Stephen E. Jones

Creation/Evolution Quotes: Creation #1

[Quotes main page][Creation, #2, #3, #4]

Creation #1:

1. Only alternative to evolution
• The only alternative to evolution by natural causes is to invoke supernatural causes
2. Rejected
• As "incredible"
• Evolution is "accepted not because it can be proved ... to be true but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible"
3. Some non-theist scientists advocate creation
• "In our present state of knowledge, creation is the only answer"
• Even creation ex nihilo (from nothing)
4. Difficulty understanding not argument against
• The universe may not only be queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose
5. Science
• Christian worldview basis of empirical science
• The Christian world gave birth to the experimental method of science
6. Supernatural
• Origin of universe
• "The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural"
• Science cannot rule out that there may have been supernatural interventions in life's history
• "[T]here are no sure marks of natural, as opposed to artificial, selection"

Creation #1:

1. The only alternative to naturalistic evolution
• The only alternative to evolution by natural causes is to invoke supernatural causes

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

2. Rejected
• As "incredible"
• Evolution is "accepted not because it can be proved ... to be true but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible"

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

3. Some non-theist scientists advocate creation
• "In our present state of knowledge, creation is the only answer"

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

• Even creation ex nihilo (from nothing)

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

4. Our difficulty of understanding how creation can have occurred is no argument against it having occurred
• The universe may not only be queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose

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

5. Science
• Christian worldview basis of empirical science
• The Christian world gave birth to the experimental method of science

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

6. Supernatural
• Origin of universe
• "The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural"

"The test of extrapolation to the most distant future does not, I think, disclose any definite weakness in the present system of science-in particular, in the second law of thermodynamics on which physical science so largely relies. It is true that the extrapolation foretells that the material universe will some day arrive at a state of dead sameness and so virtually come to an end, to my mind that is a rather happy avoidance of a nightmare of eternal repetition. It is the opposite extrapolation towards the past which gives real cause to suspect a weakness in the present conceptions of science. The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural. We may have to let it go at that." (late Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University]., "The Expanding Universe," Penguin: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1940, p.117) [Top of page]

• Science cannot rule out that there may have been supernatural interventions in life's history
• "[T]here are no sure marks of natural, as opposed to artificial, selection"

"Indeed, all the biologists I have queried on this point have agreed with me that there are no sure marks of natural, as opposed to artificial, selection. In chapter 5, we traded in the concept of strict biological possibility and impossibility for a graded notion of biological probability, but even in its terms, it is not clear how one could grade organisms as "probably" or "very probably" or "extremely probably" the products of artificial selection. Should this conclusion be viewed as a terrible embarrassment to the evolutionists in their struggle against creationists? One can imagine the headlines: "Scientists Concede: Darwinian Theory Cannot Disprove Intelligent Design!" It would be foolhardy, however, for any defender of neo-Darwinism to claim that contemporary evolution theory gives one the power to read history so finely from present data as to rule out the earlier historical presence of rational designers-a wildly implausible fantasy, but a possibility after all." (Dennett, Daniel C.[Darwinist philosopher and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University, USA], "Darwin 's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and The Meanings of Life," [1995], Penguin: London, 1996, reprint, pp.317-318) [Top of page]

* Authors with an asterisk against their name are believed to be creationists.