories and consequently orient their research in a given direction, whether it be in the field of ecology, ethology, sociology, demography (dynamics of populations), genetics (so-called evolutionary genetics), or paleontology. This intrusion of theories has unfortunate results: it deprives observations and experiments of their objectivity, makes them biased, and, moreover, creates false problems." (Grasse, Pierre-P. [editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie," former Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University and ex- president of the French Academie des Sciences], "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p17, 246, 7)

"Was it an accident that Darwin's conclusion meant just what every reader wanted it to mean? I think not. Darwin used the same ambiguity in his private letters. Darwinism, therefore, began as a theory that evolution could be explained by natural selection. It ended as a theory that evolution could be explained just as you would like it to be explained." (Darlington, Cyril D. [late Professor of Botany, Oxford University], "The Origin of Darwinism," Scientific American, Vol. 201, May 1959, p.60)

"Present-day ultra-Darwinism, which is so sure of itself, impresses incompletely informed biologists, misleads them, and inspires fallacious interpretations." (Grasse, Pierre-P., [editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie," former Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p6)

"I mean the stories, the narratives about change over time. How the dinosaurs became extinct, how the mammals evolved, where man came from. These seem to me to be little more than story-telling. And this is the result about cladistics because as it turns out, as it seems to me, all one can learn about the history of life is learned from systematics, from groupings one finds in nature. The rest of it is story-telling of one sort or another. We have access to the tips of a tree, the tree itself is a theory and people who pretend to know about the tree and to describe what went on with it, how the branches came off and the twigs came off are, I think, telling stories." (Dr. Colin Patterson (Senior Palaeontologist, British Museum of Natural History, London) in an interview on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television 4 March 1982.)

"We must ask first whether the theory of evolution by natural selection is scientific or pseudoscientific .... Taking the first part of the theory, that evolution has occurred, it says that the history of life is a single process of species-splitting and progression. This process must be unique and unrepeatable, like the history of England. This part of the theory is therefore a historical theory, about unique events, and unique events are, by definition, not part of science, for they are unrepeatable and so not subject to test." (Patterson, Colin (1978), Evolution, London: British Museum of Natural History, pp. 145-146 (He is Senior Principal Scientific Officer of the Paleontology Department of the British Museum of Natural History in London.))

"Yet, clearly, evolution is not a "fact" in the sense that the man in the street understands the word. Without a time machine, we cannot prove that birds evolved from reptiles. ... Nor can we prove that natural selection is the mechanism responsible for the whole development of life on earth...." (Bowler, Peter J. [Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science, Queen's University, Belfast], "Evolution: The History of an Idea," [1983], University of California Press: Berkeley CA, Revised Edition, 1989, p357).

"Putting the matter bluntly, those of our possible ancestors who had the sorts of features that have been passed down to us-bipedalism, large brains, manual dexterity, sociality, and so forth-tended to survive and reproduce. And those of our possible ancestors who did not have these sorts of features did not." (Ruse M.,"Homosexuality: A Philosophical Inquiry," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1988, p.131)

Evolution and Philosophy and Religion

"The prevailing cosmology that greeted Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 rested on the theologically based assumption that the universe was created at a single point in time by a purposive intelligence who selected a bestiary of species designed to be adapted to their environments. This was assumed to be given truth rather than something one had to infer from observation. By comparison, in biology we believe we are practicing a rigorous, objective, empirical method-of-knowing that does not rest on wishful thinking. Yet much of our work rests on axioms -- conventional wisdom or laws of Nature, if you will -- that we assume to be true, but cannot actually prove." (Kenneth Weiss, “We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident,” Evolutionary Anthropology 10 (2001):199-203)

"...the philosophy of evolution is based upon assumptions that cannot be scientifically verified...whatever evidence can be assembled for evolution is both limited and circumstantial in nature." (G.A. Kerkut, [Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, University of Southampton, UK])

"And certainly, there's no doubt about it, that in the past, and I think also in the present, for many evolutionists, evolution has functioned as something with elements which are, let us say, akin to being a secular religion ... And it seems to me very clear that at some very basic level, evolution as a scientific theory makes a commitment to a kind of naturalism, namely, that at some level one is going to exclude miracles and these sorts of things come what may." (Ruse, M. (1993) "Nonliteralist Antievolution" AAAS Symposium: "The New Antievolutionism," February 13, 1993, Boston, MA)

"Dr. Gray goes further. He says, `The proposition that the things and events in nature were not designed to be so, if logically carried out, is doubtless tantamount to atheism.' Again, `To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is simply inconceivable. The alternative is a designed Cosmos... If Mr. Darwin believes that the events which he supposes to have occurred and the results we behold around us were undirected and undesigned; or if the physicist believes that the natural forces to which he refers phenomena are uncaused and undirected, no argument is needed to show that such belief is atheistic. We have thus arrived at the answer to our question, What is Darwinism? It is Atheism. This does not mean, as before said, that Mr. Darwin himself and all who adopt his views are atheists; but it means that his theory is atheistic, that the exclusion of design from nature is, as Dr. Gray says, tantamount to atheism." (Hodge, Charles* [late Professor of Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA], in Livingstone D.N., eds., "What Is Darwinism?", 1994, reprint, p.156)

"The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of ... descent with genetic modification that is affected by natuural selection, chance, .. and changing environments" (1995 Statement of the National Association of Biology Teachers)

"The Cosmos is all that there is or ever was or ever will be." (Carl Sagan (1980) Cosmos television series)

"Before Darwin, we thought that a benevolent God had created us. No intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs of nature..." (Gould, Stephen Jay [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University], "So Cleverly Kind an Animal," in "Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History," [1978], Penguin: London UK, 1991, reprint, p.267)

"Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind." (Simpson, George Gaylord, The Meaning of Evolution, revised edition, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967, p. 345. Simpson is an evolutionist paleontologist)

"Here, we see again the role of happenstance in evolution. IN this case there was no giant calamity suc as felled the great reptiles, only a simple displacement out of a groove. Had our ancestors gone on in forests, we may suppose that nothing would have happened; they would not have turned into bipeds; we woul dnot be here. It did not have to happen. But it did, with enormous consequences" (Getting Here the Story of Human Evolution, by William Howells (Harvard Anthropologist), The Compass Press, Washington D.C., 1993, pg. 73)

"[Kenneth Miller is] using the exact same arguments as Behe [an advocate of intelligent design theory], except that instead of designing biochemical pathways, Miller's deity plays dice with quarks" ("Falling off a tightrope: Compromise and Accommodation in the War between Creationism and Evolution," a review of Finding Darwin's God (by Kenneth Miller) by Barry Palevitz in BioScience, October 1, 2000, No. 10, Vol. 50; Pg. 926)

""We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a 'higher' answer - but none exists." (Stephen Jay Gould)

"In other words, it's natural selection or a Creator. This is why prominent Darwinists like G. G. Simpson and Stephen Jay Gould, who are not secretive about their hostility to religion, cling so vehemently to natural selection. To do otherwise would be to admit the probability that there is design in nature-and hence a Designer." (George S. Johnston, "The Genesis Controversy," Crisis. May 1989, p. 17)

"We must, however, acknowledge ... that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin." (Charles Darwin)

"If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music,---comprising composition and performance, history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison. We may also infer that if men are capable of decided eminence over women in many subjects, the average standard of mental power in man must be above that of a woman." (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, vol. II, p.327.)

"The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn [shown] by man attaining to a higher eminence in whatever he takes up, than woman can attain-whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands." (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, vol. II, p. 327.)

"Darwin was one of our finest specimens. He did superbly what human beings are designed to do: manipulate social information to personal advantage. The information in question was the prevailing account of how human beings, and all organisms, came to exist; Darwin reshaped it in a way that radically raised his social status. When he died in 1882, his greatness was acclaimed in newspapers around the world, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey, not far from the body of Isaac Newton. Alpha-male territory." (Robert Wright, "The Moral Animal")

"Seen in retrospect, evolution as a whole doubtless had a general direction, from simple to complex, from dependence on to relative independence of the environment, to greater and greater autonomy of individuals, greater and greater development of sense organs and nervous systems conveying and processing information about the state of the organism's surroundings, and finally greater and greater consciousness. You can call this direction progress or by some other name." (Theodosius Dobzhansky)

"Let me lay my cards on the table. If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone ever had, I'd give it to Darwin, ahead of even Newton or Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law." (Daniel Dennett)

"All questions about life have the same answer : natural selection." (Henry Bennet-Clark)

"The universe has invented a way to know itself." (Paul Dressler)

"We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes." (Richard Dawkins)

"Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators." (Richard Dawkins)

"Our minds have been built by selfish genes, but they have been built to be social, trustworthy and cooperative." (Matt Ridley, "The Origins of Virtue")

"here was a revolution in biology in the mid 1960s, pioneered especially by two men, George Williams and William Hamilton. This revolution is best known by Richard Dawkins's phrase 'The Selfish Gene', and at its core lies the idea that individuals do not consistently do things for the good of their group, or their families, or even themselves. They consistently do things that benefit their genes, because they are all inevitably descended from those that did the same. None of your ancestors died celibate. ... always, without exception, living things are designed to do things that enhance the chances of their genes or copies of their genes surviving and replicating." (Matt Ridley, "The Origins of Virtue")

"As a general rule, a modern biologist seeing an animal doing something to benefit another assumes either that it is being manipulated by the other individual or that it is being subtly selfish." (George Williams)

"Every human being is irresistibly impelled to act to act precisely as he does act: in the eternity which preceded his birth, a chain of causes was generated which, operating under the name of motives, makes it impossible that any thought of his mind, or any action of his life, should be otherwise than what it is... The doctrine of Necessity tends to introduce a great change into the established notions of morality... "" (Shelly (explaining Laplace))

"Society works not because we have consciously invented it, but because it is an ancient product of our evolved predispositions. It is literally in our nature." (Matt Ridley)

"Think of it : zillions and zillions of organisms running around, each under the hypnotic spell of a single truth, all these truths identical, and all logically incompatible with one another : 'My hereditary material is the most important material on earth; its survival justifies your frustration, pain, even death'. And you are one of those organisms, living your life in the thrall of a logical absurdity." (Robert Wright, "The Moral Animal")

"Theologians worry away at the `problem of evil' and a related `problem of suffering.' ... On the contrary, if the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies like the crashing of this bus are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless *good* fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: `For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither care nor know.' DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music." (Dawkins R., "River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life," Phoenix: London, 1996, p.155. Emphasis in original)

"Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles." (Watson J.D., "Molecular Biology of the Gene," W.A. Benjamin: Menlo Park CA, Second Edition, 1970, p.2. Note: PS: This Darwinist has problems estimating a "minority". Polls have shown for decades that "the theory of evolution" *as the Darwinists believe it*, i.e. with God playing no part, is in fact the minority, with less than 10% of the public accepting it. The so-called "fundamentalist minority" has always outnumbered the Darwinists by about 4 to 1!)

"The general lesson we should learn is never to use human judgment in assessing such matters" (Dawkins, Richard. River Out of Eden. BasicBooks 1995. p 70)

"vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race" (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, vol. I, p. 168.)

"we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind" (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, vol. I, p. 169.)

"Almost no one is indifferent to Darwin, and no one should be. The Darwinian theory is a scientific theory, and a great one, but that is not all it is. The creationists who oppose it so bitterly are right about one thing: Darwin's dangerous idea cuts much deeper into the fabric of our most fundamental beliefs than many of its sophisticated apologists have yet admitted, even to themselves. ... The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us (all creatures great and small) and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight-that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether." (Dennett D.C., "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life," [1995], Penguin: London, 1996, p.18)

"...evolution works without either plan or purpose." (Miller and Levine, Biology Prentice Hall, 1995, p. 658. Miller and Levine are both evolutionists)

"Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. Together with Marx's materialistic theory of history and society and Freud's attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, Darwin's theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism --- of much of science, in short --- that has since been the stage of most Western thought." (Futuyma, D. J., Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates Inc., 1986, Sunderland, MA, p. 2.)

"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." (Dawkins, Richard [Zoologist and Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford University], "Put Your Money on Evolution", Review of Johanson D. & Edey M.A., "Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution", in New York Times, April 9, 1989, sec. 7, p34.)

"To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant--inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write." (Daniel Dennet, "Darwin's Dangerous Idea")

"The point, however, is that the doctrine of evolution has swept the world, not on the strength of its scientific merits, but precisely in its capacity as a Gnostic myth. It affirms, in effect, that living beings created themselves, which is, in essence, a metaphysical claim.... Thus, in the final analysis, evolutionism is in truth a metaphysical doctrine decked out in scientific garb." (Smith, Wolfgang, Teilhardism and the New Religion, Tan Books and Publishers, 1988, Rockford, Illinois, p. 242.)

"The social and conceptual revolution that we are now witnessing can be traced back to Darwin.... They are also using evolutionary and ecological concepts to explain social conflict and social change. As revolutionary as their work may appear to conservative scholars, it is grounded in the evolutionary model that scientists no longer question" (Betty Jean Craige, "The Pursuit of Truth is Inherently Disruptive and Anti-Authoritarian," Chronicle of Higher Education (January 6, 1993), p. A56)

"CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN stands among the giants of Western thought because he convinced a majority of his peers that all of life shares a single, if complex, history. He taught us that we can understand life's history in purely naturalistic terms, without recourse to the supernatural or divine." (Eldredge N., "Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p.13)

"I am opposed to Darwinism, or better said, to the transformist hypothesis as such, no matter what one takes to be the mechanism or cause (even perhaps teleological or theistic) of the postulated macroevolutionary leaps. I am convinced, moreover, that Darwinism (in whatever form) is not in fact a scientific theory, but a pseudo-metaphysical hypothesis decked out in scientific garb. In reality the theory derives its support not from empirical data or logical deductions of a scientific kind but from the circumstance that it happens to be the only doctrine of biological origins that can be conceived within the constricted Weltanschauung to which a majority of scientists no doubt subscribe." (Smith, Wolfgang* [Professor of Mathematics, Oregon State University], "The Universe Is Ultimately to Be Explained in Terms of a Metacosmic Reality," in Margenau H. & Varghese R.A., ed., "Cosmos, Bios, Theos: Scientists Reflect on Science, God, and the Origins of the Universe Life, and Homo sapiens," [1992], Open Court: La Salle Ill., 1993, Second Printing, pp.113-114)

"What theistic evolutionists have failed above all to comprehend is that the conflict is not over "facts" but over ways of thinking. The problem is not just with any specific doctrine of Darwinian science, but with the naturalistic rules of thought that Darwinian scientists employ to derive those doctrines. If scientists had actually observed natural selection creating new organs, or had seen a step-by-step process of fundamental change consistently recorded in the fossil record, such observations could readily be interpreted as evidence of God's use of secondary causes to create. But Darwinian scientists have not observed anything like that. What they have done is to assume as a matter of first principle that purposeless material processes can do all the work of biological creation because, according to their philosophy, nothing else was available. They have defined their task as finding the most plausible-or least implausible- description of how biological creation could occur in the absence of a creator. The specific answers they derive may or may not be reconcilable with theism, but the manner of thinking is profoundly atheistic. To accept the answers as indubitably true is inevitably to accept the thinking that generated those answers. That is why I think the appropriate term for the accommodationist position is not "theistic evolution," but rather theistic naturalism. Under either name, it is a disastrous error." (Johnson P.E., "Shouting `Heresy' in the Temple of Darwin", Christianity Today, Vol. 38, No. 12, October 24, 1994, p.26)

"Evolution is the creation-myth of our age. By telling us our origin it shapes our views of what we are. It influences not just our thought, but our feelings and actions too, in a way which goes far beyond its official function as a biological theory. In calling it a myth, I am not of course saying that it is a false story. I mean that it has great symbolic power, which is independent of its truth. Is the word religion appropriate to it? This will depend on the sense we give to that very elastic word." (Midgley, Mary [former Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK], "The Religion of Evolution," in Durant J., ed., "Darwinism and Divinity: Essays on Evolution and Religious Belief," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1985, p.154)

"I have asked myself whether I may not have devoted my life to a fantasy." (Charles Darwin)

"...although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (Dawkins, Richard [zoologist and Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford University], "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.6)

"How much of this can be believed? Every generation needs its own creation myths, and these are ours. They are probably more accurate than any that have come before, but they are undoubtedly subject to revision as we find out more about the nature and the history of life. The best that can be said for any scientific theory is that it explains all the data at hand and has no obvious internal contradictions." (Wilson, Edward O. [Honorary Curator in Entomology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University], et al., "Life on Earth", [1973], Sinauer Associates: Sunderland MA, 1975, reprint, p.624)

"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory-is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation-both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof" (Matthews, L. Harrison [British biologist and Fellow of the Royal Society], "Introduction", Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," J. M. Dent & Sons: London, 1976, pp.x,xi, in Ankerberg J.* & Weldon J.*, "Rational Inquiry & the Force of Scientific Data: Are New Horizons Emerging?," in Moreland J.P., ed., "The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL., 1994, p.275)

"...the only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation and [we] both reject this alternative" (Dawkins, R., The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton & Company, New York (1996))

"In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created: it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion." (Huxley, Julian S. [late grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, former Professor of Zoology at King's College, London, and founding Director-General of UNESCO], "The Humanist Frame", in "Essays of a Humanist," [1964], Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1969, reprint, pp.82-83)

"One is forced to conclude that many scientists and technologists pay lip-service to Darwinian Theory only because it supposedly excludes a Creator from yet another area of material phenomena, and not because it has been paradigmantic in establishing the canons of research in the life sciences and the earth sciences" (Dr. Michael Walker, Senior Lecturer, Anthropology, Sydney University. Quadrant, October 1981, page 45)

"The more one studies palaeontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone; exactly the same sort of faith which it is necessary to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion." (More, Louis T. [late Professor of Physics, University of Cincinnati, USA], "The Dogma of Evolution," Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1925, Second Printing, p.160)

"Evolution comprises all the stages of the development of the universe: the cosmic, biological, and human or cultural developments. Attempts to restrict the concept of evolution to biology are gratuitous. Life is a product of the evolution of inorganic nature, and man is a product of the evolution of life." (Dobzhansky, Theodosius [late Professor of Genetics, University of California, Davis and Professor of Biology and Genetics, Rockefeller University, New York], "Changing Man," Science, 27 January 1967, Vol. 155, No. 3761, p409.)

"Contrary to the popular notion that only creationism relies on the supernatural, evolutionism must as well, since the probabilities of random formation of life are so tiny as to require a 'miracle' for spontaneous generation tantamount to a theological argument." (Chandra Wickramasinge)

"It is as a religion of science that Darwinism chiefly held, and holds men's minds. The derivation of life, of man, of man's deepest hopes and highest achievements, from the external and indirect determination of small chance errors, appears as the very keystone of the naturalistic universe. And the defence of natural selection appears, therefore, as the defence of their integrity, the independence, the dignity of science itself."
"Darwin's "horrid doubt" as to whether the convictions of man's evolved mind could be trusted applies as much to abstract truth as to ethics; and "evolutionary truth" is at least as suspect as evolutionary ethics. At this point, therefore, it would seem that the armies of science are in danger of destroying their own base. For the scientist must be able to trust the conclusions of his reasoning. Hence he cannot accept the theory that man's mind was evolved wholly by natural selection if this means, as it would appear to do, that the conclusions of the mind depend ultimately on their survival value and not their truth, thus making all scientific theories, including that of natural selection, untrustworthy.Lack concludes from this that the old opposition of science and religion is still, and must remain, an "unresolved conflict." But I think one may conclude, on the contrary, that it is the conventional logic of science, and the view of mind implied in it, that needs revision. For, as Plato argued long ago about Protagonas' "man the measure," there is surely something wrong in a theory which, at its very root, invalidate itself." (Grene, Marjorie [Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of California, Davis], "The Faith of Darwinism", Encounter, Vol. 74, November 1959, p.48, 56)

"Ultimately, the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century." (Michael Denton, 'Evolution, A Theory in Crisis' page 358)

"The fact of evolution is the backgone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded upon an unproved thoery--is it then a science or a faith? Belief in evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation - both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof." (L. Harrison Mathews, FRS, Introduction to Darwin's Origin of Species, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, 1971, p. x, xi.)

"But what if the vast majority of scientists all have faith in the one unverified idea? The modern 'standard' scientific version of the origin of life on earth is one such idea, and we would be wise to check its real merit with great care. Has the cold blade of reason been applied with sufficient vigour in this case? Most scientists want to believe that life could have emerged spontaneously from the primeval waters, because it would confirm their belief in the explicability of Nature the belief that all could be explained in terms of particles and energy and forces if only we had the time and the necessary intellect. They also want to believe because their arch opponents - religious fundamentalists such as creationists - do not believe in life's spontaneous origin. It is this combative atmosphere which sometimes encourages scientists writing and speaking about the origin of life to become as dogmatic and bigoted as the creationist opponents they so despise." (Scott A., "The Creation of Life: Past, Future, Alien," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1986, p.111-112)

"Unfortunately many scientists and non-scientists have made Evolution into a religion, something to be defended against infidels. In my experience, many students of biology - professors and textbook writers included - have been so carried away with the arguments for Evolution that they neglect to question it. They preach it ... College students, having gone through such a closed system of education, themselves become teachers, entering high schools to continue the process, using textbooks written by former classmates or professors. High standards of scholarship and teaching break down. Propaganda and the pursuit of power replace the pursuit knowledge. Education becomes a fraud." (George Kocan, Evolution isn't Faith But Theory, Chicago Tribune 9 Monday April 21 1980)

"Do you believe, literally, in an anthropomorphic God? If not, then you must agree with me that the song is a beautiful, comforting falsehood. Is that simple song nevertheless a valuable meme? I certainly think it is. It is a modest but beautiful part of our heritage, a treasure to be preserved. But we must face the fact that, just as there were times when tigers would not have been viable, times are coming when they will no longer be viable, except in zoos and other preserves, and the same is true of many of the treasures in our cultural heritage. ... We cannot preserve all the features of the cultural world in which these treasures flourished. We wouldn't want to. ... Ignorance is a necessary condition for many excellent things. The childish joy of seeing what Santa Claus has brought for Christmas is a species of joy that must soon be extinguished in each child by the loss of ignorance. When that child grows up, she can transmit that joy to her own children, but she must also recognize a time when it has outlived its value. ... But how many of us are caught in that very dilemma, loving the heritage, firmly convinced of its value, yet unable to sustain any conviction at all in its truth? We are faced with a difficult choice. Because we value it, we are eager to preserve it in a rather precarious and "denatured" state-in churches and cathedrals and synagogues, built to house huge congregations of the devout, and now on the way to being cultural museums. ... But hasn't there been a tremendous rebirth of fundamentalist faith in all these creeds? Yes, unfortunately, there has been, and I think that there are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us all than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism, of all the species: Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as countless smaller infections. Is there a conflict between science and religion here? There most certainly is. Darwin's dangerous idea helps to create a condition in the memosphere that in the long run threatens to be just as toxic to these memes as civilization in general has been toxic to the large wild mammals. Save the Elephants! Yes, of course, but not *by all means*. Not by forcing the people of Africa to live nineteenth- century lives, for instance. .... We must find an accommodation. I love the King James Version of the Bible. My own spirit recoils from a God Who is He or She in the same way my heart sinks when I see a lion pacing neurotically back and forth in a small zoo cage. I know, I know, the lion is beautiful but dangerous; if you let the lion roam free, it would kill me; safety demands that it be put in a cage. Safety demands that religions be put in cages, too-when absolutely necessary. We just can't have forced female circumcision, and the second-class status of women in Roman Catholicism and Mormonism, to say nothing of their status in Islam. ... ... We are wise to respect these traditions. It is, after all, just part of respect for the biosphere. Save the Baptists! Yes, of course, but not *by all means*. Not if it means tolerating the deliberate misinforming of children about the natural world. According to a recent poll, 48 percent of the people in the United States today believe that the book of Genesis is literally true. And 70 percent believe that "creation science" should be taught in school alongside evolution. Some recent writers recommend a policy in which parents would be able to "opt out" of materials they didn't want their children taught. Should evolution be taught in the schools? Should arithmetic be taught? Should history? Misinforming a child is a terrible offense. A faith, like a species, must evolve or go extinct when the environment changes. It is not a gentle process in either case. We see in every Christian subspecies the battle of memes-should women be ordained? Should we go back to the Latin liturgy?-and the same can also be observed in the varieties of Judaism and Islam. We must have a similar mixture of respect and self-protective caution about memes. This is already accepted practice, but we tend to avert our attention from its implications. We preach freedom of religion, but only so far. If your religion advocates slavery, or mutilation of women, or infanticide, or puts a price on Salman Rushdie's head because he has insulted it, then your religion has a feature that cannot be respected. It endangers us all. It is nice to have grizzly bears and wolves living in the wild. They are no longer a menace; we can peacefully coexist, with a little wisdom. The same policy can be discerned in our political tolerance, in religious freedom. You are free to preserve or create any religious creed you wish, so long as it does not become a public menace. We're all on the Earth together, and we have to learn some accommodation. The Hutterite memes are "clever" not to include any memes about the virtue of destroying outsiders. If they did, we would have to combat them. We tolerate the Hutterites because they harm only themselves though we may well insist that we have the right to impose some further openness on their schooling of their own children. Other religious memes are not so benign. The message is clear: those who will not accommodate, who will not temper, who insist on keeping only the purest and wildest strain of their heritage alive, we will be obliged, reluctantly, to cage or disarm, and we will do our best to disable the memes they fight for. ... ... Until we can provide an environment for all people in which fanaticism doesn't make sense, we can expect more and more of it. But we don't have to accept it, and we don't have to respect it. Taking a few tips from Darwinian medicine (Williams and Nesse 1991), we can take steps to conserve what is valuable in every culture without keeping alive (or virulent) all its weaknesses. ... ... There is much more to learn. There is certainly a treasury of ill- appreciated truths embedded in the endangered cultures of the modern world, designs that have accumulated details over eons of idiosyncratic history, and we should take steps to record it, and study it, before it disappears, for, like dinosaur genomes, once it is gone, it will be virtually impossible to recover. We should not expect this variety of respect to be satisfactory to those who wholeheartedly embody the memes we honor with our attentive-but not worshipful-scholarship. On the contrary, many of them will view anything other than enthusiastic conversion to their own views as a threat, even an intolerable threat. We must not underestimate the suffering such confrontations cause. To watch, to have to participate in, the contraction or evaporation of beloved features of one's heritage is a pain only our species can experience, and surely few pains could be more terrible. But we have no reasonable alternative, and those whose visions dictate that they cannot peacefully coexist with the rest of us we will have to quarantine as best we can, minimizing the pain and damage, trying always to leave open a path or two that may come to seem acceptable. If you want to teach your children that they are the tools of God, you had better not teach them that they are God's rifles, or we will have to stand firmly opposed to you: your doctrine has no glory, no special rights, no intrinsic and inalienable merit. If you insist on teaching your children falsehoods-that the Earth is flat, that "Man" is not a product of evolution by natural selection-then you must expect, at the very least, that those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teaching as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being-the well-being of all of us on the planet-depends on the education of our descendants. What, then, of all the glories of our religious traditions? They should certainly be preserved, as should the languages, the art, the costumes, the rituals, the monuments. Zoos are now more and more being seen as second-class havens for endangered species, but at least they are havens, and what they preserve is irreplaceable. The same is true of complex memes and their phenotypic expressions. ... Shall we deconsecrate these churches and turn them into museums, or retrofit them for some other use? The latter fate is at least to be preferred to their destruction. ... And there's the rub. What will happen, one may well wonder, if religion is preserved in cultural zoos, in libraries, in concerts and demonstrations? It is happening; the tourists flock to watch the Native American tribal dances, and for the onlookers it is folklore, a religious ceremony, certainly, to be treated with respect, but also an example of a meme complex on the verge of extinction, at least in its strong, ambulatory phase; it has become an invalid, barely kept alive by its custodians. Does Darwin's dangerous idea give us anything in exchange for the ideas it calls into question? ... Spinoza called his highest being God or Nature (Deus sive Natura), expressing a sort of pantheism. There have been many varieties of pantheism, but they usually lack a convincing *explanation* about just how God is distributed in the whole of nature. .... You could even say, in a way. that the Tree of Life created itself. Not in a miraculous, instantaneous whoosh, but slowly, slowly, over billions of years. Is this Tree of Life a God one could worship? Pray to? Fear? Probably not. But it did make the ivy twine and the sky so blue, so perhaps the song I love tells a truth after all. The Tree of Life is neither perfect nor infinite in space or time, but it is actual, and if it is not Anselm's "Being greater than which nothing can be conceived," it is surely a being that is greater than anything any of us will ever conceive of in detail worthy of its detail. Is something sacred? Yes, say I with Nietzsche. I could not pray to it, but I can stand in affirmation of its magnificence. This world is sacred." (Dennett D.C., "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life," Penguin: London, 1995, pp.514-517, 519-520. Emphasis in original)

"...the material world is all that exists...there is nothing supernatural, no God or gods, no creator, no creation" (Monkey Business, Eugenie Scott, New York Academy of Science, Jan/Feb 1996, pp. 20-25)

"Hundreds of scientists who once taught their university students that the bottom line on origins had been figured out and settled are today confessing that they were completely wrong. They've discovered that their previous conclusions, once held so fervently, were based on very fragile evidences and suppositions which have since been refuted by new discoveries. This has necessitated a change in their basic philosophical position on origins. Others are admitting great weaknesses in evolution theory."
"It is easy enough to make up stories, of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test." (Luther D Sutherland, Darwin's Enigma, Master Books 1988, p7,8, 89)

"Discussions of evolution came to an end primarily because it was obvious that no progress was being made....When students of other sciences ask us what is now currently believed about the origin of species we have no clear answer to give. Faith has given place to agnosticism.... Biological science has returned to its rightful place, investigation of the structure and properties of the concrete and visible world. We cannot see how the differentiation into species came about. Variation of many kinds, often considerable, we daily witness, but no origin of species.... I have put before you very frankly the considerations which have made us agnostic as to the actual mode and processes of evolution. When such confessions are made the enemies of science see their chance.... Let us then proclaim in precise and unmistakable language that our faith in evolution is unshaken." (Bateson, William [late founder of the science of Genetics, first Professor of Genetics, Cambridge University, UK], "Evolutionary Faith and Modern Doubts." An address delivered to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 28 December, 1921, Science, vol. LV, p.55., in More L.T., "The Dogma of Evolution", Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1925, p.28)

"The first assumption was that non-living things gave rise to living material. This is still just an assumption. It is conceivable that living material might have suddenly appeared on this world in some peculiar manner, say from another planet, but this then raises the question, "Where did life originate on that planet?" We could say that life has always existed, but such an explanation is not a very satisfactory one. Instead, the explanation that nonliving things could have given rise to complex systems having the properties of living things is generally more acceptable to most scientists. There is, however, little evidence in favour of biogenesis and as yet we have no indication that it can be performed. There are many schemes by which biogenesis could have occurred but these are still suggestive schemes and nothing more. They may indicate experiments that can be performed, but they tell us nothing about what actually happened some 1,000 million years ago. It is therefore a matter of faith on the part of the biologist that biogenesis did occur and he can choose whatever method of biogenesis happens to suit him personally; the evidence for what did happen is not available." (Kerkut, G.A. [Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, University of Southampton, UK], " Implications of Evolution," in Kerkut G.A., ed. "International Series of Monographs on Pure and Applied Biology, Division: Zoology," Volume 4, Pergamon Press: New York NY, 1960, p.150)

"A chicken is really the chicken genes' way of making more copies of themselves." (Wilson, E.O. 1975. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)

"With respect to the theological view of the question. This is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed." (Darwin C., letter to Asa Gray, May 22, 1860, in Darwin F., ed., "The Life of Charles Darwin," [1902], Senate: London, 1995, reprint, p.236)

"Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion -- a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint -- and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it -- the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today."
"Today, professional evolution thrives. But the old religion survives and thrives right alongside it. Evolution now has its mystical visionary, its Saint John of the Cross. Harvard entomologist and sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson tells us that we now have an "alternative mythology" to defeat traditional religion. "Its narrative form is the epic: the evolution of the universe from the big bang of fifteen years ago through the origin of the elements and celestial bodies to the beginnings of life on earth.""Faithful to the oldest tradition of evolutionary theorizing -- reading his morality and politics into his science and then reading it right back out again -- Mr. Wilson warns us that we have evolved in symbiotic relationship with the rest of living nature, and lest we cherish and preserve biodiversity we will all perish. Drawing on the dispensationalism of his Southern Baptist childhood, with the eloquence and moral fervour of Billy Graham, Mr. Wilson begs us to repent, to stand up and acknowledge our sins and to walk forward in the ways of evolution. We have but a short time, else moral darkness will fall on us all.The language of Stephen Jay Gould is hardly more tempered. We learn that evolution "liberates the human spirit," that for sheer excitement evolution "beats any myth of human origins by light years," and that we should "praise this evolutionary nexus -- a far more stately mansion for the human soul than any pretty or parochial comfort ever conjured by our swollen neurology to obscure the source of physical being.""
"Mr. Gould ultimately rejects traditional readings of evolution for a more inspiring, liberating version: "We must assume that consciousness would not have evolved on our planet if a cosmic catastrophe had not claimed the dinosaurs as victims. In an entirely literal sense, we owe our existence, as large and reasoning mammals, to our lucky stars." If this is not to rival traditional Judaeo-Christian teaching -- with its central belief that we humans are not just random happenstances, but a major reason why God created heaven and earth -- I do not know what is."
..."But, let us be tolerant. If people want to make a religion of evolution, that is their business. Who would deny the value of Mr. Wilson's plea for biodiversity? Who would argue against Mr. Gould's hatred of racial and sexual prejudice, which he has used evolution to attack?The important point is that we should recognize when people are going beyond the strict science, moving into moral and social claims, thinking of their theory as an all-embracing world picture. All too often, there is a slide from science to something more, and this slide goes unmentioned -- unrealized even.
"For pointing this out we should be grateful for the opponents of evolution. The Creationists are wrong in their Creationism, but they are right in at least one of their criticisms. Evolution, Darwinian evolution, is wonderful science. Let us teach it to our children. And, in the classroom, let us leave it at that. The moral messages, the underlying ideology, may be worthy. But if we feel strongly, there are other times and places to preach that gospel to the world. (Michael Ruse, professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph from Saturday, "How evolution became a religion Creationists correct?: Darwinians wrongly mix science with morality, politics, National Post, May 13, 2000)

"There was little doubt that the star intellectual turn of last week's British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Salford was Dr John Durant, a youthful lecturer from University College Swansea. Giving the Darwin lecture to one of the biggest audiences of the week, Durant put forward an audacious theory-that Darwin's evolutionary explanation of the origins of man has been transformed into a modern myth, to the detriment of science and social progress. Durant said that scientists and popularisers have asked too much of the theory of evolution, demanding that it explain... "Life, the Universe, and Everything". As a result Darwin's theory has burst at the seams, leaving a wreckage of distorted and mutilated ideas, and man's understanding of his society has been hobbled by his inability to escape the conservative myths he has created. Durant bemoaned the transformation of evolutionary ideas into "secular or scientific myths". ... they have assumed the social role of myths-legends about remote ancestors that express and reinforce peoples' ideas about the society around them. "Like the creation myths which have so largely replaced, theories of human evolution are basically stories about the first appearance of man on Earth and the institution of human society," said Durant. ... Durant concludes that the secular myths of evolution have had "a damaging effect on scientific research", leading to "distortion, to needless controversy, and to the gross misuse of science". (Dr. John Durant, University College Swansea, Wales), as quoted in "How evolution became a scientific myth," New Scientist, 11 September 1980, p.765)

"Directed by all-powerful selection, chance becomes a sort of providence, which, under the cover of atheism, is not named but which is secretly worshipped" (Grasse, Pierre-Paul (1977), Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, N.Y. (Grasse is past president of the French Academie des Sciences and editor of the 35 volume "Traite de Zoologie" published by Masson, Paris))

"The theory of evolution by natural selection is not a difficult concept to grasp, and Charles Darwin addressed The Origin of Species itself to a general audience. But neither is it self-evident to many people that natural selection can fully account for the world they observe. Thus when questions about the theory arise in public forums, the scientific community would do much better in the long run to patiently list supporting facts and frankly admit where positive evidence is lacking, rather than paternalistically maintaining that an understanding of the theory of evolution is reserved for the priesthood of professional scientists." (Behe M.J., "Understanding Evolution," Letters, Science, 30 August 1991)

"Meanwhile, Juliette and I had been invited to attend the celebration of the centenary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, at the University of Chicago ... The preparations for the centenary celebrations were now in full swing, people arriving from many countries to render their homage to Darwin..." (Huxley, Julian S. [late grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, former Professor of Zoology at King's College, London, and founding Director-General of UNESCO], "Memories II," [1973], Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1978, reprint, pp.181-182)

"These so-called M and N notebooks were written in 1838 and 1839, while Darwin was compiling the transmutation notebooks that formed the basis for his sketches of 1842 and 1844. They ... include many statements showing that he espoused but feared to expose something he perceived as far more heretical than evolution itself: philosophical materialism-the postulate that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. ... The notebooks prove that ... the primary feature distinguishing his theory from all other evolutionary doctrines was its uncompromising philosophical materialism. .... In the notebooks Darwin resolutely applied his materialistic theory of evolution to all phenomena of life, including what he termed "the citadel itself" - the human mind. And if mind has no real existence beyond the brain, can God be anything more than an illusion invented by an illusion? In one of his transmutation notebooks, he wrote: `Love of the deity effect of organization, oh you materialist!...'" (Gould, Stephen Jay [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University, USA], "Darwin's Delay," in "Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History," [1978], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, pp.23-25)

"The writer is not naive enough to think that this discussion will convince any materialist. People who have a faith cannot be convinced by mere words and logic. Men with an irrational faith - and we hope that we have made it clear that such is their case do not yield to rational arguments because words do not have the same meaning for us and for them. we talk about moral and spiritual values to which we attribute a greater reality with respect to man than to the electron, while they do not even admit the existence of such values and firmly believe in a material world which we consider only as a pretext. ... Our aim in discussing the mechanistic attitude toward evolution and liberty, or free will, was to show that the materialist, who boasts about his strict and scientific rationalism, is not infallible in his own trade. He is not likely of course to advertise his errors or his conflicts but it must be known that he is no longer qualified to claim strict rational thinking and scientific facts as the basic foundation of his creed." (du Nouy L., "Human Destiny," Longmans, Green & Co: New York NY, 1947, Seventeenth Printing, p.51)

"In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists accepted it and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit in with it."
"If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atmos, natural forces and radiation, how has it come into being? There is another theory, now quite out of favour, which is based upon the ideas of Lamarck: that if an organism needs an improvement it will develop it, and transmit it to its progeny. I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it." (H. J. Lipson, F.R.S. professor of physics, University of Manchestor, UK, "A physicist looks at evolution" Physics Bulletin, vol 31, p 138, 1980)

"But evolution is different. Evolutionists purport to explain where we came from and how we developed into the complex organisms that we are. Physicists, by and large, do not. So, the study of evolution trespasses on the bailiwick of religion. And it has something else in common with religion." (Wills, Christopher [Professor of Biology, University of California, San Diego], "The Wisdom of the Genes: New Pathways in Evolution," Basic Books: New York NY, 1989, p.9)

"All this apparent design has come about without a designer. No purpose, no goals, no blueprints. Natural selection is simply about genes replicating themselves down the generations. Genes that build bodies that do what's needed-seeing, running, digesting, mating-get replicated; and those that don't, don't." (Cronin H., "The Evolution of Evolution," TIME, Summer 1997/98, p.80)

"Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented." (Provine William B., [Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University], "Darwin Day" website, University of Tennessee Knoxville, 1998.

"Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent." (Provine, William B. [Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University], ", "Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life", Abstract of Will Provine's 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address. http://fp.bio.utk.edu/darwin/1998/provine_abstract.html)

"...Jacques Monod (Nobel Prize, 1965) calls evolution a 'gigantic lottery' or 'nature's roulette' and concludes: `Chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition - or the hope - that on this score our position is likely ever to be revised... The universe was not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man. Our number came up in the Monte Carlo game.' (Monod J., "Chance and Necessity," New York, 1971, pp.121-122, 146)

"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla" (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2nd ed., New York, A.L. Burt Co., 1874, p.178)

"The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world." (Darwin, Charles R. [English naturalist and founder of the modern theory of evolution], "The Life of Charles Darwin", [1902], Senate: London, 1995, reprint, p.64).

"I wish I were younger. What inclines me now to think you may be right in regarding [evolution] as the central and radical lie in the whole web of falsehood that now governs our lives is not so much your arguments against it as the fanatical and twisted attitudes of its defenders." (C.S. Lewis, Private letter (1951) to Captain Bernard Acworth, one of the founders of the Evolution Protest Movement (England). Cited by Dr. Ronald Numbers in, The Creationists (Adolph Knoff Co., 1991), p. 153.)

Teleology

“There is a natural impulse for evolutionists to circle their wagons in making common cause against the creationists.” (W. Ford Doolittle, "The practice of classification and the theory of evolution, and what the demise of Charles Darwin’s tree of life hypothesis means for both of them," The Royal Society B, Vol. 364: 2220-2228 (July 16, 2009).)

"The fairness question is still faulty because it mixes apples with oranges. A federal judge has ruled creation science to be 'not science' but a religious concept. Therefore, presenting both sides does not mean includin gvarious scientific theories but rather including religious ideas or at least nonscientific ideas, along side scientific theories in science instruction."
"Creationists must first change the construct of hte scientific community; then science insructures will teach intelligent deign because its prat of hte construct. Until that day, instructors cannot honestly teach it as science." (Brian and Sandra Alters, Defending Evolution in the Classroom, Note: the case referred to is McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255 (1982), which has been highly criticized: see Teaching the Origins Controversy: Science, Or Religion, Or Speech? by David K. DeWolf, Stephen C. Meyer, Mark Edward DeForrest (Utah Law Review 2000:39). Available as the journal article and also at "http://www.arn.org/docs/dewolf/utah.pdf")

"Creation scientists have not managed to come up with even a single intellectually compelling, scientifically testable statement about the natural world ..."
"[Scientific creationists] pose no novel testable hypothesis and make no predictions or observations worthy of name." (Niles Eldredge, The Triumph of Evolution and The Failure of Creationism. Note: is this statement really true? Can no statements made by creationists be tested?)

"It seems to me that, in our present state of knowledge, creation is the only answer-but not the crude creation envisaged in Genesis. I think that the fossil record shows successive experiments in introducing new properties, biomolecularly, into living beings, those that were, successful being proceeded with and those that were failures being left alone or eliminated. As a scientist, I am not happy with these ideas. But I find it distasteful for scientists to reject a theory because it does not fit in with their preconceived ideas." (Lipson, H.S. [Professor of Physics, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, UK], "Origin of species," in "Letters," New Scientist, 14 May 1981, p.452)

"From my earliest training as a scientist, I was very strongly brainwashed to believe that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation. That notion has had to be painfully shed. "At the moment, I can't find any rational argument to knock down the view which argues for conversion to God. We used to have an open mind; now we realize that the only logical answer to life is creation--and not accidental random shuffling." (Wickramasinghe, C., Interview in London Daily Express (August 14, 1981), Wickramasinghe is Professor of Applied Math & Astronomy, University College, Cardiff. )

"...[creationism] fails to display the most basic characteristic of science: reliance upon naturalistic explanations. Instead, proponents of "creation-science" hold that the creation of the universe, the earth, living things, and man was accomplished through supernatural means inaccessible to human understanding." (National Academy of Sciences (NAS), 1984.)

"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible" (Hebrews 11:3, (NIV Translation))

"The heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of his hands." (Psalms 19:1, (NIV Translation))

"Any living being possesses an enormous amount of "intelligence," very much more than is necessary to build the most magnificent of cathedrals. Today, this "intelligence" is called "information," but it is still the same thing. It is not programmed as in a computer, but rather it is condensed on a molecular scale in the chromosomal DNA or in that of any other organelle in each cell. This "intelligence" is the sine qua non of life. If absent, no living being is imaginable. Where does it come from? This is a problem which concerns both biologists and philosophers and, at present, science seems incapable of solving it."
"When we consider a human work, we believe we know where the `intelligence' which fashioned it comes from; but when a living being is concerned, no one knows or ever knew, neither Darwin nor Epicurus, neither Leibniz nor Aristotle, neither Einstein nor Parmenides. An act of faith is necessary to make us adopt one hypothesis rather than another. Science, which does not accept any credo, or in any case should not, acknowledges its ignorance, its inability to solve this problem which, we are certain, exists and has reality. If to determine the origin of information in a computer is not a false problem, why should the search for the information contained in cellular nuclei be one?"
"Through use and abuse of hidden postulates, of bold, often ill-founded extrapolations, a pseudoscience has been created. It is taking root in the very heart of biology and is leading astray many biochemists and biologists, who sincerely believe that the accuracy of fundamental concepts has been demonstrated, which is not the case." (Grasse, Pierre-P., [editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie," former Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p2)

"Evidently nature can no longer be seen as matter and energy alone. Nor can all her secrets be unlocked with the keys of chemistry and physics, brilliantly successful as these two branches of science have been in our century. A third component is needed for any explanation of the world that claims to be complete. To the powerful theories of chemistry and physics must be added a late arrival: a theory of information. Nature must be interpreted as matter, energy, and information." (Campbell, Jeremy C., [Journalist], "Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language and Life," [1982], Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1984, reprint, p.16)

"The existence of design and nature is a fact which must certainly be taken seriously ... [because] in every main branch of science- physics, geophysics, astronomy, chemistry, biology- we are faced by the same surprising fact.... Nearly everywhere it [nature] shows the signs.... of something that we can only think of in terms of ingenuity and deliberate design." Robert E.D.Clark, Phd Organic Chemistry (Cambridge University), The Universe: Plan or Accident? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1972), 151, 181. )

"I would have no problem reconciling Darwinism to Christianity if -- on scientific grounds -- I thought Darwinism was true." (William A. Dembski, SKEPTICS, INFIDELS, AGNOSTICS, AND ASSORTED DOGMATISTS in American Outlook, November/December 2000 edition??)

Views of Individual Scientists and Intellectuals

"Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant . . . I should like to find a genuine loophole." (Sir Arthur Eddington)

"Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect He doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." (Isaac Asimov (1982), Context)

"The more I study science, the more I believe in God." (Albert Einstein)

"For myself, faith begins with the realization that a supreme intelligence brought the universe into being and created man. It is not difficult for me to have this faith, for it is incontrovertible that where there is a plan there is intelligence--an orderly, unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic statement ever uttered--"In the beginning God." (Arthur Compton (1936), Chicago Daily News)

"I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves. For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political." (Aldous Huxley: Ends and Means, pp. 270 ff.)

"Overwhelming strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us ... The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words." (Lord Kelvin, Vict. Inst., 124, p267.)

"Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy." (Haldane, John B.S. [Professor of Genetics, London University], "Possible Worlds: And Other Essays," [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.286. Emphasis in the original.)

"The more the universe seems comprehensible (via the big bang) the more it also seems pointless)" (Steve Weinberg (1977), The First Three Minutes.)

"I give thanks to thee, O Lord Creator, Who has delighted me with thy makings .. the works of thy hands." (Johannes Kepler (1619), Harmonies of the World)

"In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth -- only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair." (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

"It is as impossible that ever pure incogitative matter should produce a thinking intelligent Being, as that nothing should of itself produce Matter" (John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690, IV, x. 10)

"There are only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation, that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasture and others. That leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible; spontaneous generation arising to evolution." (Dr. George Wall professor emeritus of biology at Harvard University. Nobel Prize winner in biology. From an article in Scientific American)

"In 1973, I proposed that our Universe had been created spontaneously from nothing (ex nihilo), as a result of established principles of physics. This proposal variously struck people as preposterous, enchanting, or both. The novelty of a scientific theory of creation ex nihilo is readily apparent, for science has long taught us that one cannot make something from nothing." (Tryon, Edward P. [Professor of physics, Hunter College & City University of New York]., "What made the world?" New Scientist, Vol. 101, No. 1400, 8 March 1984, p.16)

"The more statistically improbable a thing is, the less can we believe that it just happened by blind chance. Superficially the obvious alternative to chance is an intelligent Designer." (Dr. Richard Dawkins Department of Zoology Oxford University)

"Since we know that scales and feathers are closely related, it makes sense that we would eventually find something like this,'' Feduccia said." (Alan Feduccia in references to the appendages on Longisquama, as quoted in "Fossil Reptiles' Feathers Debated", Nov 26, 2000, By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

"We've got to have some ancestors. We'll pick those. Why? Because we know they have to be there, and these are the best candidates. That's by and large the way it has worked. I am not exaggerating." (Nelson, Gareth [Chairman and Curator of the Department of Herpetology and Ichthyology, American Museum of Natural History, New York], interview, Bethell T., The Wall Street Journal, December 9, 1986, in Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove Ill., Second Edition, 1993, p76)

"Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favourable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate....It is therefore almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect ...higher intelligences...even to the limit of God...such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific." (Sir Fred Hoyle, well-known British mathematician, astronomer and cosmologist and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, p. 130.)

"At this point, it is necessary to reveal a little inside information about how scientists work, something the textbooks don't usually tell you. The fact is that scientists are not really as objective and dispassionate in their work as they would like you to think. Most scientists first get their ideas about how the world works not through rigorously logical processes but through hunches and wild guesses. As individuals they often come to believe something to be true long before they assemble the hard evidence that will convince somebody else that it is. Motivated by faith in his own ideas and a desire for acceptance by his peers, a scientist will labor for years knowing in his heart that his theory is correct but devising experiment after experiment whose results he hopes will support his position." (Boyce Rensberger, How the World Works, William Morrow, NY, 1986, pp. 1718.)

"If you isolate a small number of individuals from the main population and prevent them from interbreeding with the main population, then, after a time, the distribution of genes in the gene pool of the new population will differ somewhat from that of the original population. This will happen even if selection pressures are completely absent. Moritz Wagner, a contemporary of Darwin, and of course a pre- Mendelian, was aware of this situation. He therefore introduced a theory of evolution by genetic drift, made possible by reproductive isolation through geographical separation. In order to understand the task of natural selection, it is good to remember Darwin's reply to Moritz Wagner. Darwin's main reply to Wagner was: if you have no natural selection, you cannot explain the evolution of the apparently designed organs, like the eye. Or in other words, without natural selection, you cannot solve Paley's problem." (Popper, Karl R., [Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of London], "Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind," Dialectica, Vol. 32, Nos. 3-4, 1978, pp.339-355, p.345)

"...(I)t should be apparent that the errors, overstatements and omissions that we have noted in these biology texts, all tend to enhance the plausibility of hypotheses that are presented. More importantly, the inclusion of outdated material and erroneous discussions is not trivial. The items noted mislead students and impede their acquisition of critical thinking skills. If we fail to teach students to examine data critically, looking for points both favoring and opposing hypotheses, we are selling our youth short and mortgaging the future of scientific inquiry itself " ("Origin of Life Evolution in Biology Textbooks - A Critique," Mills, Lancaster, Bradley, The American Biology Teacher, Volume 55, No. 2, February, 1993, p. 83)

"Is such a harmony that is emerged only out of coincidences possible in reality? This is the basic question of the whole biological evolution. Answering this question as "Yes, it is possible" is something like verifying faith in the modern science of nature. Critically speaking, we can say that somebody who accepts the modern science of nature has no other alternative but to say "yes", because he would aim to explain the natural phenomenon by understandable ways and try to derive them from laws of nature without applying to metaphysical interference. However at this point, explaining everything by means of laws of nature, that is, by coincidences, is a sign that he has nowhere else to escape. Because, what could he do other than believing in coincidences?" (Hoimar Von Dithfurt, Im Anfang War Der Wasserstoff (Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), Vol 2, p. 64. )

"Any suppression which undermines and destroys that very foundation on which scientific methodology and research was erected, evolutionist or otherwise, cannot and must not be allowed to flourish ... It is a confrontation between scientific objectivity and ingrained prejudice - between logic and emotion - between fact and fiction ... In the final analysis, objective scientific logic has to prevail - no matter what the final result is - no matter how many time-honoured idols have to be discarded in the process ... After all, it is not the duty of science to defend the theory of evolution and stick by it to the bitter end -no matter what illogical and unsupported conclusions it offers ... If in the process of impartial scientific logic, they find that creation by outside intelligence is the solution to our quandary, then let's cut the umbilical chord that tied us down to Darwin for such a long time. It is choking us and holding us back ... Every single concept advanced by the theory of evolution (and amended thereafter) is imaginary as it is not supported by the scientifically established probability concepts. Darwin was wrong... The theory of evolution may be the worst mistake made in science." (I L Cohen, Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities PO Box 231, Greenvale, New York 11548: New Research Publications, Inc. pp 6-8, 209-210, 214-215. I.L.Cohen, Member of the New York Academy of Sciences and Officer of the Archaeological Institute of America.)

"I rubbed my eyes in amazement. We are back in the days of Galileo, I thought, when a totalitarian Church prescribed to scientists what could be said and what not. Only the roles seem to have been reversed. Theologians keep their mouth shut by their own free will, scared to death to utter anything that could possibly displease scientists. Ironically enough, science does not forbid at all anybody to walk on the water or to rise from the dead. The situation is perhaps well summarized by the philosopher Paul Feyerabend, who wrote: 'Science is the most aggressive religiousdogmatic institution of our time.' "
"If it is true, and I think it is, that science played an important part in destroying the relation between modern man and God by taking God's place itself, then a scientist who tries to be a believer at the same time, has something to do. It is his duty to demonstrate that this is a blind road. That the roused expectations on salvation by science are false. That they are based on arrogance. He must not belittle science, but show to science its due place: the position of servant of mankind instead of its idol." (Lecture given at Dayton University by Prof. Emeritus Arie van den Beukel, Delft University, The Netherlands "Salvation through science?")

"I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sun beam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it. Them I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, ninety-odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences." (Lewis C.S., "Compelling Reason: Essays on Ethics and Theology," [1996], Fount: London, 1998, reprint, p.52)

"The personal and intellectual drama of Darwin and Dana provides the main subject for this essay, but I also write to illustrate a broader theme in the lives of scholars and the nature of science: the integrative power of worldviews (the positive side), and their hold as conceptual locks upon major innovation (the negative side)." (Gould, Stephen Jay [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University], "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History", [1998], Vintage: London, 1999, reprint, p.103)

"Scientists are particularly loath to relinquish the last form of prejudice ... It must be true because anything else would be unthinkable." (Ferguson, K., Fire in the Equations, Eerdmans, Grand Rpaids, MI (1994))

"On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical. The lightning kills a man, whether a good one or bad one, owing to the excessively complex action of natural laws. A child (who may turn out an idiot) is born by the action of even more complex laws, and I can see no reason why a man, or other animal, may not have been aboriginally produced by other laws, and that all these laws may have been expressly designed by an omniscient Creator, who foresaw every future event and consequence. But the more I think the more bewildered I become; as indeed I have probably shown by this letter." (Darwin, 1860, p.236).

"But passing over the endless beautiful adaptations which we everywhere meet with, it may be asked how can the generally beneficent arrangement of the world be accounted for? Some writers indeed are so much impressed with the amount of suffering in the world, that they doubt, if we look to all sentient beings, whether there is more of misery or of happiness; whether the world as a whole is a good or a bad one. According to my judgment happiness decidedly prevails, though this would be very difficult to prove. If the truth of this conclusion be granted, it harmonizes well with the effects which we might expect from natural selection. If all the individuals of any species were habitually to suffer to an extreme degree, they would neglect to propagate their kind; but we have no reason to believe that this has ever, or at least often occurred. Some other considerations, moreover, lead to the belief that all sentient beings have been formed so as to enjoy, as a general rule, happiness." (Darwin C.R., in Darwin F., ed., "The Life of Charles Darwin," [1902], Senate: London, 1995, reprint, p.59).

"The two cases which appear to me to have the most of difficulty in them, is forming the most of the appearance of exception to the representation here given, are those of *venomous* animals, and of animals *preying* upon one another. These properties of animals, wherever they are found, must, I thinks be referred to design; because there is, in all cases of the first, and in most cases of the second, an express told distinct organization provided for the producing of them. Under the first head, the fangs of vipers the stings of wasps and scorpions, are as clearly intended for their purpose, as any animal structure is for any purpose the most incontestable beneficial. And the same thing must, under the second head, be acknowledged of the talons and beaks of birds, of the tusks, teeth, and claws of beasts of prey, of the shark's mouth, of the spider's web, and of numberless weapons of offense belonging to different tribes of voracious insects. We cannot, therefore, avoid the difficulty by saying, that the effect was not intended. The only question open to us is, whether it be ultimately evil." (Paley, 1802, p.348. Emphasis in original).

"It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. "The insect youth are on the wing." Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties." (Paley W., "Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature," [1802], St. Thomas Press: Houston TX, 1972, reprint, p.340)

"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us." (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1928, reprint, p.462)

"I may be permitted to say, as some excuse, that I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to shew that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change...hence if I have erred in giving to natural selection great power...I have at least as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations." (Darwin, Charles R. [English naturalist and founder of the modern theory of evolution], "The Descent of Man," bound in one volume with "The Origin of Species," [1871], Modern Library, Random House: New York, nd., pp.441-442.)

"This shall be such an extraordinary note as you have never received from me, for it shall not contain one single question or request. I thank you for your impression on my views. Every criticism from a good man is of value to me. What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work will be grievously hypothetical, and large parts by no means worthy of being called induction, my commonest error being probably induction from too few facts." (Darwin, Charles R. [English naturalist and joint founder of the modern theory of evolution], letter to Asa Gray of November 29, 1859, in Darwin F., ed., "More Letters of Charles Darwin," John Murray: London, 1903, Vol. I, pp.126-127)

"You will be greatly disappointed (by the forthcoming book); it will be grievously too hypothetical. It will very likely be of no other service than collocating some facts; though I myself think I see my way apporximately on the origin of the species. But, alas, how frequently, how almost universal it is in an author to persuade himself of the truth of his own dogmas." (Charles Darwin, 1858, in a letter to a colleague regarding the concluding chapters of his Origin Of Species. As quoted in 'John Lofton's Journal', The Washington Times, 8 February 1984)

"The intellectual convergence that fostered such commensurable views among scientists of vastly different disciplines reinforced my surmise from earlier studies that prior subscription to a hypothesis is the chief conditioning factor in the cognition of facts, methods, and standards of appraisal."
"the difficulty in staying abreast of the professional literature in these debates has made scientists especially dependent on review articles, and vulnerable to poorly informed and biased commentary from many quarters." (William Glen (ed.) The mass extinction debates: how science works in a crisis. Stanford University Press. 1994.)

"...it is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear articulate fashion to the experimental method of science itself...It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption." (Eiseley, Loren C. [Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania], "Darwin's Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It," [1958], Anchor Books: Doubleday & Co: Garden City NY, 1961, reprint, p.62)

"The theory of Evolution ... will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has." (Malcolm Muggeridge, (journalist and philosopher), Pascal Lectures, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)

"In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling." (Erasmus Darwin, in a letter to his brother Charles, after reading his new book, "The Origin of Species," in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life of Charles Darwin," [1902], Senate: London, 1995, reprint, p215)

"We have had enough of the Darwinian fallacy. It is time that we cry: 'The emperor has no clothes.'" (K.Hsu, geologist at the Geological Institute at Zurich)

"Evolutionary scientists know everything about the missing link except the fact that it is missing." (G.K. Chesterton, Writer)

"Scientists who go about teaching that Evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact." (Dr T N Tahmisian, a former U.S. Atomic Energy Commission physiologist, in 'The Fresno Bee', August 20 1959. As quoted by N.J. Mitchell, Evolution an dthe Emperor's New Clothes, Roydon publications, UK, 1983, title page)

"The Eldredge-Gould concept of punctuated equilibria has gained wide acceptance among paleontologists. It attempts to account for the following paradox: Within continuously sampled lineages, one rarely finds the gradual morphological trends predicted by Darwinian evolution; rather, change occurs with the sudden appearance of new, well-differentiated species. Eldredge and Gould equate such appearances with speciation, although the details of these events are not preserved. They suggest that change occurs rapidly, by geologic standards, in small, peripheral populations. They believe that evolution is accelerated in such populations because they contain a small, random sample of the gene pool of the parent population (founder effect) and therefore can diverge rapidly just by chance and because they can respond to local selection pressures that may differ from those encountered by the parent population. Eventually some of these divergent, peripheral opulations are favored by changed environmental conditions (species selection) and so they incrase and spread rapidly into fossil assemblages.
"The punctuated eqilibrium model has been widly accepted, not because it has a compelling theoretical basis but because it appears to resolve a dilemma. ... apart from its intrinsic circularity (one could argue that speciation can occur only when phyletic change is rapid, not vice versa), the model is more ad hoc explanation than theory, and it rests on shaky ground." (Robert E. Ricklefs (Dpt. Biology, University of Pennsylvania) "Paleontologists confronting macroevolution.' Science, vol. 199, 6 Jan 1978, p. 59)

"The code of conduct that the naturalist wishing to understand the problem of evolution must adopt is to adhere to facts and sweep away all a priori ideas and dogmas. Facts must come first and theories must follow. The only verdict that matters is the one pronounced by the court as proved facts. Indeed, the best studies on evolution have been carried out by biologists who are not blinded by doctrines and who observe facts coldly without considering whether they agree or disagree with their theories." (Grasse, Pierre-P. [editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie," former Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p8)

"On reading The Origin of Species, I found that Darwin was much less sure himself than he is often represented to be; the chapter entitled "Difficulties of the Theory" for example, shows considerable self-doubt. As a physicist, I was particularly intrigued by his comments on how the eye would have arisen" (H. S. Lipson, "A Physicist's View of Darwin's Theory", Evolution Trends in Plants, Vol 2, No. 1, 1988, p. 6.)

"It would be foolhardy, however, for any defender of neo-Darwinism to claim that contemporary evolution theory gives onethe power to read history so finely from present data as to rule out the earlier historical presence of rational designers-a wildly implausible fantasy, but a possibility after all." (Dennett D.C., "Darwin 's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and The Meanings of Life," [1995], Penguin: London, 1996, reprint, pp.317-318)

"With the failure of these many efforts [to explain the origin of life] science was left in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate. After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort, could not be proved to take place today had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past." (Eiseley, Loren C., [late Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania], "The Immense Journey," [1946], Vintage: New York NY, 1957, reprint, p.199)

"Professor Eiseley presents a detailed argument designed to show that Darwin probably derived the idea of natural selection from two articles written by his acquaintance Edward Blyth and published in The Magazine of Natural History in 1835 and 1837. If these articles were in fact the source of Darwin's theory, Darwin was guilty of grave intellectual dishonesty. In the present writer's opinion, Professor Eiseley fails to establish his case beyond reasonable doubt, although the evidence he presents is sufficiently disturbing to merit further investigation aimed at establishing or disproving his thesis." (Greene J.C., "The Death of Adam: Evolution and its Impact on Western Thought," [1959], Mentor: New York NY, 1961, reprint, p.366)

"To say that there is a complete consensus among scientists that evolution has occurred does not mean there is complete understanding of the underlying mechanisms, or ways, in which evolution has occurred. Far from it. While evolution is a fact, how it occurs will always be the subject of debate. This is the fascination of science. To put it another way, there is no dispute about the fact that evolution has occurred but there is dispute among scientists about how it has occurred." (Price, Barry [former Director, School Physics Project, Australian Academy of Science], "The Creation Science Controversy," Millennium Books: Sydney, 1990, p8. Italics in original.)

"The doctrine of evolution by natural selection as Darwin formulated, and as his followers still explain it, has a strong anti-religious flavour. This is due to the fact that the intricate adaptations and co-ordinations we see in living things naturally evoking the idea of finality and design and, therefore of an intelligent providence, are explained, with what seems to be a rigorous argument, as the result of chance. It may be said, and the most orthodox theologians indeed hold, that God controls and guides even the events due to chance - but this proposition the Darwinians emphatically reject, and it is clear that in the Origin evolution is presented as an essentially undirected process. For the majority of its readers, therefore, the Origin effectively dissipated the evidence of providential control. It might be said that this was their own fault. Nevertheless the failure of Darwin and his successors to attempt an equitable assessment of the religious issues at stake indicates a regrettable obtuseness and lack of responsibility." (Thompson W.R.* [entomologist and Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Ottawa, Canada], "Introduction," in Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1967, reprint, p.xxiii)

"We have no acceptable theory of evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain. I teach the synthetic theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it's good, we know it is bad, but because there isn't any other. Whilst waiting to find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact, which is a first approximation." (Professor Jerome Lejeune: From a French recording of internationally recognised geneticist, Professor Jerome Lejeune, at a lecture given in Paris on March 17, 1985. Translated by Peter Wilders of Monaco.)

"Many well qualified scientists of the highest standing would today accept many of Wilberforce's criticims of Darwin ... "Missing links in the sequence of fossil evidence were a worry to Darwin. He felt sure they would eventually turn up, but they are still missing and seem likely to remain so." (Professor Sir Edmund Leech, addresing the 1981 annual meeting of the British Association for the advancement of Science, 'Men, bishops and apes'. Nature vol 293, 3 Sept 1981, pp 19 and 20)

"a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty -a kind of leaning over backwards. ... if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid-not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results. ... Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given ... if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong-to explain it. If you make a theory ... and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it." (Feynman R.P., "Cargo Cult Science," in "`Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!'", 1990, p.341)

"I here simply note that the concept of evolution in general (including cosmic, organic and cultural evolutions) has itself captured the imagination of our society in this century for various reasons, among which has been a struggle to get free of religious bonds standing in the way of various projects. ...
"Randomness is deeply fundamental to the theory in the sense that its major purpose was to find a model of evolution that did not involve any force giving it direction. This relates directly to its ideological challenge to religious views on the origin of humans." (Stanley N. Salthe, Ph.D. Zoology, 1963, Columbia University, former Professor Emeritus, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York & Visiting Scientist in Biological Sciences, Binghamton University in "Analysis and critique of the concept of Natural Selection (and of the Darwinian theory of evolution) in respect to its suitability as part of Modernism's origination myth, as well as of its ability to explain organic evolution")

"If there is no means to discern whether something has been intelligently designed, on what basis do paleontologists and archaeologists regularly conclude that markings, structures, and various artifacts were intelligently designed? Does not the search for extraterrestrial intelligence depend on the assumption that intelligently generated radio signals can be distinguished from naturally generated ones?" (Ashby L. Camp, A Response to Priests Of Scientific Orthodoxy, in Human Events, Sept. 25, 2000)

"However, there is a real danger that in explaining so much the theory actually explains nothing. This is the core of the philosophical doubt facing Darwinism. An example of the perils of 'explaining too much' can be seen in the notion of adaptation. When a biologist finds a creature with an intricate and useful adaptation-such as the chameleon's ability to change colour to match its background-he immediately explains it in terms of natural selection and evolution. In fact the existence of such adaptations is frequently taken as proof of the power of selection. But what will the biologist say when he finds a similar lizard without this camouflage adaptation? The chances are he will conclude that such an adaptation is unnecessary for the survival of the second lizard, or that selection has not been strong enough to 'create' it. Both of these conclusions may be valid- they seem reasonable enough-but we are tempted now to ask him what sort of evidence would contradict the idea of selection? If the presence of adaptations is evidence for selection, but the absence of adaptations is not evidence against selection, then is it possible to deny the existence of selection at all? In other words if selection can explain everything then it really explains nothing. Good scientific theories should be testable and even falsifiable."
"Is selection really so strong? If the philosophers are satisfied that the idea of selection is not tautologous, that it really is a useful scientific theory, our next task is to measure it in the wild and find out how powerful a force it is. This has posed some difficulties. Not only is natural selection extremely difficult to pin down and measure, but many of the observations of variation among plants and animals in different environments also appear to contradict the expectations of selection. Why is there so much variability in creatures in the first place? Why doesn't that variability respond to environmental stresses in any predictable way? The vast amount of genetic variation that is now known to exist in most species does not confer any obvious benefits. In addition, the variation doesn't occur as one would expect-species found in stable environments seem to show as much variability as species in changing, unstable environments contrary to what Darwinian principles would lead one to expect." (Leith B., "The Descent of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts about Darwinism," Collins: London, 1982, p.21, 22. Emphasis in original)

"Two shafts of criticism struck Darwin more directly than the outside world was allowed to know. They touched his particular theory that evolution took place by natural selection, a process analogous to the artificial selection which plant and animal breeders were practicing with such great success at that time. The first criticism asserted that Darwin's thesis was not true; the second, that it was not new. Such criticisms are raised against all revolutionary hypotheses, but both of these were serious and well informed." (Darlington, Cyril D. [late Professor of Botany, Oxford University], "The Origin of Darwinism," Scientific American, Vol. 201, May 1959, p.60)

"Design appears out of nothing. There is no need for a creator or a master plan, and no end point towards which creation is heading." (Waking from the Meme Dream, Paper presented at: The Psychology of Awakening: International Conference on Buddhism, Science and Psychotherapy Dartington 7-10 November 1996 by Susan Blackmore Department of Psychology University of the West of England Bristol BS16 2JP)

"As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists, not only about the causes of evolution but even about the actual process. This divergence exists because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusion. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution. But some recent remarks of evolutionists show that they think this unreasonable. This situation, where scientific men rally to the defence of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigour, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science." (Thompson W.R.* [entomologist and Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Ottawa, Canada], "Introduction," in Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1967, reprint, p.xxii)

"Some future day may yet arrive when all reasonable chemical experiments run to discover a probable origin for life have failed unequivocally. Further, new geological evidence may indicate a sudden appearance of life on the earth. Finally, we may have explored the universe and found no trace of life, or processes leading to life, elsewhere. In such a case, some scientists might choose to turn to religion for an answer. Others, however, myself included, would attempt to sort out the surviving less probable scientific explanations in the hope of selecting one that was still more likely than the remainder." (Shapiro R.D., "Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Origin of Life," Summit: New York NY, 1986, p.130).

"A good example of disciplinary chauvinism can be seen in Robert Shapiro's fine book, Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth. After presenting a very readable, very devastating critique of scientific studies on the origin of life, Shapiro proclaims his steadfast loyalty-not to the goal of "explaining the physical world," but to science ... Shapiro goes on gamely to say that things don't look quite so bleak right now, pretty much contradicting everything he had written to that point. He can rest secure in the knowledge that there will never be a time when all experiments have "failed unequivocally," just as there will never be a time when the existence of the Loch Ness Monster has been absolutely ruled out. And the time when the universe will have been fully explored is comfortably far off." (Behe M.J., "Darwin's Black Box," 1996, pp.234-235)

"This notion of species as 'natural kinds' fits splendidly with creationist tenets of a pre-Darwinian age. Louis Agassiz, even argued that species are God's individual thoughts, made incarnate so that we might perceive both His majesty and His message. Species, Agassiz wrote, are "instituted by Divine Intelligence as the categories of His mode of thinking. But how could a division of the organic world into discrete entities be justified by an evolutionary theory that proclaimed ceaseless change as the fundamental fact of nature?" (Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), 'A quahog is a quahog', Natural History vol LXXXVIII(7), August-September, 1979, pg. 18)

"Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory wrong. If the guess that you make is poorly expressed and rather vague, and the method that you use for figuring out the consequences is a little vague - you are not sure, and you say, 'I think everything's right because it's all due to so and so, and such and such do this and that more or less, and I can sort of explain how this works...', then you see that this theory is good, because it cannot be proved wrong! Also if the process of computing the consequences is indefinite, then with a little skill any experimental results can be made to look like the expected consequences." (Feynman, Richard P. [late Professor of Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology, and Nobel Prize for Physics, 1995], "The Character of Physical Law," [1965], Penguin: London, 1992, reprint, pp.158-159)

"For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts can be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the fats and arguments on both sides of each question; and this is here impossible." (Charles Darwin, 1859, Introduction to Origin of Species, pg. 2. Also quoted in "John Lofton's Journal", THe Washington Times, 8 Feb 1984)

"It is now possible, however, to redescribe the evolutionary process in the language of modern genetics. Evolution can be broadly defined as a change in the heredity of a population. Population genetics permits an even more precise definition: evolution is any change in gene frequency in a population." (Wilson, Edward O. [Honorary Curator in Entomology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University], et al., "Life on Earth," [1973], Sinauer Associates: Sunderland MA, 1975, reprint, p.772)

"The definition widely adopted in recent decades-"Evolution is the change of gene frequencies in populations"-refers only to the transformational component. It tells us nothing about the multiplication of species nor, more broadly, about the origin of organic diversity. A broader definition is needed which would include both transformation and diversification." (Mayr, Ernst [Emeritus Professor of Zoology, Harvard University], "The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance," Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, 1982, p400)

"[T]he real core of Darwinism .. is the theory of natural selection. This theory is so important for the Darwinian becaues it permits the explanation of adapation, the 'design' of the natural theologian, by natural means." (Ernst Mayer, Foreward to Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended, xi-xii (1982))

"There is a theory which states that many living animals can be observed over the course of time to undergo changes so that new species are formed. This can be called the "Special Theory of Evolution " and can be demonstrated in certain cases by experiments. On the other hand there is the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form. This theory can be called the "General Theory of Evolution" and the evidence that supports it is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis. It is not clear whether the changes that bring about speciation are of the same nature as those that brought about the development of new phyla. The answer will be found by future experimental work and not by dogmatic assertions that the General Theory of Evolution must be correct because there is nothing else that will satisfactorily take its place." (Kerkut, G.A. [Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, University of Southampton, UK], "Implications of Evolution," in Kerkut G.A., ed. "International Series of Monographs on Pure and Applied Biology, Division: Zoology," Volume 4, Pergamon Press: New York NY, 1960, p.157)

"Ironically it is this apparent strength of the theory-that it can explain so much-which may be its Achilles' heel. Neo-Darwinism is incredibly ambitious; it attempts to explain a vast part of reality, all the subtlety and complexity of nature, in one breath. But do all the individual pieces of this cosmic jigsaw puzzle actually fit together? It is all very well to half close your eyes and imagine you see a coherent picture, but what is it like in close-up?" (Leith B., "The Descent of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts about Darwinism," Collins: London, 1982, p.20)

"And as Darwinists and neo-Darwinists have become ever more adept at finding possible selective advantages for any trait one cares to mention, explanation in terms of the all-powerful force of natural selection has come more and more to resemble explanation in terms of the conscious design of the omnipotent Creator." (Ho, Mae-Wan [Biologist, The Open University, UK] & Saunders, Peter T. [Mathematician, University of London], eds., "Beyond Neo- Darwinism: An Introduction to the New Evolutionary Paradigm," Academic Press: London, 1984, pp.ix-x)

"A long-enduring and regrettable effect of the success of the Origin was the addiction of biologists to unverifiable speculation. 'Explanations' of the origin of structures, instincts, and mental aptitudes of all kinds, in terms of Darwinian principles, marked with the Darwinian plausibility but hopelessly unverifiable, poured out from every research centre. The speculations on the origin and significance of the resemblances between animals, or between animals and their environment and of the striking colour patterns they often exhibit, constitute one of the best-known examples." (Thompson W.R.* [entomologist and Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Ottawa, Canada], "Introduction," in Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1967, reprint, pp.xxi)

"I, as a scientist, must postulate a source of information to supply the teleonomy or know-how, I don't find it in the universe, and, therefore, I assume that it is transcendent to this universe. I believe, myself, in a living God who did it. I believe that this God, who supplied the information, revealed Himself in the form of a man - so that man could understand Him. We are made to understand. I want to understand God. But I can only do it if He comes down to my wavelength, the wavelength of man. I believe that God revealed Himself in the form of Christ, and that we can serve Him and know Him in our hearts as the source of the Logos - all information is necessary to make the universe and to make life itself ... Look at the beauty of nature around us. When you consider that it all grew out of matter injected with information of the type I have been describing, you can only be filled with wonder of the wisdom of a Creator, who, first of all, had the sense of beauty to do it, and then the technical ability. I am filled with wonder as I look at nature, to see how God technically did it and realized the beauty of His own soul in doing it. The Scripture teaches perfectly plainly, and it fits in with my science perfectly well, that the one who did called Himself THE LOGOS. That Logos was Jesus. Jesus called Himself the Creator who made everything - 'for Him and by Him'. Now, if that is the case, then I am very happy and filled with joy that He made the Creation so beautiful and that He also valued me enough to die for me, to become my Redeemer as well." (Arthur E Wilder-Smith, Ph.D.,D.Sc.,Dr.es.Sc., The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution (Santee, California: Master Books, p.154).

"We are faced more with a great leap of faith that gradual, progressive adaptive change underlies the general pattern of evolutionary change we see in the rocks than any hard evidence." (Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I. (1982) The Myths of Human Evolution, Columbia University Press, p. 57)

"To attempt to restore the soft parts is an even more hazardous undertaking. The lips, the eyes, the ears, and the nasal tip leave no clues on the underlying bony parts. You can with equal facility model on a Neanderthaloid skull the features of a chimpanzee or the lineaments of a philosopher. These alleged restorations of ancient types of man have very little if any scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public... So put not your trust in reconstructions." (Earnest A. Hooton, Up From The Ape, New York: McMillan, 1931, p. 332)

"There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly. Tis the crown and glory of organic science that it does, thro' final cause, link material to moral; . . . You have ignored this link; and, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which, thank God, it is not) to break it, humanity, in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it, and sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history." (Adam Sedgwick, a Cambridge University professor, writing a letter to Darwin in 1859, shortly after reading The Origin of Species)

"All scholarly subjects seem to go through cycles, from periods when most of the answers seem to be known to periods when no one is sure that even the questions are right. Such is the case for evolutionary biology. Twenty years ago Mayr, in his Animal Species and Evolution, seemed to have shown that if evolution is a jigsaw puzzle, then at least all the edge pieces were in place. But today we are less confident and the whole subject is in the most exciting ferment. Evolution is both troubled from without by the nagging insistencies of antiscientists and nagged from within by the troubling complexities of genetic and developmental mechanisms and new questions about the central mystery-speciation itself. In looking over recent literature in and around the field of evolutionary theory, I am struck by the necessity to reexamine the simpler foundations of the subject, to distinguish carefully between what we know and what we merely think we know. The first and strongest of our critics to be answered should be ourselves." (Thomson, Keith Stewart [Professor of Biology and Dean of the Graduate School, Yale University, USA], "The Meanings of Evolution," American Scientist, Vol. 70, pp.529-531, September-October 1982, p.529)

"Suppose contemporary evolutionary theory had blind chance built into it so firmly that there was simply no way of reconciling it with any sort of divine guidance. It would still be perfectly possible for theists to reject that theory of evolution and accept instead a theory according to which natural processes and laws drove most of evolution, but God on occasion abridged those laws and inserted some crucial mutation into the course of events. Even were God to intervene directly to suspend natural law and inject essential new genetic material at various points in order to facilitate the emergence of new traits and, eventually, new species, that miraculous and deliberate divine intervention would by itself leave unchallenged such key theses of evolutionary theory as that all species derive ultimately from some common ancestor. Descent with genetic intervention is still descent-it is just descent with nonnatural elements in the process." (Ratzsch D.L.* [Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College, USA], "The Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, Ill., 1996, pp187-188)

"One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom, a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written." (Yockey, Hubert P. (1977), "A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory," Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 67, p. 398)

"Evolutionary man can no longer take refuge from his loneliness by creeping for shelter into the arms of a divinized father-figure whom he has himself created, nor escape from the responsibility of making decisions by sheltering under the umbrella of Divine Authority, nor absolve himself from the hard task of meeting his present problems and planning his future by relying on the will of an omniscient but unfortunately inscrutable Providence. " (Huxley, Julian S. [late grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, former Professor of Zoology at King's College, London, and founding Director-General of UNESCO], "Essays of a Humanist," [1964], Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1969, reprint, p.83. Note: he might be right, if his theory was true and God didn't exist. Unfortunately for him, both of those preconditions are false.)

"We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence 'is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience;' but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists." (Smith, Wolfgang (1988) Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of The Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books & Publishers Inc., p.2)

"Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from preexisting species by some process of modification.If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have beencreated by some omnipotent intelligence." (Douglas J. Futuyma, Science on Trial, New York:Pantheon Books, 1983. p. 197. )

"It was-and still is-very hard to arrive at this concept from inside biology. The trouble lay in an unremitting cultural struggle which had developed from 1860 onward between biologists on the one hand and the supporters of old beliefs on the other. The old believers said that rabbits had been created by God using methods too wonderful for us to comprehend. The new believers said that rabbits had been created from sludge, by methods too complex for us to calculate and by methods likely enough involving improbable happenings. Improbable happenings replaced miracles and sludge replaced God, with believers both old and new seeking to cover up their ignorance in clouds of words, but different words. It was over the words that passions raged, passions which continue to rumble on in the modern world, passions that one can read about with hilarious satisfaction in the columns of the weekly science magazine Nature and listen to in basso profundo pronouncements from learned scientific societies." (Hoyle, Fred [former Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University], "Mathematics of Evolution," [1987], Acorn Enterprises: Memphis TN, 1999, p.3)

"The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpetual machine is in probability. The extremely small probabilities calculated in this chapter are not discouraging to true believers ... [however] A practical person must conclude that life didn't happen by chance." (Hubert Yockey, Information Theory and Molecular Biology, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 257)

"It is true that both genuine homologous resemblance, that is, where phenomenon has a clear genetic and embryological basis (which as we have seen above is far less common than is often presumed), and the hierarchic patterns of class relationships are suggestive of some kind of theory of descent. But neither tell us anything about how the descent or evolution might have occurred, as to whether the process was gradual or sudden, or as to whether the causal mechanism was Darwinian, Lamarckian, vitalistic or even creationist. Such a theory of descent is therefore devoid of any significant meaning and equally compatible with almost any philosophy of nature." (Denton M.J. [Senior Research Fellow in Human Molecular Genetics, University of Otago, New Zealand], "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," Burnett Books: London, 1985, pp154-155)

"There is a vast weight of empirical evidence about the universe which says that unless you invoke supernatural causes, the birds could not have arisen from muck by any natural processes. Well, if the birds couldn't have arisen from muck by any natural processes, then they had to arise from non-birds. The only alternative is to say that they did arise from muck because God's finger went out and touched that muck. That is to say, there was a non-natural process. And that's really where the action is. Either you think that complex organisms arose by non-natural phenomena, or you think that they arose by natural phenomena. If they arose by natural phenomena, they had to evolve. And that's all there is to it." (Lewontin, Richard C. [Professor of Zoology and Biology, Harvard University], in Bethell, Tom, "Agnostic Evolutionists," in "The Electric Windmill: An Inadvertent Autobiography," Regnery Gateway: Washington DC, 1988, pp.205-206).

"Many faculty fear that they will have to teach less content if they teach critical thinking, and I have argued that this trade-off is illusory -- as imaginary as the unicorn's horn" (Craig Nelson, professor of biology at Indiana University, as quoted in "IU biologist wins 'Professor of the Year' award from the Carnegie Foundation")

"[T]hough these bodies may, indeed, continue in their orbits by the mere laws of gravity, yet they could by no means have at first derived the regular position of the orbits themselves from those laws ... [Thus] [t]his most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." (Sir Isaac Newton, Newton's Principa Motte's Translation Revised (543-44), (Andrew Motte Trans. & Florian Cajori rev. 1934), 1686)

"How came the Bodies of Animals to be contrived with so much Art, and for what ends were their several parts? Was the Eye contrived without Skill in Opticks, and the Ear without Knowledge of Sounds? ... And these things being rightly dispatch'd, does it not appear from Phaenomena tha tthere is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent omnipresent..." (Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks, 369-370 (Dover PUblications 1952))

"It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case. It is difficult enough to study what is happening now. To try to figure out exactly what happened in evolution is even more difficult. Thus evolutionary arguments can usefully be used as hints to suggest possible lines of research, but it is highly dangerous to trust them too much. It is all too easy to make mistaken inferences unless the process involved is already very well understood." (Crick, Francis H.C. [Co- discoverer of the structure of DNA, Nobel laureate 1962, Professor at the Salk Institute, USA], "What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery," [1988], Penguin: London, 1990, reprint, pp.138-139)

"We tell this story [about Pasteur's disproof of spontaneous generation of life] to beginning students of biology as though it represents a triumph of reason over mysticism. In fact it is very nearly the opposite. The reasonable view was to believe in spontaneous generation; the only alternative, to believe in a single, primary act of supernatural creation. There is no third position. For this reason many scientists a century ago chose to regard the belief in spontaneous generation as a "philosophical necessity." It is a symptom of the philosophical poverty of our time that this necessity is no longer appreciated. Most modern biologists, having reviewd with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief in special creation, are left with nothing." (George Wald (late Professor of Biology, Harvard University), "The origin of life". Scientific American, vol 191(2), August 1954, pg. 46)

"It is no more heretical to say the Universe displays purpose, as Hoyle has done, than to say that it is pointless, as Steven Weinberg has done. Both statements are metaphysical and outside science. Yet it seems that scientists are permitted by their own colleagues to say metaphysical things about lack of purpose and not the reverse. This suggests to me that science, in allowing this metaphysical notion, sees itself as religion and presumably as an atheistic religion (if you can have such a thing)." (Shallis, Michael [Astrophysicist, Oxford University], "In the eye of a storm", New Scientist, January 19, 1984, pp.42-43)

"All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required. There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter." (Werner Gitt. In the Beginning Was Information. CLV, Bielefeld, Germany, p. 107, 141 )

"'IT IS TOTALLY WRONG. It's wrong like infectious medicine was wrong before Pasteur. It's wrong like phrenology is wrong. Every major tenet of it is wrong,' said the outspoken biologist Lynn Margulis about her latest target: the dogma of Darwinian evolution.... Margulis was now denouncing the modern framework of the century-old theory of Darwinism, which holds that new species build up from an unbroken line of gradual, independent, random variations. Margulis is not alone in challenging the stronghold of Darwinian theory, but few have been so blunt. Disagreeing with Darwin resembles creationism to the uninformed; therefore the stigma that any taint of creationism can bring to a scientific reputation, coupled with the intimidating genius of Darwin, have kept all but the boldest iconoclasts from doubting Darwinian theory in public. What excites Margulis is the remarkable incompleteness of general Darwinian theory. Darwinism is wrong by what it omits and by what it incorrectly emphasizes. A number of microbiologists, geneticists, theoretical biologists, mathematicians, and computer scientists are saying there is more to life than Darwinism. They do not reject Darwin's contribution; they simply want to move beyond it. I call them the `postdarwinians.'" (Kelly, Kevin [Executive Editor of Wired], "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines," [1994], Fourth Estate: London, 1995, reprint, pp470-471. Emphasis in original)

"Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test." (Patterson, Colin [late zoologist specialising in fossil fishes, British Museum of Natural History, London], letter 10 April 1979, in Sunderland L.D., "Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems," [1984], Master Book Publishers: El Cajon CA, Fourth Edition, 1988, p89)

"But the roulette analogy hides rather than indicates the fantastic improbability of any major evolutionary advance produced by chance mutations. For such an event to occur, it is not enough that a certain required number, say the 17, should come up on the roulette table - but that it should come up simultaneously on a dozen or so tables in the same establishment, followed by the 18, 19 and 20 simultaneously on all tables." (Koestler A., "Janus: A Summing Up," [1978], Picador: London, 1983, reprint, pp.173-174)

"Today, however, the picture is entirely different. More and more workers are showing signs of dissatisfaction with the synthetic theory. Some are attacking its philosophical foundations, arguing that the reason that it has been so amply confirmed is simply that it is unfalsifiable: with a little ingenuity any observation can be made to appear consistent with it. Others have been deliberately setting out to work in just those areas in which neo- Darwinism is least comfortable, like the problem of the gaps in the fossil record or the mechanisms of non-Mendelian inheritance. Still others, notably some systematists, have decide to ignore the theory altogether, and to carry on their research without any a priori assumption about how evolution has occurred. Perhaps most significantly of all, there is now appearing a stream of articles and books defending the synthetic theory. It is not so long ago that hardly anyone thought this was necessary." (Ho, Mae-Wan [Biologist, The Open University, UK] & Saunders, Peter T. [Mathematician, University of London], eds., "Beyond Neo-Darwinism: An Introduction to the New Evolutionary Paradigm," Academic Press: London, 1984, p.ix)

"I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens, many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?" (Lovtrup, Soren, "Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth" (New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1987) pg. 422)

"The solution to Cordelia's dilemma-the promotion of her nothing to a meaningful something-requires the more extensive revision of conceptual overhaul. Cordelia's dilemma cannot be resolved from within, for the existing theory has defined her action as a denial or non-phenomenon. A different theory must be imported from another context to change conceptual categories and make her response meaningful. In this sense, Cordelia's dilemma best illustrates the dynamic interaction of theory and fact in science. Correction of error cannot always arise from new discovery within an accepted conceptual system. Sometimes the theory has to crumble first, and a new framework be adopted, before the crucial facts can be seen at all." (Gould, Stephen Jay [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University, USA], "Cordelia's Dilemma," in "Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History," [1995], Crown: New York NY, 1997, reprint, p.127)

"Well, Mr. Kristol, evolution (as theory) is indeed `a conglomerate idea consisting of conflicting hypotheses," and I and my colleagues teach it as such.'" (Gould, Stephen Jay [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University], "Darwinism Defined: The Difference Between Fact and Theory," Discover, January 1987, p65)

"Darwin's book-On the Origin of Species-I find quite unsatisfactory: it says nothing about the origin of species; it is written very tentatively; with a special chapter on "Difficulties on theory"; and it includes a great deal of discussion on why evidence for natural selection does not exist in the fossil record. Darwin, I think, has been ill-served by the strength of his supporters." (Lipson, H.S. [Professor of Physics, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, UK], "Origin of species," in "Letters," New Scientist, 14 May 1981, p.452. Emphasis in original.)

"The basic framework of the theory is that evolution is a two-stage phenomenon the production of variation and the sorting of the variants by natural selection. Yet agreement on this basic thesis does not mean that the work of the evolutionist is completed. The basic theory is in many instances hardly more than a postulate and its application raises numerous questions in almost every concrete case." (Mayr, Ernst [Emeritus Professor of Zoology, Harvard University], "Populations, Species and Evolution," [1963], Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA, 1974, reprint, p6)

"The 'modern evolutionary synthesis' convinced most biologists that natural selection was the only directive influence on adaptive evolution. Today, however, dissatisfaction with the synthesis is widespread, and creationists and antidarwinians are multiplying. The central problem with the synthesis is its failure to show (or to provide distinct signs) that natural selection of random mutations could account for observed levels of adaptation." (Leigh, Egbert G., Jr. [Biologist, Smithsonian Institution, USA], "The modern synthesis, Ronald Fisher and creationism," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 14, No. 12, pp.495-498, December 1999, p.495)

"Neo-Darwinism has failed as an evolutionary theory that can explain the origin of species, understood as organisms of distinctive form and behaviour. In other words, it is not an adequate theory of evolution. What it does provide is a partial theory of adaptation, or microevolution (small- scale adaptive changes in organisms)." (Goodwin, Brian [Professor of Biology, Open University, UK], "Neo-Darwinism has failed as an evolutionary theory," The Times Higher Education Supplement, May 19, 1995)

"I suppose I had better mention the concept of a divine creator, but personally I do not find that particular hypothesis useful and I am tempted to ask about the cosmic accident that created Him (presumably before the 'big bangs' that started the universe). And what did He do before He created the world and mankind?" (Ager, Derek V. [Emeritus Professor of Geology, University College of Swansea, Wales], "The New Catastrophism: The Importance of the Rare Event in Geological History," Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 1993, p.149.)

"It looks to me as if Darwinians are like someone who, having observed that tugboats sometimes maneuver ocean liners in tight places by directing high-pressure streams of water at them, concludes that he has discovered the method by which the liners cross the Atlantic." (Van Inwagen P. [Professor of Philosophy, Notre Dame University], "Doubts About Darwinism," in Buell J. & Hearn V., eds., "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?" Foundation for Thought and Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, p186. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/fte/darwinism/chapter12.html)

"As I said, we shall all be embarrassed, in the fullness of time, by the naivete of our present evolutionary arguments. But some will be vastly more embarrassed than others." (Piattelli- Palmarini, Massimo, [Principal Research Associate of the Center for Cognitive Science at MIT], "Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds," John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1994, p195)

"Mr. Bird is concerned with origins and the evidence relevant thereto. He is basically correct that evidence, or proof, of origins-of the universe, of life, of all of the major groups of life, of all of the minor groups of life, indeed of all of the species-is weak or nonexistent when measured on an absolute scale, as it always was and will always be." (Nelson, Gareth [Chairman and Curator of the Department of Herpetology and Ichthyology, American Museum of Natural History, New York], "Preface," in Bird W. R., "The Origin of Species Revisited," Regency: Nashville TN, 1991, Vol. I, pxii)

“Of course, it is still possible to believe in both modern evolutionary biology and a purposive force, even the Judaeo-Christian God. One can suppose that God started the whole universe or works through the laws of nature (or both). There is no contradiction between this or similar views of God and natural selection. But this view of God is also worthless…. [Such a God] has nothing to do with human morals, answers no prayers, gives no life everlasting, in fact does nothing whatsoever that is detectable. In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and, indeed, all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism.
“My observation is that the great majority of modern evolutionary biologists now are atheists or something very close to that. Yet prominent atheistic or agnostic scientists publicly deny that there is any conflict between science and religion. Rather than simple intellectual dishonesty, this position is pragmatic. In the United States, elected members of Congress all proclaim to be religious. Many scientists believe that funding for science might suffer if the atheistic implications of modern science were widely understood.” William B. Provine, review of Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution, by Edward J. Larson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, 224 pp.), Academe, vol. 73 (January/February 1987), pp. 51-52 Provine was Professor of History of Biology, Cornell University

“Is Dickie Loeb to blame because... of the infinite forces that were at work producing him ages before he was born? Is he to blame because his machine is imperfect?” (Clarence Darrow, arguing in the Leopold-Loeb murder trial, 1924 (1 year before the Scopes Trial))

“I personally feel that the teaching of modern science is corrosive of religious belief, and I’m all for that! One of the things that in fact has driven me in my life, is the feeling that this is one of the great social functions of science—to free people from superstition.”
"From my own point of view, I can hope that this long sad story will come to an end at some time in the future and that this progression of priests and ministers and rabbis and ulamas and imams and bonzes and bodhisattvas will come to an end, that we'll see no more of them. I hope that this is something to which science can contribute and if it is, then I think it may be the most important contribution that we can make." (Steven Weinberg, Free Thought Today, April, 2000, “Free People from Superstition,” ffrf.org/fttoday/2000/april2000/weinberg.html (last visited September 15, 2005).)

"Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a 'metaphysical research program'--a possible framework for testable scientific theories." and that "no serious competitor has come forward." (Popper, K, *Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography)

"The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology... I mention this because I too belong among the culprits . Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological," and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. ... I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. ... The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising." (Karl Popper, "Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind," _Dialectica_ , 2(1978): 339-355; quotations are from pp. 344-346.)

“For the biologists taking this traditional approach, evolutionary biology is similar to astronomy and history, relying on observation and deduction rather than experiment and induction to examine ideas about past events.” (Raven & Johnson, Biology, sixth ed., 2002, pg. 419)

“How should scientists operate when they must try to explain the results of history, those inordinately complex events that can occur but once in detailed glory? Many large domains of nature—cosmology, geology and evolution among them—must be studied with the tools of history. The appropriate methods focus on narrative, not experiment as usually conceived. The stereotype of the “scientific method” has no place for irreducible history.” (Gould SJ. 1986. Wonderful Life. New York: Norton.)

“’People usually think the problem is how to reconcile what we now know about the size of the universe with our traditional ideas of religion. That turns out not to be the problem at all. The real problem is this. The enormous size of the universe and the insignificance of the earth were known for centuries, and no one ever dreamed that they had any bearing on the religious question. Then, less than a hundred years ago, they are suddenly trotted out as an argument against Christianity. And the people who trot them out carefully hush up the fact that they were known long ago. Don’t you think that all you atheists are strangely unsuspicious people?’” (Lewis, “Religion and Science,” God in the Dock, 75.)

“Perhaps this may be even more simply put in another way. Every particular thought (whether it is a judgment of fact or a judgment of value) is always and by all men discounted the moment they believe that it can be explained, without remainder, as the result of irrational causes. Whenever you know what the other man is saying is wholly due to his complexes or to a bit of bone pressing on his brain, you cease to attach any importance to it. But if naturalism were true then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes. Therefore, all thoughts would be equally worthless. Therefore, naturalism is worthless. If it is true, then we can know no truths. It cuts its own throat.” (Lewis, “Religion Without Dogma?” God in the Dock, 137)

“But of course the vast majority of vivisectors have no such theological background. They are most of them naturalistic and Darwinian. Now here, surely, we come up against a very alarming fact. The very same people who will most contemptuously brush aside any consideration of animal suffering if it stands in the way of ‘research’ will also, on another context, most vehemently deny that there is any radical difference between man and the other animals. On the naturalistic view the beasts are at bottom just the same sort of thing as ourselves. Man is simply the cleverest of the anthropoids. All the grounds on which a Christian might defend vivisection are thus cut from under our feet… ...If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons. Indeed, experiments on men have already begun. We all hear that Nazi scientists have done them. We all suspect that our own scientists may begin to do so, in secret, at any moment… …The victory of vivisection marks a great advance in the triumph of ruthless, non-moral utilitarianism over the old world of ethical law; a triumph in which we, as well as animals, are already the victims, and of which Dachau and Hiroshima mark the more recent achievements. In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves on the animal level. We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.” (“Vivisection,” God in the Dock, 224, 226-227, 228)

“But this phenomenon would be more hopeful if it had not occurred at a moment when the Intelligentsia (scientists apart) are losing all touch with, and all influence over, nearly the whole human race. . . An increasing number of highly literate people simply ignore what the ‘Highbrows’ are doing. It says nothing to them. The Highbrows in return ignore or insult them. “ (“Revival or Decay?” God in the Dock, 251)

“There is a profound difference between science and religion in its conception of truth. Science requires an open mind, free inquiry, critical thinking, the willingness to question assumptions, and peer review. The test of a theory or hypothesis is independent (or at least one would hope) of bias, prejudice, faith, or tradition; and it is justified by the evidence, logical consistency, and mathematical coherence. Science claims to be universal... transcending specific cultures and replicable in any and every laboratory in the world.” (Paul Kurtz, Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?, Prometheus Books, 2003, pg. 13)

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.” (Bertrand Russell)

“Our [scientists'] ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective 'scientific method,' with individual scientists as logical and interchangeable robots, is self-serving mythology." (Gould, S. J. 1994. In the Mind of the Beholder. Natural History. 103 (2): 15.)

“For seeing that natural things run their course according to a fixed order, and since there cannot be order without a cause of order, men, for the most part, perceive that there is one who orders the things that we see. But who or of what kind this cause of order may be, or whether there be but one, cannot be gathered from this general consideration.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles)

“…the divine power [can] at times work apart from the order assigned by God to nature, without prejudice to His providence. In fact He does this sometimes to manifest His power. For by no other means can it better be made manifest that all nature is subject to the divine will, than by the fact that sometimes He works independently of the natural order: since this shows that the order of things proceeded from Him, not of natural necessity, but of His free will.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Part 2, ch. XCIX)

“The completely materialistic mind of my youth and early manhood has been slowly moulded into the socialistic, spiritualistic, and theistic mind I now exhibit—a mind which is, as my scientific friends think, so weak and credulous in its declining years, as to believe that fruit and flowers, domestic animals, glorious birds and insects, wool, cotton, sugar and rubber, metals and gems, were all foreseen and foreordained for the education and enjoyment of man. The whole cumulative argument of my ‘World of Life’ is that in its every detail it calls for the agency of a mind . . . enormously above and beyond any human mind . . . whether thus Unknown Reality is a single Being and acts everywhere in the universe as direct creator, organizer, and director or every minutest motion . . . or through ‘infinite grades of beings’, as I suggest, comes to much the same thing. Mine seems a more clear and intelligible supposition . . . and it is the teaching of the Bible, of Swedenborg, and of Milton.” Letter from Alfred Russel Wallace to his biographer and friend James Marchant just before his death in 1913. From James Marchant’s Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1916, 413.

“Prevailing beliefs can influence how we interpret clues to natural processes and their observable outcomes.” (Cecie Starr, Biology: Concepts and Applications, pg. 238, 6th ed., Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2006.)

"In the short run, new ideas that do not mesh well with mainstream ideas may encounter vigorous criticism, and scientists investigating such ideas may have difficulty obtaining support for their research. Indeed, challenges to new ideas are the legitimate business of science in building valid knowledge. Even the most prestigious scientists have occasionally refused to accept new theories despite there being enough accumulated evidence to convince others."
"Scientific habits of mind can help people in every walk of life to deal sensibly with problems that often involve evidence, quantitative considerations, logical arguments, and uncertainty; without the ability to think critically and independently, citizens are easy prey to dogmatists, flimflam artists, and purveyors of simple solutions to complex problems (AAAS, Science for All Americans)

"There’s no obstacle in principle to imagining that the normal progress of science could one day conclude that the invocation of a supernatural component was the best way of understanding the universe. Indeed, this scenario is basically the hope of most proponents of Intelligent Design. The point is not that this couldn’t possibly happen — it’s that it hasn’t happened in our actual world." (Sean Carroll, What Questions Can Science Answer?, at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/07/15/what-questions-can-science-answer/ )

"All the talk about climate change , fraudulent science, the politicization of science, and so on has reminded me of one of my favorite stories of all time. I learned it from Tony Daniels (aka Theodore Dalrymple). In the Nazi period, 100 “Aryan” scientists signed a statement against Einstein — saying that the theory of relativity was a Jewish hoax or whatever. Asked to comment on this, Einstein said, “If what they are saying were true, one signature would have been enough.” In science, as in other areas of life, beware the bandwagon." (Wednesday, November 25, 2009 http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzM2ODYwYzA0Njc0N2Q2N2Q4NjI4MDgzNzBiZDFkMjU )

"What has the theory of evolution done for the practical benefit of humanity? It's helped our understanding of ourselves, yet compared to, say, the discovery of penicillin or the invention of the World Wide Web, I wonder why Darwin occupies this position at the pinnacle of esteem. I can only imagine he has been put there by a vast public relations exercise." (British political journalist Dennis Sewell quoted in Eben Harrell, "The Dark Side of Darwin's Legacy" Time Nov 24, 2009, at http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1942483,00.html)

"Look for the peer-reviewed label! And then just believe whatever it is they tell you!" (Mark Steyn, "Cooking the Books on Climate," 11-27-09, Orange County Register, at http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/peer-221438-reviewed-climate.html )

“A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable.” (Carl Sagan Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium (1998), 190)
“If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all.” (NOAM CHOMSKY)

“Teach it to a class of kids, and they will realise that it never occurred to them beforehand, but that it’s so damn clever. They feel so damn clever just for grasping it. This is, I think, crucial. Adults also feel clever for just grasping it, and for developing on the spot an intuition of zillions of examples and applications. “The sheer brilliance of Darwin’s idea voids the mind of any attention to counterexamples”
“Some months ago an American philosopher explained to a highly sophisticated audience in Britain what, in his opinion, was wrong, indeed fatally wrong, with the standard neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution. He made it crystal clear that his criticism was not inspired by creationism, intelligent design or any remotely religious motivation. A senior gentleman in the audience erupted, in indignation: ‘You should not say such things, you should not write such things! The creationists will treasure them and use them against science.’ The lecturer politely asked: ‘Even if they are true?’ To which the instant and vibrant retort was: ‘Especially if they are true!’ with emphasis on the ‘especially’” (It is now blasphemy to criticise Darwin, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, at http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/8355/)

“When Darwin deduced the theory of natural selection to explain the adaptations in which he had previously seen the handiwork of God, he knew that he was committing cultural murder. He understood immediately that if natural selection explained adaptations, and evolution by descent were true, then the argument from design was dead and all that went with it, namely the existence of a personal God, free will, life after death, immutable moral laws, and ultimate meaning in life.” (Will Provine? In Owen Gingerich, Dare a Scientist Believe in Design, Evidence of Purpose , ed. Sir John Templeton, (New York: Continuum, 1994), page 30.)

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” Arthur C. Clarke

"We've been told by more than one of our colleagues that, even if Darwin was substantially wrong to claim that natural selection is the mechanism of evolution, nonetheless we shouldn't say so. Not, anyhow, in public. To do that is, however inadvertently, to align oneself with the Forces of Darkness, whose goal is to bring Science into disrepute. Well, we don't agree. We think the way to discomfort the Forces of Darkness is to follow the arguments wherever they may lead, spreading such light as one can in the course of doing so. What makes the Forces of Darkness dark is that they aren't willing to do that. What makes Science scientific is that it is." (Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, What Darwin God Wrong, p. xx (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010).)

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it." (George Bernard Shaw)

“everywhere, not here and there, but everywhere, and in the very smallest operations of nature, to which human observation has penetrated, there is Purpose and a continual Guidance and Control.” (Alfred Russel Wallace, interviewed by Harold Begbie. An article on this appeared in The Daily Chronicle (London) of 3rd and 4th November 1910, captioned New Thoughts on Evolution. (http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S746.htm; see also Michael Flannery, Alfred Russell Wallace, a rediscovered life, 2011])

“Intellectual honesty requires rationally examining our fundamental premises – yet, expressing hesitation about Darwin is considered irretrievable intellectual suicide, the unthinkable doubt, the unpardonable sin of academia. Although the post-modern era questions everything else – the possibility of knowledge, basic morality and reality itself – critical discussion of Darwin is taboo”. (Richard T. Halvorson Harvard Crimson, April 7, 2003)



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