These are just a few of my favorite quotes, most by evolutionists. The first is a scientist I debated online a number of times, hence the username instead of real name.
frisian1970 - Science isn't looking for truth, it is looking for explanations that then can be used for practical purposes.
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Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist, a renowned champion of neo-Darwinism, and certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology:
‘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 counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.’
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‘I know of no finding in archaeology that’s properly confirmed which is in opposition to the Scriptures. The Bible is the most accurate history textbook the world has ever seen.’
Dr Clifford Wilson, formerly director of the Australian Institute of Archaeology, being interviewed by radio by the Institute for Creation Research (ICR radio transcript No. 0279–1004).
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'Big bang cosmology is probably as widely believed as has been any theory of the universe in the history of Western civilization. It rests, however, on many untested, and in some cases untestable, assumptions. Indeed, big bang cosmology has become a bandwagon of thought that reflects faith as much as objective truth.'
Burbidge, G., 1992. Why only one big bang? Scientific American, 266(2):96.
----------------
Dr Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University:
‘Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic’
Reference: Todd, S.C., correspondence to Nature 401(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999.
----------------
In 1785, before examining the evidence, the deist James Hutton, ‘the Founder of Modern Geology’, proclaimed:
‘the past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now … No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle’ (emphasis added)
This was later called uniformitarianism by Charles Lyell. This is a not a refutation of Biblical teaching of Creation and the Flood, but a dogmatic refusal to consider them as even possible explanations.
Reference: Hutton, J., ‘Theory of the Earth’, a paper (with the same title of his 1795 book) communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and published in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1785; cited with approval in Holmes, A., Principles of Physical Geology, 2nd edition, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., Great Britain, pp. 43–44, 1965.
----------------
As the non-creationist information theorist Hubert Yockey observed over 20 years ago (and he has not revised his opinion since):
‘Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already been authoritatively accepted … . What remains to be done is to find the scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which this happened.
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.’
Reference: Yockey, H.P., A calculation of the probability of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 67:377–398, 1977; quotes from pp. 379, 396.
----------------
‘We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home and therefore obliged to make our behavior conform with a set of pre-existing cosmic rules. It is our creation now. We make the rules. We establish the parameters of reality. We create the world, and because we do, we no longer feel beholden to outside forces. We no longer have to justify our behavior, for we are now the architects of the universe. We are responsible to nothing outside ourselves, for we are the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever.’
Reference: Jeremy Rifkin, Algeny, p. 244 (Viking Press, New York), 1983.
----------------
‘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 [sic] 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.
‘Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity.’
Michael Ruse was professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph, Canada (recently moved to Florida), He was the leading anti-creationist philosopher whose (flawed) arguments seemed to convince the biased judge to rule against the Arkansas ‘balanced treatment’ (of creation and evolution in schools) bill in 1981/2. At the trial, he and the other the anti-creationists loftily dismissed the claim that evolution was an anti-god religion.
Reference: Ruse, M., How evolution became a religion: creationists correct? National Post, pp. B1,B3,B7 May 13, 2000.
----------------
"Science is not so much concerned with truth as it is with consensus. What counts as “truth” is what scientists can agree to count as truth at any particular moment in time … [Scientists] are not really receptive or not really open-minded to any sorts of criticisms or any sorts of claims that actually are attacking some of the established parts of the research (traditional) paradigm — in this case neo-Darwinism — so it is very difficult for people who are pushing claims that contradict that paradigm to get a hearing. They’ll find it hard to [get] research grants; they’ll find it hard to get their research published; they’ll find it very hard.’
Prof. Evelleen Richards, a non-creationist Historian of Science at the University of NSW, Australia, commenting on dogmatism from the establishment even against a non-Darwinian (neo-Lamarckian) theory on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV program Lateline, 9 October 1998.
----------------
‘Everybody knows fossils are fickle; bones will sing any song you want to hear.’
- J. Shreeve, 1990, Discover, Vol. 11 (8), p. 58
----------------
‘One is forced to conclude that many scientists and technologists pay lip-service to Darwinian theory only because it supposedly excludes a creator.”
- Dr. Michael Walker, Anthropology, Sydney University, Quadrant, October 1982
----------------
‘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. For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.’
- Aldous Huxley, philosopher, humanist and author
----------------
‘I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them… I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.’
- Patterson, personal communication. Documented in Darwin’s Enigma,
Luther Sunderland, Master Books, El Cajon, CA, 1988, pp. 88-90.]
----------------
‘If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we’ve got he'd surely say, ‘forget it: there isn’t enough to go on’.
- David Pilbeam, as quoted in The Making of Mankind, Michael Joseph Limited, London, 1981, p. 43
These are just a few of my favorite quotes, most by evolutionists. The first is a scientist I debated online a number of times, hence the username instead of real name.
frisian1970 - Science isn't looking for truth, it is looking for explanations that then can be used for practical purposes.
----------------
Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist, a renowned champion of neo-Darwinism, and certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology:
‘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 counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.’
----------------
‘I know of no finding in archaeology that’s properly confirmed which is in opposition to the Scriptures. The Bible is the most accurate history textbook the world has ever seen.’
Dr Clifford Wilson, formerly director of the Australian Institute of Archaeology, being interviewed by radio by the Institute for Creation Research (ICR radio transcript No. 0279–1004).
----------------
'Big bang cosmology is probably as widely believed as has been any theory of the universe in the history of Western civilization. It rests, however, on many untested, and in some cases untestable, assumptions. Indeed, big bang cosmology has become a bandwagon of thought that reflects faith as much as objective truth.'
Burbidge, G., 1992. Why only one big bang? Scientific American, 266(2):96.
----------------
Dr Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University:
‘Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic’
Reference: Todd, S.C., correspondence to Nature 401(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999.
----------------
In 1785, before examining the evidence, the deist James Hutton, ‘the Founder of Modern Geology’, proclaimed:
‘the past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now … No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle’ (emphasis added)
This was later called uniformitarianism by Charles Lyell. This is a not a refutation of Biblical teaching of Creation and the Flood, but a dogmatic refusal to consider them as even possible explanations.
Reference: Hutton, J., ‘Theory of the Earth’, a paper (with the same title of his 1795 book) communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and published in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1785; cited with approval in Holmes, A., Principles of Physical Geology, 2nd edition, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., Great Britain, pp. 43–44, 1965.
----------------
As the non-creationist information theorist Hubert Yockey observed over 20 years ago (and he has not revised his opinion since):
‘Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already been authoritatively accepted … . What remains to be done is to find the scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which this happened.
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.’
Reference: Yockey, H.P., A calculation of the probability of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 67:377–398, 1977; quotes from pp. 379, 396.
----------------
‘We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home and therefore obliged to make our behavior conform with a set of pre-existing cosmic rules. It is our creation now. We make the rules. We establish the parameters of reality. We create the world, and because we do, we no longer feel beholden to outside forces. We no longer have to justify our behavior, for we are now the architects of the universe. We are responsible to nothing outside ourselves, for we are the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever.’
Reference: Jeremy Rifkin, Algeny, p. 244 (Viking Press, New York), 1983.
----------------
‘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 [sic] 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.
‘Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity.’
Michael Ruse was professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph, Canada (recently moved to Florida), He was the leading anti-creationist philosopher whose (flawed) arguments seemed to convince the biased judge to rule against the Arkansas ‘balanced treatment’ (of creation and evolution in schools) bill in 1981/2. At the trial, he and the other the anti-creationists loftily dismissed the claim that evolution was an anti-god religion.
Reference: Ruse, M., How evolution became a religion: creationists correct? National Post, pp. B1,B3,B7 May 13, 2000.
----------------
"Science is not so much concerned with truth as it is with consensus. What counts as “truth” is what scientists can agree to count as truth at any particular moment in time … [Scientists] are not really receptive or not really open-minded to any sorts of criticisms or any sorts of claims that actually are attacking some of the established parts of the research (traditional) paradigm — in this case neo-Darwinism — so it is very difficult for people who are pushing claims that contradict that paradigm to get a hearing. They’ll find it hard to [get] research grants; they’ll find it hard to get their research published; they’ll find it very hard.’
Prof. Evelleen Richards, a non-creationist Historian of Science at the University of NSW, Australia, commenting on dogmatism from the establishment even against a non-Darwinian (neo-Lamarckian) theory on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV program Lateline, 9 October 1998.
----------------
‘Everybody knows fossils are fickle; bones will sing any song you want to hear.’
- J. Shreeve, 1990, Discover, Vol. 11 (8), p. 58
----------------
‘One is forced to conclude that many scientists and technologists pay lip-service to Darwinian theory only because it supposedly excludes a creator.”
- Dr. Michael Walker, Anthropology, Sydney University, Quadrant, October 1982
----------------
‘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. For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.’
- Aldous Huxley, philosopher, humanist and author
----------------
‘I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them… I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.’
- Patterson, personal communication. Documented in Darwin’s Enigma,
Luther Sunderland, Master Books, El Cajon, CA, 1988, pp. 88-90.]
----------------
‘If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we’ve got he'd surely say, ‘forget it: there isn’t enough to go on’.
- David Pilbeam, as quoted in The Making of Mankind, Michael Joseph Limited, London, 1981, p. 43
