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Quotes

Updated 05/07/09

"There are certainly a good number of scientists who now reject the concepts of evolution -- not on religious grounds, but on strictly scientific grounds. Most of them are keeping their own council. Outwardly they support evolution (so as to be in step with their peers) but inwardly they have second thoughts on the subject. It is not too easy to take a stand against the beliefs of the majority, and expose oneself to ridicule, especially when one's job and academic and professional prospects are on the line. It is only the very brave and those highly placed scientists whose standings are universally acknowledged (and thus, secure) that can afford to contradict the general trend."

Cohen, I.L. in Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities. New Research Publications, Inc., New York, NY (1984), p.213-214.

 

QUOTATIONS are often an excellent source of information and also serve to stimulate futher research on Darwin and Design topics. We recognize that many critics of Darwin skeptics often blast the irresponsible use of quotes, and we agree that quotes often have been abused and misused contextually, factually, and in other ways. However, this is not an effective argument against the use of quotations for stimulating research and discusison on this or any topic. Quotes may also be legitimately used to inform readers of opinions about topics in a responsible manner, and can help inform readers about the opinions of those who have something worthwhile to say on topics related to Darwin and Design. This page is intended to provide you with a glimpse into a quotes database project that has been underway for some time now. The quotes presented on this page are but a sampling of commentary available on the topic of Darwin and Design. Also, it should be pointed out that many of these quotes point out many of the problems and issues worth investigating in this debate. The intent of this project is to produce a database of verified quotes that represent the most accurate and intended context possible for the quoted sources. There are some safeguards that can and should be put in place to ensure the accuracy of both the text and the intended meaning behind a quote, and some of those safeguards include:

1) Accuracy of text and source. In spite of the best efforts of some, many times a quote is reprinted in error. For that reason, we have people who only enter quotes into our database (Admins) and other people who only verify quotes (verification agents). No one is permitted to both enter and verify a quote. This system of checks and balances helps to ensure the reliability and accuracy of the quotes we manage as they are printed in the original sources.

2) Commentary. The project allows for comments to add more context and history behind a quote (for example, and author of a quote might have changed his mind after writing his remarks). It also allows for the addition of important nuances and background information that would helpful for the reader to better understand with greater accuracy the context of a quote.

3) Quote Validation. With this quote project, we've set up a system that allows for the presentation of the actual text from a book or periodical source to validate the quote. This enables the reader to not only see the quote in context, but also see for himself what the actual source looks like, in context.

We currently have nearly 2,000 quotes in our growing database, and we produce over 10,000 reports each day -- each report is based on a unique keyword. Keyword reports contain anywhere from 1 to over 200 quotes as of this writing. We also manage over 750 author reports -- these reports list all the quotes in our system attributed to each author.

So long as these and other safeguards are put in place, quotes can be managed as an effective tool to help others gain a more accurate understanding behind a quote. If you would like to participate in this project, dedicated to adding and validating our growing database of quotes, please contact us at sodeditor [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you would like us to generate a free keyword report, send your keyword or author report suggestion to the email address above, using the words "QUOTE REPORT" in the subject line. We can't promise to handle every request, but we can sure provide a few here. Just think of a keyword or an author related to Darwin and Design, and we can probably produce something you'll like.

 

SAMPLE KEYWORD QUOTE REPORTS

The contents for these reports were created from the free online database located at the MyEvolutionQuotes web site.

PROBABILITY report -- ONLINE / MSWORD -- posted 12/24/08

IMAGINATION, SPECULATION and EXTRAPOLATION report -- ONLINE PDF -- posted 05/07/09

 

 

SAMPLE TOPICAL QUOTE PAGES

WHO'S YOUR DADDY? - a stunning collection of quotes on the origin of various vertebrate groups. What we discover is that most scientists resort to loads of speculation about how most critters allegedly evolved. Not surprisingly, in most cases they offer conjectures based on guesses piled on top of speculations supported by extrapolations.

 

SELECT QUOTES ABOUT EVOLUTION

Note: Verification has not been established for some of these quotes. Please report any errors to sodeditor [at] gmail [dot] com

"At the time I rather pooh-poohed what Mr. Gish said, but ... I have been thinking about them ever since. ...Heretical though it may be to say this-and many of my scientist friends would be only too happy to chain me to the stake and to light the faggots piled around-I now think the Creationists like Mr. Gish are absolutely right in their complaint. 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."

Ruse, Michael. How Evolution Became a Religion: Darwinians Wrongly Mix Science with Morality, Politics in National Post, May 13, 2000, p.1.

 

"Our theory of evolution has become...one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus "outside 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."

Ehrlich, Paul and L.C. Birch. Evolutionary History and Population Biology in Nature, 214:, 349-352, 1967.

"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. Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind in Dialectica, 32(3), 1978, p.344.

 

"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 the severe methodological criticism employed in other departments of biology has not yet been brought to bear against evolutionary speculation."

Thompson, W.R. in Science and Common Sense: An Aristotelian Excursion. Magi Books, Albany, NY (1965), p.229.

 

"The human mind has a well-known capacity for retaining political or religious beliefs well beyond the point at which reason suggests they should be modified or abandoned. The claim of science is that it differs fundamentally from other belief systems in that it rests demonstrably upon reason alone. But the claim must be modified in light of what historians have to say about scientists' resistance to scientific ideas and their penchant for seeing the world through the prism of their own theories.

The fact is that the way in which science actually works, the process by which the existing rock of scientific knowledge is extended or restructured, is not by any means an entirely rational process... The existence of a logical structure in scientific knowledge has led to the assumption that the structure was logically built. But the process of doing science, as distinct from the body of scientific knowledge, is created and governed by a different set of principles. Logical inference and the intent of being objective are important among them. But rhetoric, propaganda, appeal to authority, and all the usual arts of human persuasion are also influential in winning acceptance for a scientific theory."

Broad, William and Nicholas Wade in Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science. Touchstone, New York, NY (1982), p.140.

 

"there is no evidence for beneficial spontaneous genetic mutation; there is no evidence for natural selection (except as an empty tautology); there is no evidence for either as significant evolutionary mechanisms. There is only evidence of an unquenchable optimisim among Darwinists that, given enough time anything can happen--the argument from probability."

Milton, Richard in Shattering the Myths of Darwinism. Park Street Press, Rochester, VT (1997), p.169.



"To speak of an animal as "fittest" does not necessarily imply that it is strongest or most healthy, or would win a beauty competition. Essentially it denotes nothing more than leaving most offspring. The general principle of natural selection, in fact, merely amounts to the statement that the individuals which leave most offspring are those which leave most offspring. It is a tautology."

Waddington, C.H. in The Strategy of the Genes. Allen & Unwin, London, (1957), p.64-65.


"One of the most frequent objections against the theory of natural selection is that it is a sophisticated tautology. Most evolutionary biologists seem unconcerned about the charge and make only a token effort to explain the tautology away. The remainder, such as Professors Waddington and Simpson, will simply concede the fact. For them, natural selection is a tautology which states a heretofore unrecognized relation: the fittest-defined as those who will leave the most offspring-will leave the most offspring. What is most unsettling is that some evolutionary biologists have no qualms about proposing tautologies as explanations. One would immediately reject any lexicographer who tried to define a word by the same word, or a thinker who merely restated his proposition, or any other instance of gross redundancy; yet no one seems scandalized that men of science should be satisfied with a major principle which is no more than a tautology."

Peseley, G.A. The Epistemological Status of Natural Selection in Laval Theologique et Philosophique, 38(74), February, 1982.

 

"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 its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community of unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior 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."

"It is said that there is no place for an argument from authority from science. The community of science is constantly self-critical ... It is certainly true that within each narrowly defined scientific field there is constant challenge to new technical claims and to old wisdom. ... But when scientists transgress the bounds of their own specialty they have no choice but to accept the claims of authority, even though they do not know how solid the grounds of those claims may be. Who am I to believe about quantum physics if not Steven Weinberg, or about the solar system if not Carl Sagan? What worries me is that they may believe what Dawkins and Wilson tell them about evolution. "

Lewontin, Richard. Billions and Billions of Demons in New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 31.