Knock knock. Who's there? Duane. Duane who?Duane the tub I'm dwowning. :shut:
One of my favorite places to visit is the Royal Tyrell Museum], in Drumheller Alberta. You just have to spend a few hours there to understand just how transitory life has been on Earth, 550 million years ago many species were very different than today. The basic plans of the phylums was laid out then, but nature has been making variations on those themes since. And you can follow the patterns across hundreds of millions of years, it’s clear this process has been going on for a very long time.
Knock knock. Who's there? Duane. Duane who?Duane the tub I'm dwowning. :shut: Are you the "god of the gaps" in my evolved/(or mutated) sense of humor?
Always gotta ask this one. Why are you here Pahu? What is to be gained by talking to us about this topic? How will benefit you or anyone if you even make one slightly plausible point?
What I don't understand about all these creationist types is, why would their god give humans reason, creativity, the scientific method, etc. only so that they would NOT use it and instead resort to fairy tales that are so easy to come up with. I mean if I were the big god, and created this incredible machine that produces creative, reasoning, beings, I wouldn't want them wasting their lives fearing me, praying to me, etc. I'd want them to use the gifts I gave them to figure out the big puzzle and help each other using the tools I've given them. I'd be pissed that these creationists have such low regard for Me that they think I'm just some higher form of street magician. So Pahu, answer me this - why do you belittle God with all this simpleton creationist talk? Why do you think so little of Her?You're assuming the OP can think independently. So far all I've seen is copy-and-paste from Creationist web sites.
You're assuming the OP can think independently. So far all I've seen is copy-and-paste from Creationist web sites.Also, at the time monotheism was created, gods did everything, the weather, your feelings, there was a god for everything. Human ingenuity and individual accomplishment weren't really highly regarded. We didn't yet know what we could do on our own. Now that we've figured it out, the major religions are pretty entrenched, so they are claiming that even those things we did do, are the somehow the result of God's power.
Pahu wrote “Sex is something of an embarrassment to evolutionary biologists. Textbooks understandably skirt the issue, keeping it a closely guarded secret." Kathleen McAuliffe --- I have a friend who is an evolutionary biologist. He says neither he nor his colleagues have ever been embarrassed by sex in or out of the lab or academia. He has never heard any biological scientst say such a thing. Al of the quotations are taken out of context. Many of the older quotes, such as by Darwin, have been addressed by sciemtists in books and peer-reviewed journals, but you conveniently omit those responses.Please show us where the quotes have changed the meanings of the contexts.
How about breaking down your posts into one topic and one or two quotes? It is impossible for anyone to adequately respond to a long screed such as you have submitted here. This is another way to pretend your citations and positions are valid and irrefutable. No valid scientist or scientific journalist would vomit up a screed like the ones you have submitted here, and with no context whatsoever. The technique you use is common among creationists, none of whom have a leg to stand on.I am merely giving you information showing that science disproves evolution.
What I don't understand about all these creationist types is, why would their god give humans reason, creativity, the scientific method, etc. only so that they would NOT use it and instead resort to fairy tales that are so easy to come up with. I mean if I were the big god, and created this incredible machine that produces creative, reasoning, beings, I wouldn't want them wasting their lives fearing me, praying to me, etc. I'd want them to use the gifts I gave them to figure out the big puzzle and help each other using the tools I've given them. I'd be pissed that these creationists have such low regard for Me that they think I'm just some higher form of street magician. So Pahu, answer me this - why do you belittle God with all this simpleton creationist talk? Why do you think so little of Her?I do not think revealing the facts of creation belittles the Creator.
I'm pretty sure that's the point, to use the shotgun effect to make it as difficult as possible to respond without spending the better part of day on it.http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop No, that is not the point. The point is simply to reveal the fact that science disproves evolution.
... First and foremost, evolution is a scientific fact.SCIENTISTS SPEAK ABOUT EVOLUTION Top-flight scientists have something to tell you about evolution. Such statements will never be found in the popular magazines, alongside gorgeous paintings of ape-man and Big Bangs and solemn pronouncements about millions of years for this rock and that fish. Instead they are generally reserved only for professional books and journals. Most scientists are working in very narrow fields; they do not see the overall picture, and assume, even though their field does not prove evolution, that perhaps other areas of science probably vindicate it. They are well-meaning men. The biologists and geneticists know their facts, and research does not prove evolution, but assume that geology does. The geologists know their field does not prove evolution, but hope that the biologists and geneticists have proven it. Those who do know the facts, fear to disclose them to the general public, lest they be fired. But they do write articles in their own professional journals and books, condemning evolutionary theory. Included below are a number of admissions by leading evolutionists of earlier decades, such as *Charles Darwin, *Austin Clark, or *Fred Hoyle. The truth is that evolutionists cannot make scientific facts fit the theory. An asterisk ( * ) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the set of books this Encyclopedia is based on, only 164 statements are by creationists. "The Darwinian theory of descent has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of imagination."—*Dr. Fleischman [Erlangen zoologist]. "It is almost invariably assumed that animals with bodies composed of a single cell represent the primitive animals from which all others derived. They are commonly supposed to have preceded all other animal types in their appearance. There is not the slightest basis for this assumption."—*Austin Clark, The New Evolution (1930), pp. 235-236. "The hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present, still an article of faith."—*J.W.N. Sullivan, The Limitations of Science (1933), p. 95. "Where are we when presented with the mystery of life? We find ourselves facing a granite wall which we have not even chipped . . We know virtually nothing of growth, nothing of life."—*W. Kaempffert, "The Greatest Mystery of All: The Secret of Life," New York Times. " `The theory of evolution is totally inadequate to explain the origin and manifestation of the inorganic world.' "—Sir John Ambrose Fleming, F.R.S., quoted in H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation (1966), p. 91 [discoverer of the thermionic valve]. "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. Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physics Bulletin, 31 (1980), p. 138. "I am not satisfied that Darwin proved his point or that his influence in scientific and public thinking has been beneficial . . the success of Darwinism was accomplished by a decline in scientific integrity."—*W.R. Thompson, Introduction to *Charles Darwin's, Origin of the Species [Canadian scientist]. "One of the determining forces of scientism was a fantastic accidental imagination which could explain every irregularity in the solar system without explanation, leap the gaps in the atomic series without evidence [a gap required by the Big Bang theory], postulate the discovery of fossils which have never been discovered, and prophesy the success of breeding experiments which have never succeeded. Of this kind of science it might truly be said that it was `knowledge falsely so called.' "—*David C.C. Watson, The Great Brain Robbery (1976). "The hold of the evolutionary paradigm [theoretical system] is so powerful that an idea which is more like a principle of medieval astrology than a serious twentieth century scientific theory has become a reality for evolutionary biologists."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 306 [Australian molecular biologist]. "The particular truth is simply that we have no reliable evidence as to the evolutionary sequence . . One can find qualified professional arguments for any group being the descendant of almost any other."—J. Bonner, "Book Review," American Scientist, 49:1961, p. 240. "It was because Darwinian theory broke man's link with God and set him adrift in a cosmos without purpose or end that its impact was so fundamental. No other intellectual revolution in modern times . . so profoundly affected the way men viewed themselves and their place in the universe."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 67 [Australian molecular biologist]. "I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning, consequently assumed 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 there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do . . For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom."—*Aldous Huxley, "Confessions of a Professed Atheist," Report: Perspective on the News, Vol. 3, June 1966, p. 19 [grandson of evolutionist Thomas Huxley, Darwin's closest friend and promoter, and brother of evolutionist Julian Huxley. Aldous Huxley was one of the most influential liberal writers of the 20th century]. "Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless."—*Bounoure, Le Monde Et La Vie (October 1963) [Director of Research at the National center of Scientific Research in France]. "As by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed. Why do we not find them embedded in the crust of the earth? Why is not all nature in confusion [of halfway species] instead of being, as we see them, well-defined species?"—*Charles Darwin, quoted in H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation (1966), p. 139. " `Creation,' in the ordinary sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in conceiving that, at some former period, this universe was not in existence; and that it made its appearance in six days . . in consequence of the volition of some pre-existing Being."—*Thomas Huxley, quoted in *Leonard Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, Vol. II (1903), p. 429. "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."—*Albert Fleishmann, Zoologist. "I argue that the `theory of evolution' does not take predictions, so far as ecology is concerned, but is instead a logical formula which can be used only to classify empiricisms [theories] and to show the relationships which such a classification implies . . these theories are actually tautologies and, as such, cannot make empirically testable predictions. They are not scientific theories at all."—*R.H. Peters, "Tautology in Evolution and Ecology," American Naturalist (1976), Vol. 110, No. 1, p. 1 [emphasis his]. "Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation."—*Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe (1981), p. 19. "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 in with it."—*H. Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physics Bulletin, 31 (1980), p. 138. "When Darwin presented a paper [with Alfred Wallace] to the Linnean Society in 1858, a Professor Haugton of Dublin remarked, `All that was new was false, and what was true was old.' This, we think, will be the final verdict on the matter, the epitaph on Darwinism."—*Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), p. 159. "Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. 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 have been created by some omnipotent intelligence."—*D.J. Futuyma, Science on Trial (1983), p. 197. "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 Eisley, The Immense Journey, (1957), p. 199. "The over-riding supremacy of the myth has created a widespread illusion that the theory of evolution was all but proved one hundred years ago and that all subsequent biological research—paleontological, zoological, and in the newer branches of genetics and molecular biology—has provided ever-increasing evidence for Darwinian ideas."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 327. "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), pp. 101-102. "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 and extrapolations that the 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 falsity of their beliefs."—*Pierre-Paul de Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms (1977), p. 8. "The evolution theory can by no means be regarded as an innocuous natural philosophy, but that it is a serious obstruction to biological research. It obstructs—as has been repeatedly shown—the attainment of consistent results, even from uniform experimental material. For everything must ultimately be forced to fit this theory. An exact biology cannot, therefore, be built up."—*H. Neilsson, Synthetische Artbuilding, 1954, p. 11. http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/01-evol1.htm
Are you the "god of the gaps"?God of the gaps is an argument often made by evolutionists meant to portray that God is merely an argument from ignorance and that science will eventually solve these gaps. Through this, they wish to make a contrast between religious explanations and natural explanations. According to evolutionists, this being would halt the process of science because anything can be explained by God and thus is of little explanatory power. In actuality, creationists such as Isaac Newton have long thought that such scientific discoveries helped them understand the Creator's thoughts and actions when the universe was created. The argument goes like this: “Creationism is not valid, because it merely sticks "God" into the gaps in science. " It is meant to say that because science cannot know something yet, the creationist just ignorantly injects God as the explanation. However it is just as equal to say that there is a philosophical naturalism of the gaps where evolutionists just assume some natural mechanism is responsible even though no direct observation has occurred. In other words, evolutionists employ such an argument as a way to imply that God does not exist. If God did exist and created even a small thing then this intervention would mean that there is something that cannot be possibly explained by naturalistic processes. Flaws of the Argument Flaws in the argument include: Double standard: While evolutionists accuse creationists of making a "god of the gaps" argument, evolutionists are making an "evolution of the gaps" argument. Just as the creationist says, "I don't know how it actually happened, but I know God did it and it didn't evolve," The evolutionist says, "I don't know how it actually happened, but I know it evolved and God didn't do it." The only important fact is that there are gaps. Excluding action by God from the definition of science: The argument assumes that it is unscientific to credit God with acting in the universe. But certainly if God were to act in the universe, then science would have to acknowledge and even study those acts. The argument that it is unscientific to admit acts of God into science is premised on the philosophical assumption that God either does not exist or does not act in the universe. See Supernaturalism for a more complete discussion. Expanding gaps: The god of the gaps argument assumes that it is inappropriate to credit God with acts because those beliefs are just "gaps in science." The unstated assumption, however, is that science will one day fill those gaps, and more specifically, fill those gaps with evolution. If the gaps were shrinking, perhaps this argument would carry some weight. But in fact, with scientific discovery, the gaps in our knowledge are expanding, and thus the "god of the gaps" is getting bigger. The more we study life, the more complex, intricate, and beautiful we realize it is, the more we discover exactly how impossible the theory of evolution is, and the more we learn about the power and intelligence of the Creator. Expected gaps: The last issue is one of predictions and consistency. Creationism makes a limited number of claims about what God did. It claims that he created life (and life cannot arise spontaneously), that the forms of life were created fully formed and separate (and thus all life is not related), and that the dominant trend in genetics is one of genetic entropy rather than increases in information and complexity. The longer evolutionists fail to fill these "gaps," the more reasonable it is to believe that those gaps in evolution are permanent, because evolution did not occur. http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/quotereply/222881/
Always gotta ask this one. Why are you here Pahu? What is to be gained by talking to us about this topic? How will benefit you or anyone if you even make one slightly plausible point?I believe if we know the truth our behavior will reflect that truth. I am simply sharing the truth.
You're assuming the OP can think independently. So far all I've seen is copy-and-paste from Creationist web sites.Also, at the time monotheism was created, gods did everything, the weather, your feelings, there was a god for everything. Human ingenuity and individual accomplishment weren't really highly regarded. We didn't yet know what we could do on our own. Now that we've figured it out, the major religions are pretty entrenched, so they are claiming that even those things we did do, are the somehow the result of God's power. That is accurate considering the fact God is the creator of everything and everyone including our minds.
Hey, Sparky, are you capable of thinking for yourself or do you just repeat what you’ve been told? (That’s a rhetorical question.)
Always gotta ask this one. Why are you here Pahu? What is to be gained by talking to us about this topic? How will benefit you or anyone if you even make one slightly plausible point?I believe if we know the truth our behavior will reflect that truth. I am simply sharing the truth.Let's be honest. You're here to score points with your supposed god. Plain and simple and selfish. ;)
Pahu wrote “Sex is something of an embarrassment to evolutionary biologists. Textbooks understandably skirt the issue, keeping it a closely guarded secret." Kathleen McAuliffe --- I have a friend who is an evolutionary biologist. He says neither he nor his colleagues have ever been embarrassed by sex in or out of the lab or academia. He has never heard any biological scientst say such a thing. Al of the quotations are taken out of context. Many of the older quotes, such as by Darwin, have been addressed by sciemtists in books and peer-reviewed journals, but you conveniently omit those responses.Please show us where the quotes have changed the meanings of the contexts.
How about breaking down your posts into one topic and one or two quotes? It is impossible for anyone to adequately respond to a long screed such as you have submitted here. This is another way to pretend your citations and positions are valid and irrefutable. No valid scientist or scientific journalist would vomit up a screed like the ones you have submitted here, and with no context whatsoever. The technique you use is common among creationists, none of whom have a leg to stand on.I am merely giving you information showing that science disproves evolution. All we are requesting is that you present your questions one by one and we can explore them with you. "Disproving" anything is not as simple as blasting a tirade of negative "evidence" all at once.
Always gotta ask this one. Why are you here Pahu? What is to be gained by talking to us about this topic? How will benefit you or anyone if you even make one slightly plausible point?I believe if we know the truth our behavior will reflect that truth. I am simply sharing the truth. You mean- what you already think to be the truth. And its good to question anything you want. But to state up front that you are "sharing the truth" doesn't send the message of genuine inquiry. Why not just ask your questions case by case in a genuine way and see what comes out of it?
My responses are in italics.
Are you the "god of the gaps"?God of the gaps is an argument often made by evolutionists meant to portray that God is merely an argument from ignorance and that science will eventually solve these gaps. Through this, they wish to make a contrast between religious explanations and natural explanations. According to evolutionists, this being would halt the process of science because anything can be explained by God and thus is of little explanatory power. In actuality, creationists such as Isaac Newton have long thought that such scientific discoveries helped them understand the Creator's thoughts and actions when the universe was created. The argument goes like this: “Creationism is not valid, because it merely sticks "God" into the gaps in science. " It is meant to say that because science cannot know something yet, the creationist just ignorantly injects God as the explanation. However it is just as equal to say that there is a philosophical naturalism of the gaps where evolutionists just assume some natural mechanism is responsible even though no direct observation has occurred. In other words, evolutionists employ such an argument as a way to imply that God does not exist. If God did exist and created even a small thing then this intervention would mean that there is something that cannot be possibly explained by naturalistic processes. Flaws of the Argument Flaws in the argument include: Double standard: While evolutionists accuse creationists of making a "god of the gaps" argument, evolutionists are making an "evolution of the gaps" argument. Just as the creationist says, "I don't know how it actually happened, but I know God did it and it didn't evolve," The evolutionist says, "I don't know how it actually happened, but I know it evolved and God didn't do it." The only important fact is that there are gaps. Or we can just say, we are lacking some information here and we don't know how to explain such and such thing yet. The reason we would still posit evolution as the over-arching theory is because of its predictive success and a preponderance of evidence from a number of branches of scientific inquiry that point to the same thing. There may be a gap in our knowledge somewhere, and if you think you have an alternate explanation go get your Nobel Price and replace the theory of evolution by natural selection. Just realize that it also has to explain everything just as well and better than evolution does. Excluding action by God from the definition of science: The argument assumes that it is unscientific to credit God with acting in the universe. But certainly if God were to act in the universe, then science would have to acknowledge and even study those acts. The argument that it is unscientific to admit acts of God into science is premised on the philosophical assumption that God either does not exist or does not act in the universe. See Supernaturalism for a more complete discussion. Scientific inquiry is evidence based. If you want to put god into the equation then you will need to explain god and provide evidence for her. Why can't I just say that the polka dot fantom filled dress on Mars did it? If you open up the gates to Supernaturalism just realize that just about anything goes. Expanding gaps: The god of the gaps argument assumes that it is inappropriate to credit God with acts because those beliefs are just "gaps in science." The unstated assumption, however, is that science will one day fill those gaps, and more specifically, fill those gaps with evolution. If the gaps were shrinking, perhaps this argument would carry some weight. But in fact, with scientific discovery, the gaps in our knowledge are expanding, and thus the "god of the gaps" is getting bigger. The more we study life, the more complex, intricate, and beautiful we realize it is, the more we discover exactly how impossible the theory of evolution is, and the more we learn about the power and intelligence of the Creator. My recommendation is to read some books. Actually the more the years go on the more evidence we are getting for evolution. Its only getting stronger, not weaker. But maybe you think that way because most of your citations are from the 80s and earlier. By the way its not that we are filling gaps with "evolution." We are filling gaps with scientific facts. Evolution by natural selection is just the overarching theory. The "gaps" are the details which are getting filled quite well actually with good evidence. Expected gaps: The last issue is one of predictions and consistency. Creationism makes a limited number of claims about what God did. It claims that he created life (and life cannot arise spontaneously), that the forms of life were created fully formed and separate (and thus all life is not related), and that the dominant trend in genetics is one of genetic entropy rather than increases in information and complexity. The longer evolutionists fail to fill these "gaps," the more reasonable it is to believe that those gaps in evolution are permanent, because evolution did not occur. By creationism I am assuming you are talking about Genesis based creationism, which comes from a literal reading of Genesis chapters 1-2. First you would need to validate your presuppositions of why we should trust this book, who its author(s) were, and if those passages should even be taken literally to begin with. I think St. Augustine for one, did not take a literal stance. Even if you do not think life can arise spontaneously, what if god just got the replicators going and the rest is explained by the theory of evolution. Remember the theory of evolution by natural selection addresses the diversity of life, not the origin of life. You can definitely have increases in information and complexity. Ever heard of horizontal gene transfer? http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/quotereply/222881/ After reading your posts, its clear where you are coming from. I used to be there too :). But then I read numerous books and actually got educated on how the science works and yes its pretty solid science. So solid, you can call evolution by natural selection a fact.
After reading your posts, its clear where you are coming from. I used to be there too :). But then I read numerous books and actually got educated on how the science works and yes its pretty solid science. So solid, you can call evolution by natural selection a fact.Perhaps the books you are reading are wrong. Here is what scientists say about evolution: <span style="color:red]SCIENTISTS SPEAK ABOUT EVOLUTION"> There are scientists all over the world who know that evolutionary theory is bankrupt. Such men as *Charles Darwin, *Thomas and *Julian Huxley, and *Steven Jay Gould have admitted it. But you will not find these statements in the popular press. Such admissions are only made to fellow professionals. An asterisk ( * ) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the set of books this Encyclopedia is based on, only 164 statements are by creationists. "Paleontologists [fossil experts] 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. 181-182 [Harvard professor and the leading evolutionary spokesman of the latter half of the twentieth century]. "The problem of the origin of species has not advanced in the last 150 years. One hundred and fifty years have already passed during which it has been said that the evolution of the species is a fact but, without giving real proofs of it and without even a principle of explaining it. During the last one hundred and fifty years of research that has been carried out along this line [in order to prove the theory], there has been no discovery of anything. It is simply a repetition in different ways of what Darwin said in 1859. This lack of results is unforgivable in a day when molecular biology has really opened the veil covering the mystery of reproduction and heredity . . "Finally, there is only one attitude which is possible as I have just shown: It consists in affirming that intelligence comes before life. Many people will say this is not science, it is philosophy. The only thing I am interested in is fact, and this conclusion comes out of an analysis and observation of the facts."—*G. Salet, Hasard et Certitude: Le Transformisme devant la Biologie Actuelle (1973), p. 331. "The theories of evolution, with which our studious youth have been deceived, constitute actually a dogma that all the world continues to teach; but each, in his specialty, the zoologist or the botanist, ascertains that none of the explanations furnished is adequate . . It results from this summary, that the theory of evolution is impossible."—*P. Lemoine, "Introduction: De L' Evolution?" Encyclopedie Francaise, Vol. 5 (1937), p. 6. "Darwinism is a creed not only with scientists committed to document the all-purpose role of natural selection. It is a creed with masses of people who have at best a vague notion of the mechanism of evolution as proposed by Darwin, let alone as further complicated by his successors. Clearly, the appeal cannot be that of a scientific truth but of a philosophical belief which is not difficult to identify. Darwinism is a belief in the meaninglessness of existence."—*R. Kirk, "The Rediscovery of Creation," in National Review, (May 27, 1983), p. 641. "I have always been slightly suspicious of the theory of evolution because of its ability to account for any property of living beings (the long neck of the giraffe, for example). I have therefore tried to see whether biological discoveries over the last thirty years or so fit in with Darwin's theory. I do not think that they do. To my mind, the theory does not stand up at all."—*H. Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physic Bulletin, 31 (1980), p. 138. "Evolution is baseless and quite incredible."—*John Ambrose Fleming, President, British Association for Advancement of Science, in The Unleashing of Evolutionary Thought. "Unfortunately, in the field of evolution most explanations are not good. As a matter of fact, they hardly qualify as explanations at all; they are suggestions, hunches, pipe dreams, hardly worthy of being called hypotheses."—*Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried (1971), p. 147. "It is not the duty of science to defend the theory of evolution, and stick by it to the bitter end—no matter which illogical and unsupported conclusions it offers. On the contrary, it is expected that scientists recognize the patently obvious impossibility of Darwin's pronouncements and predictions . . Let's cut the umbilical cord that tied us down to Darwin for such a long time. It is choking us and holding us back."—I.L. Cohen, Darwin Was Wrong: A Study in Probabilities (1985). "This general tendency to eliminate, by means of unverifiable speculations, the limits of the categories Nature presents to us, is the inheritance of biology from The Origin of Species. To establish the continuity required by theory, historical arguments are invoked, even though historical evidence is lacking. Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypothesis based on hypothesis, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion."—*W.R. Thompson, "Introduction," to Everyman's Library issue of *Charles Darwin's, Origin of Species (1956 edition). " `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.' A tangled mishmash of guessing games and figure juggling [Tahmisian called it]."—*The Fresno Bee, August 20, 1959, p. 1-B [quoting T.N. Tahmisian, physiologist for the Atomic Energy Commission]. " `The theory [of evolution] is a scientific mistake.' "—*Louis Agassiz, quoted in H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation, (1966), p. 139. [Agassiz was a Harvard University professor and the pioneer in glaciation.] "[In Darwin's writings] possibilities were assumed to add up to probability, and probabilities then were promoted to certitudes."—*Agassiz, op. cit., p. 335. "The origin of all diversity among living beings remains a mystery as totally unexplained as if the book of Mr. Darwin had never been written, for no theory unsupported by fact, however plausible it may appear, can be admitted in science."—L. Agassiz on the Origin of Species, American Journal of Science, 30 (1860), p. 154. [Darwin's book was published in 1859.] "[Darwin could] summon up enough general, vague and conjectural reasons to account for this fact, and if these were not taken seriously, he could come up with a different, but equally general, vague and conjectural set of reasons."—*Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and Darwinian Revolution (1968), p. 319. "Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century . . the origin of life and of new beings on earth is still largely as enigmatic as when Darwin set sail on the [ship] Beagle."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1986), p. 358. "It has been estimated that no fewer than 800 phrases in the subjunctive mood (such as `Let us assume,' or `We may well suppose,' etc.) are to be found between the covers of Darwin's Origin of Species alone."—L. Merson Davies [British scientist], Modern Science (1953), p. 7. "I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know."—*Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," Discover 2(5):34-37 (1981). "Unfortunately for Darwin's future reputation, his life was spent on the problem of evolution which is deductive by nature . . It is absurd to expect that many facts will not always be irreconcilable with any theory of evolution and, today, every one of his theories is contradicted by facts."—*P.T. Mora, The Dogma of Evolution, p. 194. "Darwinism is a creed not only with scientists committed to document the all-purpose role of natural selection. It is a creed with masses of people who have, at best, a vague notion of the mechanism of evolution as proposed by Darwin, let alone as further complicated by his successors."—*S. Jaki, Cosmos and Creator (1982). "In essence, we contend that neo-Darwinism is a theory of differential survival and not one of origin . . "We are certainly not arguing here that differential survival of whole organisms does not occur. This must inevitably happen [i.e. some species become extinct]. The question that we must ask is, does this represent the controlling dynamic of organic evolution? Cannot a similar argument be equally well-constructed to `explain' any frequency distribution? For example, consider rocks which vary in hardness and also persist through time. Clearly the harder rocks are better `adapted' to survive harsh climatic conditions. As Lewontin points out, a similar story can be told about political parties, rumors, jokes, stars, and discarded soft drink containers."—*A.J. Hughes and *D. Lambert, "Functionalism, Structuralism, `Ways of Seeing,' " Journal of Theoretical Biology, 787 (1984), pp. 796-797. "Biologists have indeed built their advances in evolutionary theory on the Darwinian foundation, not realizing that the foundation is about to topple because of Darwin's three mistakes. "George Bernard Shaw wisecracked once that Darwin had the luck to please everybody who had an axe to grind. Well, I also have an axe to grind, but I am not pleased. We have suffered through two world wars and are threatened by an Armageddon. We have had enough of the Darwinian fallacy."—*Kenneth Hsu, "Reply," Geology, 15 (1987), p. 177. "Therefore, a grotesque account of a period some thousands of years ago is taken seriously though it be built by piling special assumptions on special assumptions, ad hoc hypothesis [invented for a purpose] on ad hoc hypothesis, and tearing apart the fabric of science whenever it appears convenient. The result is a fantasia which is neither history nor science."—*James Conant [chemist and former president, Harvard University], quoted in Origins Research, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1982, p. 2. "It is inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really saying anything—or at least they are not science."—*George G. Simpson, "The Nonprevalence of Humanoids," in Science, 143 (1964) p. 770. "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 approved."—*L.H. Matthews, "Introduction," Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (1971 edition). "Present-day ultra-Darwinism, which is so sure of itself, impresses incompletely informed biologists, misleads them, and inspires fallacious interpretations . . "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."—*Pierre P. de Grasse, The Evolution of Living Organisms (1977), p. 202. http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/01-evol2.htm
After reading your posts, its clear where you are coming from. I used to be there too :). But then I read numerous books and actually got educated on how the science works and yes its pretty solid science. So solid, you can call evolution by natural selection a fact.Perhaps the books you are reading are wrong. Here is what scientists say about evolution: Maybe. But have you read any evolutionary biology books yourself? Trust me, I was a creationist like yourself only a couple years ago or so. I was presented with similar lists of quotes from people in church and I ate it up. Until....I actually looked up the quotes in their context and read...believe it or not...books. Then I looked over some of the apologetic material I had, and realized how poorly construed some of the quotes were and how bad and unscholarly the conclusions were. I eventually put an "X" by just about each bullet point in the packets that I was given. Food for thought: http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/10_astounding_moments_in_a_creationist_textbook_revisting_emof_pandas_and_p Speaking of those scientists: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/12/darwin-day/ Oh and yes you mentioned Stephen Jay Gould. If you want to read a book how about this: http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Evolutionary-Theory-Stephen-Gould/dp/0674006135/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461697038&sr=1-6&keywords=stephen+jay+gould+books Only 1400 pages. Read that and tell me that he had significant doubts about the theory of evolution by natural selection. The debate isn't if evolution happened. It did. The debate is more about the mechanisms that explain how it happened. That is why you can find quotes that apparently make it seem that well known scientists "disagree" about evolution.