"But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" (Darwin C.R, letter to W. Graham, July 3rd, 1881, in Darwin F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. I., 1959, reprint, p.285).
[top]"This is typical of the way in which neo-Darwinism can 'explain' many of the observations of nature (I say 'explain' in quotes because, convincing as the bear story is, such explanations are really post-hoc rationalizations rather than true, known, reasons for what is observed)." (Leith, Brian [producer, Natural History Unit, BC, Bristol UK], "The Descent of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts about Darwinism," Collins: London, 1982, p.16)
[top]"Ironically it is this apparent strength of the theory-that it can explain so much- which may be its Achilles' heel. Neo-Darwinism is incredibly ambitious; it attempts to explain a vast part of reality, all the subtlety and complexity of nature, in one breath. But do all the individual pieces of this cosmic jigsaw puzzle actually fit together? It is all very well to half close your eyes and imagine you see a coherent picture, but what is it like in close-up?" (Leith, Brian [producer, Natural History Unit, BC, Bristol UK], "The Descent of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts about Darwinism," Collins: London, 1982, p.20).
[top]"As The Blob, of Steve McQueen's greatest triumph, so amply demonstrated, the more you encompass the more formless you become. Orzack accuses me of construing the modern synthesis too narrowly in describing a version championed only by Mayr and Fisher-a pair of unlikely bedfellows, I would have thought. Yet his version is so broad that he wins his own argument by internal definition, thus rendering it meaningless. (Gould, Stephen J. [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University], "But Not Wright Enough: Reply to Orzack," Paleobiology, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.131-134, 1981, p.131).
[top]"The primary problem with the [modern evolutionary] synthesis is that its makers established natural selection as the director of adaptive evolution by eliminating competing explanations, not by providing evidence that natural selection among 'random' mutations could, or did, account for observed adaptation (Box 2). Mayr remarked, 'As these non-Darwinian explanations were refuted during the synthesis ... natural selection automatically became the universal explanation of evolutionary change (together with chance factors).' Depriving the synthesis of plausible alternatives, which seemed such a triumph, in fact sowed the seeds of its faults." (Leigh, Egbert G., Jr. [Biologist, Smithsonian Institution, USA], "The modern synthesis, Ronald Fisher and creationism," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 14, No. 12, pp.495-498, December 1999, p.495. Ellipses Leigh's).
[top]"It looks to me as if Darwinians are like someone who, having observed that tugboats sometimes maneuver ocean liners in tight places by directing high-pressure streams of water at them, concludes that he has discovered the method by which the liners cross the Atlantic." (Van Inwagen P. [Professor of Philosophy, Notre Dame University], "Doubts About Darwinism," in Buell J. & Hearn V., eds., "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?" Foundation for Thought and Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, p186. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/fte/darwinism/chapter12.html)
[top]"The ability of species to adapt by changing one base pair at a time on any gene, and to do so with comparative rapidity if selective advantages are reasonably large, explains the fine details of the matching of many species to their environment. It was from the careful observation of such matchings by naturalists in the mid-nineteenth century that the Darwinian theory arose. Because the observations were made with extreme care, it was highly probable that immediate inferences drawn from them would prove to be correct, as the work of Chapters 3 to 6 shows to be the case. What was in no way guaranteed by the evidence, however, was that evolutionary inferences correctly made in the small for species and their varieties could be extrapolated to broader taxonomic categories, to kingdoms, divisions, classes, and orders. Yet this is what the Darwinian theory did, and it was by going far outside its guaranteed range of validity that the theory ran into controversies and difficulties which have never been cleared up over more than a century." (Hoyle, Fred [late mathematician, physicist and Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University], "Mathematics of Evolution," [1987], Acorn Enterprises: Memphis TN, 1999, p.137).
[top]"Present-day ultra-Darwinism, which is so sure of itself, impresses incompletely informed biologists, misleads them, and inspires fallacious interpretations." (Grasse, Pierre-P., [editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie," former Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p6)
[ top]"...we have proffered a collective tacit acceptance of the story of gradual adaptive change, a story that strengthened and became even more entrenched as the synthesis took hold. We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports that interpretation, all the while really knowing that it does not." (Eldredge, Niles, [Chairman and Curator of Invertebrates, American Museum of Natural History], "Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p144)
[ top]"There is indeed one belief that all true original Darwinians held in common, and that was their rejection of creationism, their rejection of special creation. This was the flag around which they assembled and under which they marched. When Hull claimed that "the Darwinians did not totally agree with each other, even over essentials" (1985:785), he overlooked one essential on which all these Darwinians agreed. Nothing was more essential for them than to decide whether evolution is a natural phenomenon or something controlled by God. The conviction that the diversity of the natural world was the result of natural processes and not the work of God was the idea that brought all the so-called Darwinians together in spite of their disagreements on other of Darwin's theories..." (Mayr, Ernst [Emeritus Professor of Zoology, Harvard University], "One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought," Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1991, p.99).
[top]"The truth of the matter is that unless a person is still an adherent of creationism and believes in the literal truth of every word in the Bible, every modern thinker-any modern person who has a worldview-is in the last analysis a Darwinian. The rejection of special creation, the inclusion of man into the realm of the living world (the elimination of the special position of man versus the animals), and various other beliefs of every enlightened modern person are ultimately all based on the consequences of the theories contained in the Origin of Species." (Mayr, Ernst [Emeritus Professor of Zoology, Harvard University], "One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought," Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA, 1991, p.104)
[top]* Authors with an asterisk against their name are believed not to be evolutionists.
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Created: 28 August, 1999. Updated: 17 August, 2003.