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Introduction: Below is a constantly growing page of quotes by scientisits. Scroll throught the list or click a topic. Some quotes may appear in more than one catagory. Enjoy.

Thanks to Dave Bradbury for many of the following quotes:

Philosophy / Religion

1899 The doctrine of evolution is a newly invented system, a newly concerted doctrine, a newly formed dogma, a new rising belief, which places itself over against the Christian faith, and can only found its temple on the ruins of our Christian confession. Dr. Abraham Kuyper, Evolution speech delivered in 1899

1899 With this single argument the mystery of the universe is explained, the deity annulled, and a new era of infinite knowledge ushered in. Ernst Haeckel, The Riddle of the Universe, 1899, p. 337.

1935 A Belief in Evolution is a basal doctrine in the Rationalists Liturgy. Sir Arthur Keith, Darwinism and its Critics 1935, p. 53

1940 The facts fail to give any information regarding the origin of actual species, not to mention the higher categories. R. Goldschmidt, The Natural Basis of Evolution, p. 165.

1957 The next great task of science will be to create a religion for humanity. Huxley, Julian, 1887-1975; Religion Without Revelation; New York, Harper ,1957, p.25., Huxley was challenged by this vision. He wrote, I was fired by sharing his conviction that science would of necessity play an essential part in framing any religion of the future worthy of the name. Huxley took up Morley's challenge to develop a scientific religion. He called it Evolutionary Humanism

1959 ... my deity [is] Natural Selection. Francis Darwin; The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 1959,2:165

1959 Darwin wrote in his autobiography: I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true ... M. Grano, The Faith of Darwinism, Encounter, November 1959, p. 48

1960 Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the creator of organisms from the sphere of rational discussion. Darwin pointed out that no Supernatural designer was needed; since natural selection could account for any new form of life, there is no room for a supernatural agency in its evolution. Julian Huxley, At Random, A Television Preview, in Evolution after Darwin, 1960 p. 41.

1960 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 of what did happen is not available. G.A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution, 1960, p. 150.

1971 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 faith? L.N. Matthews, Introduction to Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pp. x, xi, 1971 edition

1975 The irony is devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last trace of an incredible God from biology. But the theory replaces God with an even more incredible deity - omnipotent chance. T. Rosazak, Unfinished Animal, 1975, p. 101-102.

1975 Science is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy is prepared to admit. It is one of the many forms of thought that have been developed by man, and not necessarily the best. It is conspicuous, noisy, and impudent, but it is inherently superior only for those who have already decided in favour of a certain ideology, or who have accepted it without ever having examined its advantages and its limits. And as the accepting and rejecting of ideologies should be left to the individual it follows that the separation of the state and church must be complemented by the separation of state and science, that most recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institution. Such a separation may be our only chance to achieve a humanity we are capable of, but have never fully realized. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method, 1975, London; Verso, Pg. 295

1977 [Karl] Popper warns of a danger: "A theory, even a scientific theory, may become an intellectual fashion, a substitute for religion, an entrenched dogma. This has certainly been true of evolutionary theory." Colin Patterson, Evolution, 1977, p. 150

1977 (The theory of evolution) forms a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature. L. Harrison Matthews, D.Sc., FRS. Introduction to Origin of Species, J. M. Dent, London, 1977, p.12.

1977 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. 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

1978 Looking back on that earlier theory, with the advantage of hindsight and of many more discoveries, I can see where I went wrong. .... Theory shapes the way we think about, even perceive, data." (Pg. 41). ... "I thought that ancestor-descendant relationships were well established." (Pg. 42) ... "All this makes a much more complex picture of hominoid evolution than we once imagined. It no longer represented a ladder but is, instead, more like a bush." (Pg. 44) ... In the course of rethinking my ideas about human evolution I have changed somewhat as a scientist. I am aware of the prevalence of implicit assumptions and try harder to dig them out of my own thinking. I am also aware that there are many assumptions I will get at only later when today's thought turn into yesterday's misconceptions. ... In my newly reflective state" I am more sober than I once was about what the unwritten past can tell us. Too often it has reflected back only what we expect of it. Dr. David Pilbeam (Physical Anthropologist), Reararanging Our Family Tree. Human Nature, Jun 1978

1978 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), Reararanging Our Family Tree. Human Nature, Jun 1978, p.45.

1978 Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus' earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the SORRY REMAINS of the SON of GOD. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then CHRISTIANITY is NOTHING. G.R. Bozarth, The Meaning of Evolution, American Atheist, 9-78, Vol. 20, p. 30.

1980 In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit with it. H.S. Lipson, A Physicist Looks at Evolution, Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, p. 138 (1980)

1981 One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night ... It struck me that I had been working on this stuff (evolution) for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it. That's quite a shock to learn that one can be misled for so long. Either there was something wrong with me, or there was something wrong with evolutionary theory ... Then I woke up and realized that all my life I had been duped into taking evolution as a revealed truth in some way. Dr. Colin Patterson (Senior Paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History, London). Keynote Address at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, Nov 5, 1981.

1981 Scientists, like others, sometimes tell deliberate lies because they believe that small lies can serve big truths. Lewontin, William. C., in The Inferiority Complex review of The Mismeasures Of Man, by Stephen J. Gould, New York Review of Books, 10/22/81]

1984 Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless. Prof. Louis Bouroune (former President of the Biological Society of Strasbourg and Director of the Strasbourg Zoological Museum, later Director of Research at the French National Centre of Scientific Research). quoted in The Advocate, Mar 8, 1984, p.17

1987 Scientists' ignorance of the philosophical underpinnings of their enterprise has not gone unnoticed. In 1986, biology Nobelist Sir Peter Medawar commented: Ask a scientist what he conceives the scientific method to be, and they will adopt an expression that is at once solemn and shifty-eyed: solemn because he feels he ought to declare an opinion; shifty-eyed because he is wondering how to conceal the fact that he has no opinion to declare. THEOCHARIS, T. & PSIMOPOULOS, M. (1987) Where Science has Gone Wrong. pp. 595598 Nature 329 21 October. www.ivorcatt.com/2817.htm <-- worthy of a good look

1988 During the 50 year life of The American Biology Teacher there has been a change in the general view of method in biological science. A brief look at this change and its possible consequences for biological education may interest those who are searching for ways to improve education at the high school and college levels. The change was from descriptive biology to hypothetico-deductive (H-D) biology, that is, to theoretical biology. Dr. Ralph Lewis, Prof Emeritus Biology; Mich. State Univ.; Biology: A Hypothetico-Deductive Science; THE AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER; Vol. 50; No. 6; 1988; Pg. 362

1988 When biologists so say that "evolution is a fact", I think they mean that they accept the following statement so firmly that they consider it to be as true as any other basic sensory fact; each species arose from another species that preceded it in time, and higher taxa arose by a continuation of the speciation processes. The term FACT as commonly applied to such statements signifies not the kind of content in the statements but, rather, the strength of our acceptance of the statements. So, if we are willing to accept a broad definition of FACT, biologists are correct in saying that "evolution is a fact." Dr. Ralph Lewis; Prof. Emeritus Biol., Mich. St. Univ.; CREATION/EVOLUTION; Winter 87-88; Pg. 34-37

1988 In seeking to understand why the Haeckelian view persisted so long, we have also to consider the alternatives. We often are highly conservative and will hold to a viewpoint longer than is justified when there is no alternative or, worse, when the logical alternative upsets the rest of our world view. Keith Stewart Thomson, Marginalia Ontogeny and Phylogeny Recapitulated, American Scientist 76:274, May ? June 1988

1993 Certainly, historically, that if you look at, say, evolutionary theory, it's certainly been the case that evolution has functioned, if not as a religion as such, certainly with elements akin to a secular religion. Those of us who teach philosophy of religion always say there's no way of defining religion by a neat, necessary and sufficient condition. The best that you can do is list a number of characteristics, some of which all religions have, and none of which any religion, whatever or however you sort of put it. 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. Ruse, Michael 1993 Transcript of a presentation at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The New Antievolutinism, Boston, Feb. 13, pg. 8

1994 Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear. There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That's the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either. Provine, W.B., Origins Research 16(1), p.9, 1994

1994 If a person doesn't think there is a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing. Jeffrey Dahmer, interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, aired Nov. 29, 1994] [Quote also appears in book Dark Journey Deep Grace by Roy Ratcliff; Leafwood Publishers, Abilene, TX Pg. 55, 2006]

1997 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. Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31

1999 Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. Of course the scientist, as an individual, is free to embrace a reality that transcends naturalism. Most important, it should be made clear in the classroom that science, including evolution, has not disproved God's existence because it cannot be allowed to consider it (presumably). Scott Todd, Correspondence to Nature 401(6752):423 9-30-99]

2006 I'm very concerned about the religious indoctrination of children. I want to show how faith acts like a virus that attacks the young and infects generation after generation ... It's time to question the abuse of childhood innocence with superstitious ideas of hellfire and damnation. And I want to show how the scriptural roots of the Judeo-Christian moral edifice are cruel and brutish ... What in the 21st century are we doing venerating a book [the Bible] that contains such stuff? ... The God of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction--jealous and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist, an ethnic cleanser urging His people on to acts of genocide ... When it
comes to children, I think of religion as a dangerous virus. It's a virus which is transmitted partly through teachers and clergy, but also down the generations from parent to child to grandchild. Children are especially vulnerable to infection by the virus of religion. The Berean Call, May 10, 2006: Broadcast entitled The Root of All Evil? by British evolutionist Richard Dawkins in rant against what he considers the greatest threat facing humanity.

2000 Richard Lewontin: "Do I think it is useful to study evolution? I think the answer is yes, because the worldview that we want, what I want, is a materialist worldview."
- (quoted in Anarchy Evolution, Graffin & Olson, 2010, Harper Perennial) from interview in Cambridge, MA June 25, 2003, in Gregory Gaffin, Evolution, Monism, Atheism, and te Naturalist Worldview (Ithica NY: Polypterus, 2000)


Evolution

1954 We tell this story 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 reviewed with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief of special creation, are left with nothing.
… One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are --- as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation. Dr. George Wald professor emeritus biology Harvard University. Nobel Prize winner in biology. The Origin of Life, Scientific American, Vol. 190, August 1954, pp. 44-53

1858 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 collating some facts, though I myself think I see my way approximately on the origin of the species. But alas, how frequent, how almost universal it is for an author to persuade himself of the truth of his own dogmas. Charles Darwin, 1858, in a letter to a colleague regarding the concludin chapters of his Origin of Species. John Lofton's Journal, The Washington Times, Feb. 8, 1984

1859 ... I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot 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 facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done. Chas. Darwin, On The Origin Of Species, Pg. 66

1859 I am well aware that there is scarcely a single point discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result could be obtained on both sides of each question, and this cannot possibly be done here." Charles Darwin, 1859, Introduction to On The Origin of Species As quoted in John Lofton's Journal, The Washington Times, Feb 8, 1984]

1859 ...intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic change, and this is perhaps the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory (of evolution). Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859, Chapter 11, On the imperfection of the geologic record

1874 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 and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man. New York: A.L. Burt Co., 1874. p. 178

1953 Most new species, genera, and families, and nearly all categories at the level of families, appear in the records suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences. George Gaylord Simpson, Ph.D. (Vertebrate Paleontology) (Was Agassiz Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University and also Professor of Geology at the University of Arizona, Tucson), in The Major Features of Evolution, 1953, p.360

1954 One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet, here we are - as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation. Wald, George -- 1954
The Origin of Life. pp. 44-53 in Scientific American Aug. Vol. 191 no. 2

1955 Most mutants which arise in any organism are more or less disadvantageous to their possessors. The classical mutants obtained in Drosophila usually show deterioration, breakdown, or disappearance of some organs. Mutants are known which diminish the quantity or destroy the pigment in the eyes, and in the body reduce the wings, eyes, bristles, legs. Many mutants are, in fact lethal to their possessors. Mutants which equal the normal fly in vigor are a minority, and mutants that would make a major improvement of the normal organization in the normal environments are unknown. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Evolution, Genetics, and Man (1955), p. 105

1954 The important point is that since the origin of life belongs in the category of at-least-once phenomena, time is on its side. However improbable we regard this event, or any of the steps which it involves, given enough time it will almost certainly happen at least once. And for life as we know it, with its capacity for growth and reproduction, once may be enough...Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years. What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles. George Wald (late Professor of Biology, Harvard University), The Origin of Life. Scientific American, vol. 191(2), August 1954, p.48.

1957 These evolutionary happenings are unique, unrepeatable, and irreversible. It is as impossible to turn a land vertebrate into a fish as it is to effect the reverse transformation. The applicability of the experimental method to the study of such unique historical processes is severely restricted before all else by the time intervals involved, which far exceed the lifetime of any human experimenter. And it is just such impossibility that is demanded by antievolutionists when they asked for "proofs" of evolution which they would magnanimously accept as satisfactory. Theodosius Dobzhansky (late Emeritus Professor of Zoology and Biology, Rockeffer University). American Scientist, vol. 45, 1957, p.388.

1957 With the failure of these many efforts, 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. Loren Eiseley, Ph.D. Anthropology, The Immense Journey, Random House, New York, 1957, p.199.

1957 A review of known facts about their ability to survive has led to no other conclusion than that they [the mutated offspring] are always constitutionally weaker than their parent form or species, and in a population with free competition they are eliminated . . Therefore they are never found in nature (e.g. not a single one of the several hundred [types] of Drosophila mutation), and therefore, they are able to appear only in the favorable environment of the experimental field or laboratory. H. Nilsson, Synthetische Artbildng (1957), p. 1186

1959 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 Atomic Energy Commission, USA, The Fresno Bee, Aug 20, 1959. by N.J. Mitchell, in Evolution and the Emperor's New Clothes

1962 In the complex course of its evolution, life exhibits a remarkable contrast to the tendency expressed in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Where the Second Law expresses an irreversible progression toward increased entropy and disorder, life evolves continually higher levels of order. J. H. Rush, (evolutionist) The Dawn of Life, New York, Signet, 1962, p. 35.

1964 The clear-cut mutants of Drosophila, with which so much of the classical research in genetics were done, are almost without exception inferio to wild-type flies in viability, fertility, longevity. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Heredity and the Nature of Man (1964), p. 126

1966 The oldest language that can reasonably be reconstructed is already modern, sophisticated, complete from an evolutionary point of view. George Gaylord Simpson, The Biological Nature of Man, Science, Vol. 152, 22 April 1966, p. 477

1967 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 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. Paul Ehrlich (Professor of Biology, Stanford University) and L. Charles Birch (Professor of Biology, Sydney University). Nature, Apr 22,1967, p.352.

1971 In accepting evolution as fact, how many biologists pause to reflect that science is built upon theories that have been proved by experiment to be correct, or remember that the theory of animal evolution has never been thus proved. L.H. Matthews, "Introduction," to Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, 1971 edition.]

1971 After observing mutations in fruit flies for many years, Richard Goldschmidt fell into despair. The changes, he lamented, were so hopelessly micro that if a thousand mutations were combined in one specimen, there would still be no new species." Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried Pg. 33. 1971

1973 But let us have no illusions - our research would still leave us quite unable to grasp the extreme complexity of the simplest of organisms. Ilya Prigogine, Professor and Director of the Physics Department, Universite Libre de Bruxelles; Can Thermodynamics Explain Biological Order?, Impact of Science on Society, vol. 23 (3),p.178 (1973)]

1974 Evolution is sometimes the key mythological element in a philosophy that functions as a virtual religion. E. Harrison, Origin and Evolution of the Universe, Encyclopaedia Britannica Macropaedia 1974, p. 1007]

1974 Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of "seeing" evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of "gaps" in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them... David B. Kitts, Ph.D. (Zoology), Head Curator, Department of Geology, Stoval Museum; Evolution, vol. 28,Sept 74, p.467

1975 Since 1859 one of the most vexing properties of the fossil record has been its obvious imperfection ... The inability of the fossil record to produce the "missing links" has been taken as solid evidence for disbelieving the theory. A.J. Boucot, Ph.D. (Geology) (Professor of Geology, Oregon State University) in Evolution and the Extinction Rate Controls, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1975, Pg. 196

1976 It must be significant that nearly all the evolutionary stories I learned as a student ... have now been debunked. Dr. Derek V. Ager (Department of Geology, Imperial College, London), The nature of the fossil record. Proceedings of the Geological Association, vol. 87 (2), 1976, pp.132-133]

1977 All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt. Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University),The return of hopeful monsters, Natural History, vol. 86, Jun-Jul 77, p.24

1977 Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1850, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory. Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Belknap-Harvard Press, pp. 127?128, 1977

1977 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. Dr. Hubert P. Yockey (Chief, Reactor Branch, Aberdeen Proving Ground, UK), A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology, vol. 67, 1977, p.398.

1977 What good is half a jaw or half a wing? ... These tales, in the 'Just-So Stories' tradition of evolutionary natural history, do not prove anything ... concepts salvaged only by facile speculation do not appeal much to me. Stephen Jay Gould, The Return of Hopeful Monsters, Natural History, June/July, 1977

1977 Facts do not "speak for themselves"; they are read in the light of theory. Creative thought, in science as much as in the arts, is the motor of changing opinion. Science is a quintessentially human activity, not a mechanized, robot like accumulation of objective information, leading by laws of logic to inescapable interpretations. Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), 'The validation of continental drift' in his book Ever Since Darwin, W.W. Norton, 1977, p.161

1977 The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favoured account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study. Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), Natural History, vol. 86 (5), May 1977, p.14

1977 Yet, under ordinary conditions, no complex organic molecule can ever form spontaneously, but will rather disintegrate, in agreement with the second law. Indeed, the more complex it is, the more unstable it will be, and the more assured, sooner or later, its disintegration. Photosynthesis and all life processes, and even life itself, cannot yet be understood in terms of thermodynamics or any other exact science, despite the use of confused or deliberately confusing language. George P. Stravropoulos, The Frontiers and Limits of Science, American Scientist, vol. 65, November-December 1977, p. 674.

1979 ... most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument made in favor of Darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true. Dr. David Raup; Curator, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology. Field Museum of Natural History, Bulletin, Vol. 50 (1), 1979, pp.22-29

1979 ... our ability to classify both living and fossil species distinctly and using the same criteria fit splendidly with creationist tenets. 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. 88 (7), 1979, pp.18-26}

1979 ... Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded ... ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information. Dr. David Raup (Curator, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago), Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology. Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol. 50 (1), 1979, p.25.

1980 The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution. Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University, Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?, Paleobiology, Vol. 6, Jan 1980, p.127

1980 Biololgists 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 invariably be ignored and their discoverers will undoubtedly be deprived of continuing research grants. 1980 Assembly Week address: Professor Whitten, Professor of Genetics, University of Melbourne.

1980 If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces and radiation, how has it come into being? 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 Manchester, UK, A Physicist Looks at Evolution, Physics Bulletin, 1980, vol 31, p. 138

1980 One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, was... it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it. That's quite a shock to learn that one can be so misled so long. ...so for the last few weeks I've tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people. Question: 'Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that is true?' I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, 'I do know one thing ? it ought not to be taught in high school. Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Palaeontologist. British Museum of Natural History, London. Keynote address at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, November 5, 1980

1980 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. -- New Scientist, Sept 11, 1980.

1980 The Entropy Law says that evolution dissipates the overall available energy for life on this planet. Our concept of evolution is the exact opposite. We believe that evolution somehow magically creates greater overall value and order on earth. Jeremy Rifkin, Antropy: A New World View, VikingPress, New York, 1980, p. 55.

1981 It is very clear that evolution simply cannot happen, no matter how long one is prepared to wait. Evolution is statistically impossible. Nobel Laureate, co-discoverer of DNA and atheist, after computing the probability of the random "evolution" of a single protein: 1 chance in 10 to the 260th power! Sir Francis Crick in Life Itself, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1981, p. 51

1981 Once we see that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly miniscule 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 almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect higher intelligence - even to the limit of God. Sir Fred Hoyle, Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Professor of Astronomy and Applied Mathematics, University College, Cardiff; in Evolution From Space, Dent, London, 1981, Pg. ??

1982 The more statistically improbable a thing is, the less we can believe that it just happened by blind chance. Superficially the obvious alternative to chance is an intelligent Designer. R. Dawkins, The Necessity of Darwinism. New Scientist, vol. 94, April 15, 1982. p.130.

1982 Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study. Steven Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb, 1982, pp. 181-2.

1982 One problem biologists have faced is the apparent contradiction by evolution of the second law of thermodynamics. Systems should decay through time, giving less, not more, order. Roger Lewin, A Downward Slope to Greater Diversity, Science, vol. 217, 24 September, 1982, p.1239

1983 If there were a basic principle of matter which somehow drove organic systems toward life, its existence should easily be demonstrable in the laboratory. One could, for instance, take a swimming bath to represent the primordial soup. Fill it with any chemicals of a non-biological nature you please. Pump any gases over it, or through it, you please, and shine any kind of radiation on it that takes your fancy. Let the experiment proceed for a year and see how many of those 2,000 enzymes [proteins produced by living cells] have appeared in the bath. I will give the answer, and so save the time and trouble and expense of actually doing the experiment. You will find nothing at all, except possibly for a tarry sludge composed of amino acids and other simple organic chemicals. Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, Michael Joseph, London, 1983, p. 20-21.]

1983 Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed
from pre-existing species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence. Douglas J. Futuyma, Science on Trial, Pantheon Books, New York, 1983, p. 197.

1983 Another evolutionary principle is therefore needed to take us across the gap from mixtures of simple natural chemicals to the first effective replicator. This principle has not yet been described in detail or demonstrated, but it is anticipated, and given names such as chemical evolution and self-organization of matter. The existence of the principle is taken for granted in the philosophy of dialectical materialism, as applied to the origin of life by Alexander Oparin. Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Sceptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Summit Books, New York, 1986, p. 207.

1984 In 1973, I proposed that our Universe had been created spontaneously from nothing (ex nihilo), as a result of established principles of physics. ... 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. E.P. Tryon (Professor of Physics, City University of New York, USA), What Made the World?, New Scientist, Mar 8, 1984, p.14.

1984 Now and then a scientist stumbles across a fact that seems to solve one of the greatest 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 Digest, Mar/Apr 1984,.p.23.

1984 His theory had, in essence, preceded his knowledge - that is, he had hit upon a novel and evocative theory of evolution with limited knowledge at hand to satisfy either himself or others that the theory was true. He could neither accept it himself nor prove it to others. He simply did not know enough concerning the several natural history fields upon which his theory would have to be based. Dr. Barry Gale (Science Historian, Darwin College, UK) in his book, Evolution Without Evidence, As quoted in John Lofton's Journal, The Washington Times, Feb 8, 1984.

1984 In honest moments we must admit that the history of complex life is more a story of multifarious variation about a set of basic design than a saga of accumulating excellence. Stephen Gould, The Ediscaran Experiment, Natural History, February 1984, p. 22

1984 The heart of the problem is how the mitochondria have acquired this feature, because attaining this feature by chance even by one individual, requires extreme probabilities that are incomprehensible... The enzymes providing respiration and functioning as a catalyst in each step in a different form make up the core of the mechanism. A cell has to contain this enzyme sequence completely, otherwise it is meaningless. Here, despite being contrary to biological thought, in order to avoid a more dogmatic explanation or speculation, we have to accept, though reluctantly, that all the respiration enzymes completely existed in the cell before the cell first came in contact with oxygen. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 94-95.

1985 If it is true that an influx of doubt and uncertainty actually marks periods of healthy growth in science, then evolutionary biology is flourishing today as it seldom has in the past. For biologists are collectively less agreed upon the details of evolutionary mechanics than they were a scant decade ago. Dr. Niles Eldridge; Biologists Face A New Theory Of Life's Origin; Princeton Univ. Press; 1985; Pg. 14

1987 I think the answer to this question is that current evolutionists follow Darwin's example, they refuse to accept falsifying evidence. S Lovtrup, Darwinism. The Refutation of a Myth, 1987, p. 352

1988 My good and kind agent for the propagation of the Gospel, the devil's gospel. Darwin, speaking about Huxley, Robert T. Clark and James D. Bales, Why Scientists Accept Evolution, 1988), pg. 45

1988 The discovery of Latimeria raised hopes of gathering direct information on the transition of fish to amphibians, for there was then a long-held belief that coelacanths were close to the ancestry of tetrapods. ...But studies of the anatomy and physiology of Latimeria have found this theoryof relationship to be wanting and the living coelacanth's reputation as a missing link seems unjustified. P. L. Forey, Nature, vol. 336, 1988, p. 727

1992 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, p. 257, 1992

1993 Archaeopteryx probably can't tell us much about the early origins of feathers and flight in true protobirds because Archaeopteryx was, in a modern sense, a bird. Evolutionist Alan Feducia, Science, 1993, 259:790-793

1997 We don't need evidence. We know it (evolution) to be true. Dawkins, Richard quoted by World, 3/22/1997

1998 Well, it seems to me that they have accepted that the fossil record doesn't give them the support they would value so they searched around to find another model and found one. ...When you haven't got the evidence, you make up a story that will fit the lack of evidence. Colin Patterson, British Museum National History. in Darwin's Enigma, p.100

2000 A study in the latest Science shows that natural selection can reshape organisms faster than even some diehard evolutionists might have predicted ... I think this will shake up a lot of people. Professor Andrew Hendry of U Mass-Amherst, in US News & World Report, Jan 24 2000, page 49

2000 The subject of evolution occupies a special, and paradoxical, place within biology as a whole. While the great majority of 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 a viable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one. Wilkins, Adam S., Evolutionary Processes, pp. 1051-105; BioEssays; Vol. 22 No.12 December, 2000

2000 DNA sequence analysis dictates new interpretation of phylogenic trees. Taxa that were once thought to represent successive grades of complexity at the base of the metazoan tree are being displaced to much higher positions inside the tree. This leaves no evolutionary ''intermediates'' and forces us to rethink the genesis of bilaterian complexity. The New Animal Phylogeny: Reliability And Implications, Proc. of Nat. Aca. of Sci., 25 April 2000, vol. 97, no. 9, pp. 4453-4456.

2001 Cladistic analyses of arthropod phylogeny revealed that trilobites, like eucrustaceans, are fairly advanced "twigs" on the arthropod tree. But fossils of these alleged ancestral arthropods are lacking. ...Even if evidence for an earlier origin is discovered, it remains a challenge to explain why so many animals should have increased in size and acquired shells within so short a time at the base of the Cambrian. Richard Fortey, The Cambrian Explosion Exploded, Science, vol. 293, no. 5529, 20 July 2001, pp. 438-439

2004 Has evolution been observed? (Dawkins quote) -- Evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening. Battle Over Evolution, Bill Moyers interviews Richard Dawkins , Now, 3 December 2004, PBS network

============================= Incomplete Citations (dates and/or citation unknown) ============

???? post-Darwinian biology is being carried out by people whose faith is in, almost, the deity of Darwin. Colin Patterson, The Listener (Senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, London.

???? ... 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 ... Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils ... I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument. Personal letter from Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at British Museum of Natural History in London, to L. Sunderland.

???? There's got to be a series of advantages all the way in the feather. If you can't think of one, then that's your problem not natural selection's problem. Natural Selection ... well I suppose that is sort of a matter of faith on my part since the theory is so coherent ... BBC Video clip -- How does evolution explain "novelties? http://www.arn.org/docs/dawkins.mpg

???? Thus, for example, a great English traveller, who lived for a considerable time on the west coast of Africa, says: "I consider the negro to be a lower species of man, and cannot make up my mind to look upon him as a man and a brother, for the gorilla would then also have to be admitted into the family." Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation, p. 365

???? The more one studies paleontology, 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. Louis Trenchard More, quoted in Science and the Two-tailed Dinosaur.

???? If mutation were a variation of value to the species, then the evolution of the Drosophila (fruit fly) should have proceeded with extreme rapidity. Yet the facts entirely contradict the validity of this theoretical deduction, for we have seen that the Drosophila type has been known since the beginning of the Tertiary period, that is for about 50 million years and it has not been modified in any way during that time". Michael Delsol, professor of biology at the University of Lyon, Encyclopedia of the life sciences, as quoted from http://www.wasdarwinright.com/adapt&mutate.htm.

???? 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. Personal letter from Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London to L. Sunderland.

???? I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, expecially the extent to which it's been applied, will become one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has. Malcom Muggeridge (world famous journalist and philosopher), Pascal Lectures, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

???? The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God. J. Kepler

???? We do not have any available fossil group which can categorically be claimed to be the ancestor of any other group. We do not have in the fossil record any specific point of divergence of one life form for another and generally each of the major life groups has retained its fundamental structural and physiological characteristics throughout its life history and has been conservative in habitat. Prof. Carter (Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge), in Structure and Habitat in Vertebrate Evolution



Lots more at:
http://www.bible.ca/tracks/fossil-record.htm
http://www.nwcreation.net/evolutionism.html
http://evolution-facts.org/Evolution-handbook/E-H-23a.htm




Geology

In conventional interpretation of K-Ar age data, it is common to discard ages which are substantially too high or too low compared with the rest of the group or with other available data such as the geological time scale. The discrepancies between the rejected and the accepted are arbitrarily attributed to excess or loss of argon. A. Hayatsu, "K-Ar Isochron Age of the North Mountain Basalt, Nova Scotia," in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Vol. 18, 1979, p. 974.

Fossils

…intermediate links?  Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic change, and this is perhaps the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory (of evolution). Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859, Chapter 11, On the imperfection of the geologic record

Most new species, genera, and families, and nearly all categories at the level of families, appear in the records suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.   George Gaylord Simpson, Ph.D. (Vertebrate Paleontology) (Was Agassiz Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University and also Professor of Geology at the University of Arizona, Tucson), in The Major Features of Evolution, 1953, p.360

Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of "seeing" evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of "gaps" in the fossil record.  Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them ...  David B. Kitts, Ph.D. (Zoology), Head Curator, Department of Geology, Stoval Museum; Evolution, vol. 28,Sept 74, p.467

Since 1859 one of the most vexing properties of the fossil record has been its obvious imperfection ... The inability of the fossil record to produce the "missing links" has been taken as solid evidence for disbelieving the theory. A.J. Boucot, Ph.D. (Geology) (Professor of Geology, Oregon State University) in Evolution and the Extinction Rate Controls, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1975, Pg. 196

All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt. Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University, The return of hopeful monsters, Natural History, vol. 86, Jun-Jul 77, p.24

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.  We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favoured account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study. Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University, Natural History, vol. 86 (5), May 1977, p.14

... most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument made in favor of Darwinian interpretations of the history of life.  Unfortunately, this is not strictly true.   Dr. David Raup; Curator, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology.  Field Museum of Natural History, Bulletin, Vol. 50 (1), 1979, pp.22-29

... our ability to classify both living and fossil species distinctly and using the same criteria fit splendidly with creationist tenets.  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. 88 (7), 1979, pp.18-26

... Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge ofthe fossil record has been greatly expanded ... ironically, we have even fewerexamples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time.  By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information. Dr. David Raup, Curator, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology.  Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol. 50 (1), 1979, p.25.

The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.  Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University, Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?, Paleobiology, Vol. 6, Jan 1980, p.127

Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study. Steven Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb, 1982, pp. 181-2.

Cladistic analyses of arthropod phylogeny revealed that trilobites, like eucrustaceans, are fairly advanced "twigs" on the arthropod tree. But fossils of these alleged ancestral arthropods are lacking. ...Even if evidence for an earlier origin is discovered, it remains a challenge to explain why so many animals should have increased in size and acquired shells within so short a time at the base of the Cambrian. Richard Fortey, "The Cambrian Explosion Exploded?," Science, vol. 293, no. 5529, 20 July 2001, pp. 438-439



Cosmology

1997 Indeed, it takes almost suicidal courage to leave the herd and challenge the authority of the astrophysical establishment. Typically, papers expressing genuinely new ideas are refused publication by referees of reputable scientific journals on the ground that they undermine the generally accepted principles of physics. Those who persist in writing such papers are usually sidelined from the astronomical community by their peers. Hawkins, Michael (1997) Hunting Down the Universe: the missing mass, primordial black holes and other dark matters. Little, Brown 278p.]


Genetics