Creation/Evolution Quotes:
Creation #2: Evidence Creation/Evolution Quotes:
Creation #2: Evidence[Quotes main page][Creation, #1, #3, #4]
"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going." (Crick, Francis H.C. [Co- discoverer of the structure of DNA, Nobel laureate 1962, Professor at the Salk Institute, USA], "Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1981, p.88).
[Top of page]"Looking at the SETI project from a biologist's point of view in Essay 4, I demonstrate that each step leading to the evolution of intelligent life on earth was highly improbable and that the evolution of the human species was the result of a sequence of thousands of these highly improbable steps. It is a miracle that man ever happened, and it would be an even greater miracle if such a sequence of improbabilities had been repeated anywhere else." (Mayr E. [Emeritus Professor of Zoology, Harvard University], "Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist," Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA, 1988, p5).
[Top of page]"As you are reading these words, you are taking part in one of the wonders of the natural world. For you and I belong to a species with a remarkable ability: we can shape events in each other's brains with exquisite precision. I am not referring to telepathy or mind control or the other obsessions of fringe science; even in the depictions of believers these are blunt instruments compared to an ability that is uncontroversially present in every one of us. That ability is language. Simply by making noises with our mouths, we can reliably cause precise new combinations of ideas to arise in each other's minds. The ability comes so naturally that we are apt to forget what a miracle it is." (Pinker, Steven [Professor of Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA]., "The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind," [1994], Penguin: London, 2000, reprint, p.1)
[Top of page]"...the second law of thermodynamics states that for irreversible processes in any closed system left to itself, the entropy (loss of available heat energy) will increase with time; thus the universe, viewed as such a system, is moving to the condition of maximum entropy (heat death): but (and this is the significant aspect of the matter for our purposes) if the irreversible process had begun an infinite time ago-if, in other words, the universe were untreated and eternal-the earth would already have reached maximum entropy; and since this is not the case, we are driven to the conclusion that the universe is indeed contingent and finite, and requires a creative force from the outside to have brought it into existence." (Montgomery, John Warwick * [Dean and Professor of Law, Simon Greenleaf School of Law, California], ed., "Christianity for the Tough Minded: Essays in Support of an Intellectually Defensible Religious Commitment," [1973], Bethany House: Minneapolis MN, 1982, reprint, p26)
[Top of page]"Similarly the theory recently suggested by Einstein and de Sitter, that in the beginning all the matter created was projected with a radial motion so as to disperse even faster than the present rate of dispersal of the galaxies, leaves me cold. One cannot deny the possibility, but it is difficult to see what mental satisfaction such a theory is supposed to afford. Since I cannot avoid introducing this question of a beginning, it has seemed to me that the most satisfactory theory would be one which made the beginning not too unaesthetically abrupt." (Eddington, Sir Arthur [late Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University]., "The Expanding Universe," Penguin: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1940, p.58. Emphasis in original).
[Top of page]"...so we have now what we believe is strong evidence for life on Earth 3,800 thousand million years [ago]. This brings the theory for the Origin of Life on Earth down to a very narrow range. Allowing half a billion years (for the disturbed conditions described above) we are now thinking, in geochemical terms, of instant life..." (Ponnamperuma, Cyril [Director of Chemical Evolution Branch, NASA Ames Research Center, California], Broadcast Interview, Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, January 1980, in Hoyle F. & Wickramasinghe C., "Evolution from Space," [1981], Paladin: London, 1983, reprint, p.p79-80)
[ Top of page]"The biggest physical storm occurring in ten years usually produces as much change as all the rest put together. And the biggest in a hundred years as much or more than all the rest. And, perhaps, even the biggest in a thousand years.... Something of the same sort seems to happen with evolution. The fine-tuning of genes produces small changes. The addition of entirely new genes, perhaps whole batteries of new genes, produces large changes, grafted onto the genetic complement of an already existing organism." (Hoyle, Fred [late mathematician, physicist and Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University], "Mathematics of Evolution," [1987], Acorn Enterprises: Memphis TN, 1999, pp.xv. Ellipses in original.).
[Top of page]"Palaeobiologists flocked to these scientific visions of a world in a constant state of flux and admixture. But instead of finding the slow, smooth and progressive changes Lyell and Darwin had expected, they saw in the fossil records rapid bursts of change, new species appearing seemingly out of nowhere and then remaining unchanged for millions of years-patterns hauntingly reminiscent of creation." (Pagel M. [Research fellow, Department of Zoology and Hertford College, Oxford University], "Happy accidents?" Review of "The Pattern of Evolution" by Niles Eldredge, W.H. Freeman 1999. Nature, Vol 397, 25 February 1999, p.665)
[ Top of page]"This notion of species as `natural kinds' fits splendidly with creationist tenets of a pre-Darwinian age. Louis Agassiz even argued that species are God's individual thoughts, made incarnate so that we might perceive both His majesty and His message. Species, Agassiz wrote, are "instituted by the Divine Intelligence as the categories of his mode of thinking." 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? Both Darwin and Lamarck struggled with this question and did not resolve it to their satisfaction. Both denied to the species any status as a natural kind." (Gould, Stephen J. [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University], "A Quahog is a Quahog," in "The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History," [1980], Penguin: London, 1990, reprint, pp.170-171)
[Top of page]* Authors with an asterisk against their name are believed to be creationists.
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