Stephen E. Jones

Creation/Evolution Quotes: Unclassified quotes: January-February 2005

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The following are unclassified quotes posted in my email messages in January-February, 2005.
The date format is dd/mm/yy. See copyright conditions at end.

[Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May-Jun, Jul (1), (2), Aug-Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec]

January [top]
1/01/2005
"Today more and more evolutionists are doing what Darwin thought impossible. They are studying the 
evolutionary process not through fossils but directly, in real time, in the wild: evolution in the flesh. 
"Evolution" comes from the Latin evolutio, an unrolling, unfolding, opening. Biologists are observing year 
by year and sometimes even day by day or hour by hour details of life's unrolling and opening, right now. ... 
Taken together, these new studies suggest that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. He 
vastly underestimated the power of natural selection. Its action is neither rare nor slow. It leads to evolution 
daily and hourly, all around us, and we can watch." (Weiner, J., "The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution 
in Our Time," Alfred A. Knopf: New York NY, 1994, pp.8-9)

2/01/2005
"The evolutionists themselves may have helped to build the trap they have been led to by this line of 
argument. All too often they have claimed that evolution is a demonstrable fact and have traded on the 
general reputation of scientists for infallibility. Yet, clearly, evolution is not a "fact" in the sense that the 
man in the street understands the word. Without a time machine, we cannot prove that birds evolved 
from reptiles; we can only show that the known fossil record is consistent with this belief. Nor can we prove 
that natural selection is the mechanism responsible for the whole development of life on earth, which is why 
alternatives-such as punctuated equilibrium-are being considered by some biologists." (Bowler, P.J., 
"Evolution: The History of an Idea," [1983], University of California Press: Berkeley CA, Revised edition, 
1989, pp.356-357. Emphasis in
original)

3/01/2005
"Theologians worry away at the `problem of evil' and a related `problem of suffering.' On the day I originally 
wrote this paragraph, the British newspapers all carried a terrible story about a bus full of children from a 
Roman Catholic school that crashed for no obvious reason, with wholesale loss of life. Not for the first time, 
clerics were in paroxysms over the theological question that a writer on a London newspaper (The Sunday 
Telegraph) framed this way: `How can you believe in a loving, all-powerful God who allows such a tragedy?' 
The article went on to quote one priest's reply: `The simple answer is that we do not know why there should 
be a God who lets these awful things happen. But the horror of the crash, to a Christian, confirms the fact 
that we live in a world of real values: positive and negative. If the universe was just electrons, there would 
be no problem of evil or suffering.' On the contrary, if the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, 
meaningless tragedies like the crashing of his bus are exactly what we should expect, along with equally 
meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no 
intentions of any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going 
to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any 
justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no 
design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. 
Housman put it: `For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither care nor know.' DNA neither cares nor 
knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music." (Dawkins, R., "River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of 
Life," Phoenix: London, 1996, pp.154-155)

3/01/2005
"Some Christians use the term `progressive creation' instead of `theistic evolution,' the difference being the 
suggestion that God interjected occasional acts of creation at critical points throughout the geological ages. 
Thus, for example, man's soul was created, though his body evolved from an ape-like ancestor. This concept 
is less acceptable than theistic evolution. It not only charges God with waste and cruelty (through its 
commitment to the geologic ages) but also with ignorance and impotence. God's postulated intermittent 
creative efforts show either that He didn't know what He wanted when He started the process or else that He 
couldn't provide it with enough energy to sustain it until it reached its goal. A god who would have to 
create man by any such cut-and- dry, discontinuous, injurious method as this can hardly be the omniscient, 
omnipotent, loving God of the Bible." (Morris, H.M.*, "Evolution Versus the Bible," in Duncan H.*, 
"Evolution: The Incredible Hoax," [1977], Missionary Crusader: Lubbock TX, 1982, Fourth printing, p.92)

3/01/2005
 "[Young-Earth] Creationists understand good as automatically implying lack of animal death, animal 
suffering or animal predation and as implying efficiency, economy and so forth. But it was God who saw the 
creation as good, and just as his thoughts are not ours and his ways are not ours, his judgments of good 
might be a bit beyond ours as well. [Is 55:8-9] In fact, when God speaks of providing prey for young lions, 
the tone is not one of regret. It is part of God's glory-not some distasteful task-that he provides the young 
lions with their prey. [Ps 104:21; 145:15; Job 38:39] Nor is it obvious that wastefulness would be a concern to 
God. Nature produces a lavish profusion of everything from beetles to grass blades to rocks to stars. 
Indeed, what would wasteful even mean in the context of Omnipotent ability to create anything and 
everything from nothing with a word?" (Ratzsch, D.L.*, "The Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side is 
Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate", InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL., 1996, p.189)

4/01/2005
"There is no need for me to go into the incredibly complicated chemistry of photosynthesis, which involves 
whole sequences of chemical reactions and is still not completely understood, despite intensive efforts. 
There is, however, one rather intriguing point. Photosynthesis depends on a substance known as 
chlorophyll. It exists in four slightly different forms, but all are based on a ring-like atomic structure formed 
by four chemical units known as pyrroles. In the middle of the ring is found an atom of magnesium. The four 
varieties of chlorophyll differ only in the make-up of the tail which is attached to the ring. ... Until chemical 
evolution had produced this highly specialised structure, photosynthesis was not possible. ... It turns out 
that there are two distinct chemical systems at work, each with its own enzyme. One builds the components, 
the other forms them into a ring. So here again we have an improbable would have been useless. Each 
complements the other. ... Photosynthesis is a very sophisticated solution to the energy problem ... too 
complex to have arisen at the very start. How then did energy production begin?" ... it is very hard to 
swallow the idea that chance - or rather a long series of chances - built up such an extremely elaborate 
mechanism as photosynthesis, a mechanism which depends on substances far more complex than the raw 
materials which it transforms. Unless there was some inner necessity, some built-in primordial disposition to 
consolidate into such a pattern, it is past belief that anything so intricate and idiosyncratic should appear." 
(Taylor, G.R., "The Great Evolution Mystery," Abacus: London, 1983, pp.204-207)

4/01/2005
"Wherefore, so long as gradatory, orderly, and adapted forms in Nature argue design, and at least while the 
physical cause of variation is utterly unknown and mysterious, we should advise Mr. Darwin to assume, in 
the philosophy of his hypothesis, that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines. Streams flowing 
over a sloping plain by gravitation (here the counterpart of natural selection) may have worn their actual 
channels as they flowed; yet their particular courses may have been assigned; and where we see them 
forming definite and useful lines of irrigation, after a manner unaccountable on the laws of gravitation and 
dynamics, we should believe that the distribution was designed." (Gray, A., "Natural Selection Not 
Inconsistent With Natural Theology," Atlantic Monthly, October 1860, "Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews 
Pertaining to Darwinism," [1861], Dupree A.H., ed., Belknap: Cambridge MA, 1963, pp.121-122)

4/01/2005
"How did man get his brain? Many years ago Charles Darwin's great contemporary, and co-discoverer with 
him of the principle of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, propounded that simple question. It is a 
question which has bothered evolutionists ever since, and when Darwin received his copy of an article 
Wallace had written on this subject he was obviously shaken. It is recorded that he wrote in anguish across 
the paper, `No!' and underlined the `No' three times heavily in a rising fervor of objection. Today the 
question asked by Wallace and never satisfactorily answered by Darwin has returned to haunt us. ... It was 
just at this time that Wallace lifted a voice of lonely protest. The episode is a strange one in the history of 
science, for Wallace had, independently of Darwin, originally arrived at the same general conclusion as to 
the nature of the evolutionary process. Nevertheless, only a few years after the publication of Darwin's 
work, The Origin of Species, Wallace had come to entertain a point of view which astounded and 
troubled Darwin. Wallace, who had had years of experience with natives of the tropical archipelagoes, 
abandoned the idea that they were of mentally inferior cast. He did more. He committed the Darwinian 
heresy of maintaining that their mental powers were far in excess of what they really needed to carry on the 
simple food-gathering techniques by which they survived. `How, then,' Wallace insisted, `was an organ 
developed so far beyond the needs of its possessor? Natural selection could only have endowed the 
savage with a brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one but little inferior to 
that of the average member of our learned societies.' At a time when many primitive peoples were 
erroneously assumed to speak only in grunts or to chatter like monkeys, Wallace maintained his view of the 
high intellectual powers of natives by insisting that `the capacity of uttering a variety of distinct articulate 
sounds and of applying to them an almost infinite amount of modulation ... is not in any way inferior to that 
of the higher races. An instrument has been developed in advance of the needs of its possessor.' Finally, 
Wallace challenged the whole Darwinian position on man by insisting that artistic, mathematical, and 
musical abilities could not be explained on the basis of natural selection and the struggle for existence. 
Something else, he contended, some unknown spiritual element, must have been at work in the elaboration 
of the human brain. Why else would men of simple cultures possess the same basic intellectual powers 
which the Darwinists maintained could be elaborated only by competitive struggle? `If you had not told me 
you had made these remarks,' Darwin said, `I should have thought they had been added by someone else. I 
differ grievously from you and am very sorry for it.' He did not, however, supply a valid answer to Wallace's 
queries. Outside of murmuring about the inherited effects of habit-a contention without scientific validity 
today - Darwin clung to his original position. Slowly Wallace's challenge was forgotten and a great 
complacency settled down upon the scientific world." (Eiseley, L.C., "The Real Secret of Piltdown," in "The 
Immense Journey," [1946], Vintage: New York NY, 1957, reprint, pp.79,83-85)

6/01/2005
"(bara') I, create, make, Creator (Qal); choose, cut down, dispatch, (Piel); be created, be done (Niphal; RSV 
"yet unborn" in Ps 102:18 [H 19]; "clear ground in Josh 17:15, 18; RSV and ASV "mark" in Ezk 21:19 [H 241). 
... The root bara' has the basic meaning "to create." It differs from yasar "to fashion" in that 'he latter 
primarily emphasizes the shaping of an object while bara' emphasizes the initiation of the object. ... The word 
is used in the Qal only of God's activity and is thus a purely theological term. This distinctive use of the 
word is especially appropriate to the concept of creation by divine fiat. The root bara' denotes the concept 
of "initiating something new" in a number of passages. In Isa 41:20 it is used of the changes that will take 
place in the Restoration when God effects that which is new and different. It is used of the creation of new 
things (haddashot) in Isa 48:6-7 and the creation of the new heavens and the new earth (Isa 65:17). Marvels 
never seen before are described by this word (Ex 34:10), and Jeremiah uses the term of a fundamental change 
that will take place in the natural order (Jer 31:22). The Psalmist prayed that God would create in him a clean 
heart (Psa 51:10 [H 121) and coupled this with the petition that God would put a new spirit within him (See 
also Num 16:30; Isa 4:5; 65:18). The word also possesses the meaning of "bringing into existence" in several 
passages (Isa 43:1; Ezk 21: 30 [H 35]; 28:13, 15). It is not surprising that this word with its distinctive 
emphases is used most frequently to describe the creation of the universe and the natural phenomena (Gen 
1: 1, 21, 27; 13, etc.). The usages of the term in this sense present a clearly defined theology. The magnitude 
of God's power is exemplified in creation. This has implications for the weak (Isa 40:26; cf. vv. 27-3 1) and for 
the unfolding of God's purposes in history (Isa 42:5; 45:12). Creation displays the majesty (Amos 4:13), 
orderliness (Isa 45:18), and sovereignty (Ps 89:12 [H 131) of God. Anthropologically, the common creation of 
man forms a plea for unity in Mal 2: 10. And man is seen as created for vanity in Ps 89:47 [H 48]. ... The 
limitation of this word to divine activity indicates that the area of meaning delineated by the root falls 
outside the sphere of human ability. Since the word never occurs with the object of the material, and since 
the primary emphasis of the word is on the newness of the created object, the word lends itself well to the 
concept of creation ex nihilo, although that concept is not necessarily inherent within the meaning of the 
word." (McComiskey, T.E.*, "bara'," in Harris R.L., Archer G.L. & Waltke B.K., eds, "Theological Wordbook 
of the Old Testament," [1980], Moody Press: Chicago IL, 1992, Twelfth Printing, Vol. I, p.127)

6/01/2005
'The first principle is that you must not fool yourself-and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to 
be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just 
have to be honest in a conventional way after that. I would like to add something that's not essential to the 
science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you're talking 
as a scientist. .... I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over 
backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is 
our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen. For example, I was a little 
surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and 
astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of this work were. `Well,' I said, 
`there aren't any.' He said, `Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind.' I think that's 
kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what 
you're doing and if they don't want to support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision. 
One example of the principle is this: If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain 
some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of 
a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish both kinds of results." (Feynman, 
R.P., "Cargo Cult Science," in "`Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!': Adventures of a Curious Character," 
[1985], Unwin Paperbacks: London, Reprinted, 1990, p.343)

7/01/2005
"The Invisibility of Revolutions .... I suggest that there are excellent reasons why revolutions have proved 
to be so nearly invisible. Both scientists and laymen take much of their image of creative scientific activity 
from an authoritative source that systematically disguises-partly for important functional reasons-
the existence and significance of scientific revolutions. ... the source of authority, I have in mind principally 
text books of science together with both the popularizations and the philosophical works modeled on them. 
All three of these categories ... have one thing in common. They address themselves to an already 
articulated body of problems, data, and theory, most often to the particular set of paradigms to which the 
scientific community is committed at the time they are written. Textbooks themselves aim to communicate 
the vocabulary and syntax of a contemporary scientific language. Popularizations attempt to describe these 
same applications in a language closer to that of everyday life. And philosophy of science, particularly that 
of the English-speaking world, analyzes the logical structure of the same completed body of scientific 
knowledge. ... All three record the stable outcome of past revolutions and thus display the bases of the 
current normal-scientific tradition. To fulfill their function they need not provide authentic 
information about the way in which those bases were first recognized and then embraced by the 
profession. In the case of textbooks, at least, there are even good reasons why, in these matters, they 
should be systematically misleading. ... to an extent unprecedented in other fields, both the layman's 
and the practitioner's knowledge of science is based on textbooks and a few other types of literature derived 
from them. Textbooks, however, being pedagogic vehicles for the perpetuation of normal science, have to be 
rewritten in whole or in part whenever the language, problem-structure, or standards of normal science 
change. In short, they have to be rewritten in the aftermath of each scientific revolution, and, once rewritten, 
they inevitably disguise not only the role but the very existence of the revolutions that produced 
them. Unless he has personally experienced a revolution in his own lifetime, the historical sense either of the 
working scientist or of the lay reader of textbook literature extends only to the outcome of the most recent 
revolutions in the field. Textbooks thus begin by truncating the scientist's sense of his discipline's 
history and then proceed to supply a substitute for what they have eliminated. Characteristically, 
textbooks of science contain just a bit of history, either in an introductory chapter or, more often in scattered 
references to the great heroes of an earlier age. From such references both students and professionals come 
to feel like participants in a long-standing historical tradition. Yet the textbook-derived tradition in which 
scientists come to sense their participation is one that, in fact, never existed. For reasons that are 
both obvious and highly functional, science textbooks (and too many of the older histories of science) refer 
only to that part of the work of past scientists that can easily be viewed as contributions to the state merit 
and solution of the texts' paradigm problems. Partly by selection and partly by distortion, the 
scientists of earlier ages are implicitly represented as having worked upon the same set of fixed problems 
and in accordance with the same set of fixed canons that the most recent revolution in scientific theory and 
method has made seem scientific. No wonder that textbooks and the historical tradition they imply have to 
be rewritten after each scientific revolution. And no wonder that, as they are rewritten, science once again 
comes to seem largely cumulative. Scientists are not, of course the only group that tends to see its 
discipline's past developing linearly toward its present vantage. The temptation to write history backward is 
both omnipresent and perennial. But scientists are more affected by the temptation to rewrite history, partly 
because the results of scientific research show no obvious dependence upon the historical context of the 
inquiry, and partly because, except during crisis and revolution, the scientist's contemporary position seems 
so secure. More historical detail whether of science's present or of its past, or more responsibility to the 
historical details that are presented, could only give artificial status to human idiosyncrasy, error, and 
confusion. Why dignify what science's best and most persistent efforts have made it possible to discard? 
The depreciation of historical fact is deeply, and probably functionally, ingrained in the ideology of 
the scientific profession, the same profession that places the highest of all values upon factual details of 
other sorts. " (Kuhn, T.S., "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," [1962], University of Chicago Press: 
Chicago IL, Third edition, 1996, pp.136-138. My emphasis)

8/01/2005
"The Creation Hypothesis (InterVarsity Press, 1994) ... received a remarkably respectful review in 
Creation/Evolution, a strongly anticreationist journal. Reviewer Arthur Shapiro, professor of zoology at the 
Davis campus of the University of California, concluded with this paragraph: `I can see Science in the year 
2000 running a major feature article on the spread of theistic science as a parallel scientific culture. I can see 
interviews with the leading figures in history and philosophy of science about how and why this happened. 
For the moment, the authors of The Creation Hypothesis are realistically defensive. They know their way of 
looking at the world will not be generally accepted and that they will be restricted for a while to their own 
journals. ... If they are successful, the day will come when the editorial board of Science will convene in 
emergency session to decide what to do about a paper which is of the highest quality and utterly 
unexceptionable, of great and broad interest, and which proceeds from the prior assumption of intelligent 
design. For a preview of that crisis, you should read this book. Of course, if you are smug enough to think 
`theistic science' is an oxymoron, you won't.'" Shapiro A.N., Review of Moreland J.P., ed., "The Creation 
Hypothesis," InterVarsity Press, 1994, Creation/Evolution, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1994, pp.36-37, in Johnson, P.E.*, 
"Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law, and Education," InterVarsity Press: 
Downers Grove IL, 1995, p.239)

8/01/2005
"If evolutionary biologists can discover or construct detailed, testable, indirect Darwinian pathways that 
account for the emergence of irreducibly and minimally complex biological systems like the bacterial 
flagellum, then more power to them -- intelligent design will quickly pass into oblivion. But until that 
happens, the eliminative induction that attributes specified complexity to the bacterial flagellum constitutes 
a legitimate scientific inference. The only way to deny its legitimacy is by appealing to some form of 
apriorism. The apriorism of choice these days is, of course, naturalism. And that apriorism engenders an 
argument not just of ignorance but of invincible ignorance. Indeed, any specified complexity (and therefore 
design) that might actually be present in biological systems becomes invisible as soon as one consents to 
this apriorism. If biological systems actually are designed, not only won't Van Till see it but he can't see it. 
This is invincible ignorance."(Dembski W.A.*, "Naturalism's Argument from Invincible Ignorance: A 
Response to Howard Van Till," Design Inference Website, September 2002. 
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2002.09.Van_Till_Response.htm)

9/01/2005
"Darwin himself relied crucially on such an extrapolative vision: smoothly extend the adaptive struggles of 
generations across millions of years in geological time, and you will obtain the entire, wondrously ramified 
tree of life. ... If this uniformitarian vision of extrapolation fails, then we must conclude that while 
adaptationism may control immediate changes in the overt forms of organisms, it cannot render evolution at 
other scales. The main excitement in evolutionary theory during the past twenty years has not been-as 
Cronin would have us believe-the shoring up of Darwinism in its limited realm (by gene selectionism or any 
other patching device), but rather the documentation of the reasons why Darwin's crucial requirement for 
extrapolation has failed. Selectionism is not a general model for evolutionary change at most scales. ... But 
the ultimate failure of Cronin's adaptationism, as a general evolutionary model, appears most clearly when 
we consider the paleontological record. Darwin's vision may prevail in the here and now of immediate 
adaptive struggles. But if we cannot extend the small changes thereby produced into the grandeur of 
geological time to yield the full tree of life, then Darwin's domain is a limited corner of evolutionary 
explanation. ... . The Darwinian struggle does not extrapolate to the tree of life." (Gould, S.J., "The Confusion 
over Evolution," The New York Review of Books, Vol. 39, No. 19, November 19, 1992, pp.47-54, pp.52-54. 
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/reviews/gould_confusion.html)

9/01/2005
"The word `dinosaur' was invented by Sir Richard Owen more than a century ago to designate certain large 
fossil reptiles that were then being recognized and described for the first time. The word is a combination of 
Greek roots meaning `terrible lizard,' a purely descriptive term, which, like so many scientific names, must not 
be taken literally. Many of the dinosaurs undoubtedly were terrible animals when they were alive, but they 
were not lizards, nor were they related to lizards except in a most general way. In the early days of 
paleontological science the Dinosauria were regarded as a natural group of reptiles, but as knowledge of 
these long extinct animals was expanded most authorities concluded that the term embraces two distinct 
reptilian orders. Consequently the word dinosaur is now a convenient name, but not necessarily a 
systematic term. The two orders of dinosaurs are designated as the Saurischia [lizard-hipped] and the 
Ornithischia [bird-hipped], these names being based upon the form of the pelvis-a basic character in the 
evolution of the dinosaurs. In the Saurischia the pubic bone of the pelvis extends down and forward from its 
juncture with the ilium and the ischium, the dorsal and the postero-ventral bones of the pelvis, respectively. 
In the Ornithischia the pubis has rotated so that it occupies a position ventral and parallel to the backwardly 
extending ischium. Of course there are numerous other characters by means of which the two orders of 
dinosaurs are distinguished, each from the other." (Colbert, E.H. & Morales, M., "Evolution of the 
Vertebrates: A History of the Backboned Animals Through Time," [1955], John Wiley & Sons: New York 
NY, Fourth Edition, 1992, Second Printing, p.148)

9/01/2005
"At first sight there is an important distinction to be made between what might be called 'instantaneous 
creation' and 'guided evolution'. Modern theologians of any sophistication have given up believing in 
instantaneous creation. ... many theologians ... smuggle God in by the back door: they allow him some sort 
of supervisory role over the course that evolution has taken, either influencing key moments in evolutionary 
history (especially, of course, human evolutionary history), or even meddling more comprehensively in the 
day-to-day events that add up to evolutionary change. ... In short, divine creation, whether instantaneous or 
in the form of guided evolution, joins the list of other theories we have considered in this chapter." 
(Dawkins, R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, pp.316-317)

10/01/2005
"I am delighted to report that the American Scientific Affiliation has supported this strategy of clarification 
... The ASA statement notes that the term `evolution' has at least 5 distinct meanings, ranging from the 
vacuous proposition that there has been `change over time' all the way to George Gaylord Simpson's 
religiously loaded claim that `Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in 
mind.' The statement comments that failure to define terms carefully and use them consistently has allowed 
evolutionary naturalists to use the prestige of science improperly to advance their philosophical position, 
with a corresponding erosion of support for science education among the broad population of theists. I 
strongly endorse this new ASA position, not as a solution to the problems we are discussing in these 
lectures but as a sound first step towards better understanding. That a proposal to define terms carefully 
and use them consistently will be met with scorn and contempt by the scientific establishment may seem 
incredible, but I am afraid it is all too likely that this will be the case." (Johnson, P.E.*, "Disestablishing 
Naturalism," 1992 Founder's Lectures III, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Revised, February 17, 1992. 
http://www.apologetics.org/articles/founder3.html)

10/01/2005
"Nature's recalcitrance is the ultimately determinative factor (or limiting factor) in the shredding, shaping, or 
vindicating of any cosmological narrative. The reader will have noted that certain stubborn realities of 
nature keep coming up time after time, and they serve as the main fuel in the evidentiary debate: (1) the 
Cambrian explosion, now underscored and heightened in the recent discoveries in China, (2) the general 
absence of transitional fossils between the higher taxonomic categories outside of the Cambrian, (3) the 
cell's molecular systems of breathtaking complexity, recently elucidated, and (4) the quiet experiment-driven 
collapse of confidence in "chemical soup" scenarios for the origin of life. ... They are the stuff of anomalies, 
which of course in the Kuhnian vision of science may lead eventually to a genuine paradigm crisis. The four 
scientific realities cited above (a list that could easily be expanded) cannot be ignored in their foundational 
role as rhetorical weapons in the hands of Design. They and their range of possible interpretations have 
become the turf on which some of the fiercest battles are now fought. So the recalcitrance of nature, I 
propose, is the foundation of. the Design assault on the Darwinian paradigm." (Woodward T.E.*, "Doubts 
about Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design," Baker: Grand Rapids MI, 2003, p.200)

10/01/2005
"When the Mars missions were being prepared, the astronomer Donald Menzel and I had a $5 bet as to 
whether or not `life as on earth' [our precise designation] would be discovered on Mars. The physical 
scientist Menzel said yes, the evolutionary biologist Mayr said no. who was right is on record. By now it is 
quite evident that none of the other planets in this solar system is suitable for life. One negative instance, of 
course, proves nothing. If all suns in the universe have planets (actually a rather dubious assumption), we 
would have hundreds of millions of planets. Surely, it is argued, some of these should have spawned life. . 
And I agree, the probability for a multiple origin of a self-replicating nucleic acid-protein aggregate is indeed 
high [?]. ...What is still entirely uncertain is how often this has happened where it has happened, and how 
much evolution might have occurred subsequent to the origin of such life. We who live on the earth do not 
fully appreciate what an inhospitable place most planets must be. To be able to support life they must be 
just the right distance from their sun, have the right temperature, a sufficient amount of water, a sufficient 
density to be able to hold an atmosphere, a protection against damaging ultraviolet radiation, and so forth. 
Furthermore, every planet changes in the course of its history, and the sequence of changes has to be just 
right. If, for instance, there were too much free oxygen at an early stage, it would destroy life. The total set of 
prerequisites for the origin and maintenance of life drastically reduces the number of planets that would 
have been suitable for the origin of life. There is, indeed, the possibility that the combination and sequence 
of conditions that permitted the origin of life on earth was not duplicated on a single other planet in the 
universe. I do not make such a claim, and it would not be science if I did, since it would be impossible ever 
to refute it. However, measured by the possibility of refutation, the claims of the proponents of 
extraterrestrial life and intelligence are equally outside the bounds of science. The only thing we know for 
sure is that of the nine planets of the solar system the earth is the only one that has produced life. Let us 
assume, however, for the sake of the argument that life has originated on some of the supposedly hundreds 
of millions of planets in the universe. Since we do not know how many suns have planets, the mentioned 
figure might be a gross overestimation. ... It is interesting and rather characteristic that almost all the 
promoters of the thesis of extraterrestrial intelligence are physical scientists. They are joined by a number of 
molecular and microbial biologists, and by a handful of romantic organismic biologists. Why are those 
biologists who have the greatest expertise on evolutionary probabilistics so almost unanimously skeptical 
of the probability of extraterrestrial intelligence? It seems to me that this is to a large extent due to the 
tendency of physical scientists to think deterministically, while organismic biologists know how 
opportunistic and unpredictable evolution is. ... What about evolution of intelligence among the animals? .... 
Of the 50 or so original phyla of animals, only one, that of the chordates, eventually gave rise to intelligent 
life, but the world still had to wait some 500 my before this happened. At first, still in Paleozoic, the 
vertebrates appeared in exceedingly diverse types, formerly all lumped together under the name `Fishes,' .... 
Among this multitude of types, only one gave rise to the amphibians; and among the various types of 
amphibians, only one to the reptiles. .... Among these numerous types of reptiles, only two, the 
pseudosuchians (ancestors of birds) and the therapsids (ancestors of mammals), gave rise to descendants 
to some of whom a reasonable degree of intelligence can be attributed. But with all my bias in favor of birds, 
I would not say that a raven or parrot has the amount and kind of intelligence to found a civilization. So we 
have to continue with the mammalian class. .... Forms with a rather high development of the central nervous 
system and a good deal of intelligence are quite common among the mammals, but only one of these many 
orders led to the development of a truly superior intelligent life, the primates. ... but only the anthropoid apes 
produced intelligence that clearly surpasses other mammals. Only after 18 of the 25 my of the existence of 
the anthropoid apes, and after a splitting of this major lineage into a number of minor lineages, like the 
gibbons (and relatives), the orangutan (and relatives), the African apes (chimpanzee and gorilla), and a 
considerable number of extinct lineages, did the lineage emerge which eventually, less than one-third of a 
million years ago, led to Homo sapiens. The reason why I have buried you under this mass of 
tedious detail is to make one point, but an all-important one. In conflict with the thinking of those who see a 
straight line from the origin of life to intelligent man, I have shown that at each level of this pathway there 
were scores, if not hundreds, of branching points and independently evolving phyletic lines, with only a 
single one in each case forming the ancestral lineage that ultimately gave rise to Man. ... The point I am 
making is the incredible improbability of genuine intelligence emerging. There were probably more than a 
billion species of animals on earth, belonging to many millions of separate phyletic lines, all living on this 
planet earth which is hospitable to intelligence, and yet only a single one of them succeeded in producing 
intelligence. ... One additional improbability must be mentioned. Somehow, the supporters of SETI naively 
assume that `intelligence' means developing a technology capable of intragalactic or even intergalactic 
communication. But such a development is highly improbable. For instance, Neanderthal Man, living 100,000 
years ago, had a brain as big as ours. Yet, his `civilization' was utterly rudimentary. The wonderful 
civilizations of the Greeks, the Chinese, the Mayas, or the Renaissance, although they were created by 
people who were for all intents and purposes physically identical with us, never developed such a 
technology, and neither did we until a few years ago. The assumption that any intelligent extraterrestrial life 
must have the technology and mode of thinking of late twentieth-century Man is unbelievably naive. ... 
Civilizations, as human history demonstrates, are fleeting moments in the history of an intelligent species. 
For two civilizations to communicate with each other, it is necessary that they flourish simultaneously. ... I 
am trying to demonstrate ... that even if there were intelligent extraterrestrial life, and even if it had developed 
a highly sophisticated technology ... the timing of their efforts and those of our engineers would have to 
coincide to an altogether improbable degree, considering the amounts of astronomical time available. Every 
aspect of `extraterrestrial intelligence' that we consider confronts us with astronomically low probabilities. If 
one multiplies these with each other, one comes out so close to zero that it is zero for all practical purposes. 
This was already pointed out by Simpson in 1964. Those biologists who doubt the probability of ever 
establishing contact with extraterrestrial intelligent life if it should exist do not `deny categorically the 
possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence,' as they have been accused. How could they? There are no facts 
that would permit such a categorical denial. Nor have I seen a published statement of such a categorical 
denial. All they claim is that the probabilities are close to zero. This is why evolutionary biologists, as a 
group, are so skeptical of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, and even more so of any possibility of 
communicating with it, if it exists. In my views SETI is a deplorable waste of taxpayers' money, money that 
could be spent more usefully for other purposes." (Mayr, E.W., "Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: 
Observations of an Evolutionist," Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA, 1988, pp.67-73)

11/01/2005
"My philosopher friend went to great lengths to establish the both/and logic as a superior way by which to 
establish truth. `So, Dr. Zacharias,' he said, `when you see one Hindu affirming that God is personal and 
another insisting that God is not personal, just because it is contradictory you should not see it as a 
problem. The real problem is that you are seeing that contradiction as a Westerner when you should be 
approaching it as an Easterner The both/and is the Eastern way of viewing reality.' Again I asked him to 
strike out the last line of his conclusion on the both/and system, but of course he did not. After he had 
belabored these two ideas of either/or and both/and for some time and carried on his tirade that we ought 
not to study truth from a Western point of view but rather from an Eastern viewpoint, I finally asked if I 
could interrupt his unpunctuated train of thought and raise one question. He agreed and put down his 
pencil. I said, `Sir, are you telling me that when I am studying Hinduism I either use the both/and system of 
logic or nothing else?' There was pin-drop silence for what seemed an eternity. I repeated my question: `Are 
you telling me that when I am studying Hinduism I either use the both/and logic or nothing else? Have I got 
that right?' He threw his head back and said, `The either/or does seem to emerge, doesn't it?' `Indeed, it does 
emerge,' I said. `And as a matter of fact, even in India we look both ways before we cross the street it is 
either the bus or me, not both of us.' Do you see the mistake he was making? He was using the either/or 
logic in order to prove the both/and." (Zacharias R.K.*, "Can Man Live Without God," Word Publishing: 
Dallas TX, 1994, p.129)

12/01/2005
"The Birth of "RNA World" For those who endorsed this reasoning [that RNA could replicate itself without 
the aid of proteins], a critical breakthrough took place in the 1980s. Colorado State chemist Thomas R. Cech 
found that RNA, under some circumstances, could act in the manner of a protein. For this insight, he and 
Yale biochemist Sidney Altman shared the 1989 Nobel Prize. Their discovery was accidental-certain natural 
RNA molecules were found to have the property of cutting and splicing themselves without the help of a 
protein assistance. The splicing process was part of their normal maturation within living cells. The name 
"ribozyme" was coined to describe the newly discovered class of RNA enzymes.  Heroic efforts were 
undertaken to find other things that RNA molecules could do, apart from cutting themselves. Some workers 
sought RNAs that could function as medicinal agents, by destroying viruses. But for others, the discovery 
of a ribozyme that could act as a replicase became a prominent goal. If such a replicase were available, 
Spiegelman-Eigen-type experiments on evolution in the test tube could be conducted in a much more 
interesting way. An RNA molecule would be copied while an RNA relative (or identical twin) acted as the 
midwife for reproduction. Mutations would affect both functions, and novel and unexpected results might 
emerge, shedding new light on natural selection. A number of scientists felt that such experiments would 
provide the key clue to the origin of life.  A germinal paper was published in 1986 by Walter Gilbert. He had 
shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Fred Sanger for the development of methods to read out the 
information stored in the DNA in living organ isms. With early training in physics, Gilbert had an inclination 
to theoretical speculation not usually found in biologists. In his paper he combined the earlier naked gene 
idea with new information about ribozymes and applied them to the origin of life: "The first stage of 
evolution proceeds, then, by RNA molecules performing the catalytic activities necessary to assemble 
themselves out of-nucleotide soup."  He applied the name "RNA world" to his vision of a biosphere in 
which RNA performed all the key functions before proteins entered the scene. The name and the idea 
caught on. For an example, I need only turn to the very widely used textbook from which I teach 
biochemistry. It features a section with the heading (in capital letters): "RNA probably came before DNA 
and proteins in evolution." Within the text, the author writes of an ancient epic "that probably began when 
RNA alone wrote the script, directed the action, and played all the key parts." Many other sources have 
reacted in the same way, some dropping the word "probably."  Efforts to fill those key parts, including the 
replicase, have moved slowly, however. Nature has not been helpful, leaving no trace of most of these 
presumed players. In the absence of any clue, scientists have at tempted to prepare an RNA replicase on 
their own and have run head-on into the connection problem. The number of possibilities to be examined in 
this hunt is staggering. For example, if scientists wished to prepare a mixture that contained one molecule of 
every possible RNA with a length of 100 nucleotides, at the concentrations usually chosen for biochemical 
research, they would need a container about eight times the diameter of our solar system to hold it. 
Obviously, some shortcuts are needed. Biochemists such as Jack W Szostak at Massachusetts General 
Hospital and Gerald E Joyce at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have been ingenious in 
discovering them.  Using commercial synthesizers, protein enzymes, and a host of elegant techniques, 
researchers prepare more limited RNA mixtures with "only" 100 trillion molecules. Elaborate multistep 
selection techniques are used to separate molecules that may have some abilities of the type they are 
seeking. These candidates are then allowed to multiply, using protein replicases. Their connection order is 
deciphered, and the information is used as the starting point for the next wave of experiments.  In this quest 
for new kinds of ribozymes, good progress has been made in isolating species that resemble ones already in 
the menagerie. Gerald Joyce, for example, has prepared a ribozyme that cuts up DNA rather than RNA. The 
search for an RNA replicase has gone more slowly. I will let Dr. Joyce present the adventure in his own 
words:  `If one believes that an RNA-based life form is possible, then why not make one in the laboratory? ...  
A research biochemist knows how to obtain the components of RNA. They can be bought from a chemical 
supply house! These components are available as pure compounds having only the proper handedness. 
They can be assembled in the laboratory to produce RNA. The challenge is to devise RNA molecules that 
have the ability to direct their own replication.... RNA evolution can be made to occur, leading to the 
evolution of new and interesting RNAs whose functional properties conform to the demands of the 
experimenter. . . .  It is probably only a matter of time, to be measured in years rather than decades, before a 
self-sustained RNA evolving system can be demonstrated in the laboratory. This would be a case in which a 
DNA-and protein-based life form, namely a human biochemist, gives rise to an RNA-based life form, an 
interesting reversal of the sequence of events that occurred during the early history of life on Earth.'  When 
that event takes place, the media will probably announce it as the demonstration of a crucial step in the 
origin of life. I would agree, with one modification. The concept that the scientists are illustrating is one of 
intelligent design. No better term can be applied to a quest in which chemists are attempting to 
prepare a living system in the laboratory, using all the ingenuity and technical resources at their disposal. 
Whether they use synthetic chemicals or materials isolated from nature, we would be justified in calling the 
living system artificial or human-made life.  (Shapiro R., "Planetary Dreams: The Quest to Discover Life 
beyond Earth," John Wiley & Sons: New York NY, 1999, pp.102104. My emphasis):

12/01/2005
"The search for ribozymes evokes the same feeling of achievement and beauty in me that I get when I see a 
skilled golfer playing a difficult course at well under par. To imagine that related events could take place on 
their own appears as likely as the idea that the golf ball could play its own way around the course without 
the golfer. We can, of course imagine that natural forces would lend a helping hand. A hurricane could move 
the ball down the course, and occasional floods might "putt" the ball into the hole. A small earthquake 
could then remove it and place it on the next tee. Perhaps each of these events could be simulated if we tried 
hard enough. But to insist that all of these events be linked together and move in an appropriate 
direction puts our origin into the realm of Morowitz's odds [10100,000,000,000 to 1]." (Shapiro 
R., "Planetary Dreams: The Quest to Discover Life beyond Earth," John Wiley & Sons: New York NY, 1999, 
p.104. My emphasis)

12/01/2005
"Darwin reluctantly admitted the existence of other mechanisms of evolution, but he was convinced that 
natural selection is the most important evolutionary agent. On this point he had little company; friends and 
foes alike rejected his theory. In our century Darwin has ostensibly been rehabilitated - the currently 
accepted theory of evolution purports to be a modification of Darwin's theory, usually known under the 
name of 'Neo Darwinism'. But a curious thing happened: to the general public, and gradually even to the 
scientific community, Darwin came to stand as the founder of the idea of evolution, 'Darwinism' came to 
mean 'Evolutionism'. A hundred years ago many knew this to be a mistake and it was duly and repeatedly 
pointed out - but to no avail. Today very few people are aware of the mistake, and this circumstance has had 
a rather unexpected consequence. In recent years dissenting voices from many quarters have been raised 
against the ruling theory." (Lovtrup S., "Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth," Croom Helm: London, 1987, 
p.5)

13/01/2005
"The Beginning of Chronic Illness. During the first nine months of his return to England, Darwin moved to 
lodgings in London, studied his Beagle collections, wrote most of his Beagle travel narrative, and gave some 
papers to the Geological and Zoological societies. He announced his theory of coral atoll formation, which 
seems to have been generally accepted. He told his friend Fox: `I have plenty of work for the next year or 
two, and till that is finished I will have no holidays.' He made no complaints about his health and he gained 
almost sixteen pounds in weight. Over the next twelve months he continued to work at writing up his Beagle 
geological and zoological observations. He also began to secretly write some evolutionary notebooks. 
During these months he began complaining of illness. His earliest recorded complaint was in a 20 September 
1837 letter to his old Cambridge teacher, Professor Henslow: `I have not been very well of late with an 
uncomfortable palpitation of the heart ...' .... This September 1837 to August 1838 year of `I have not been 
very well'-of disturbed feelings, and physical symptoms of `uncomfortable' and `violent' cardiac palpitations, 
gastric upsets, and headaches -was the beginning of the illness which would persist for most of Darwin's 
life. ... It seems likely that, during this year of illness, the scientific work which caused Darwin the most 
pressures-and hence caused most of his illness-was his secret work on evolution. From July 1837 to 
September 1838 he had written four evolutionary notebooks ... In his first Transmutation Notebook (written 
July 1837 to February 1838) he discussed his theory of evolution-what he called `My theory.'" (Colp R., "To 
Be an Invalid: The Illness of Charles Darwin," University of Chicago Press: Chicago IL, 1977, Ninth printing, 
1981, pp.14-16)

13/01/2005
"As we have already seen, Charles was brought up to be a Christian. Nor was his Christianity formal only, 
for, as a boy, he learned to bring his problems and troubles to God in prayer-as is evident from his own 
words: `I well remember in the early part of my school life that I often had to run very quickly to be in time, 
and from being a fleet runner was generally successful; but when in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help 
me, and I well remember that I attributed my success to the prayers and not to my quick running and 
marvelled how greatly I was aided.' When studying as a medical student at Edinburgh, Charles became 
convinced that his father would leave him money. ... Yet he remained a Christian and accepted the Bible 
implicitly. After leaving Edinburgh he seems to have begun to doubt whether all the teachings of the Church 
of England were Biblical. After some months of consideration he was satisfied and went to Cambridge in 
order to become a minister of the Gospel. It was at Cambridge that Charles first read Paley's Natural 
Theology, a book which filled him with delight and which he came to know almost by heart. It was at 
Cambridge also that he won the friendship of Henslow and Sedgwick- both deeply Christian men. On the 
other hand it was at Cambridge also that Charles got into bad company, from which he could not or would 
not drag himself away, and it was there also that he began to fed a hypocrite for seeking ordination without 
an inward sense that God had called him to the ministry. On his voyage, Charles continued to profess 
Christianity. But once again, his lack of enthusiasm is somewhat striking. In his letters home, he scarcely 
ever mentioned God, and then only in almost hackneyed expressions ("God bless you"). For a modern 
young man, this would be in no way unusual, but we must remember that in the early nineteenth century 
there was far less reticence than there is to-day about religious matters. Not only in private letters, but even 
in scientific papers, writers felt no hesitation in speaking of God in a manner that was evidently natural and 
sincere. And Darwin was no ordinary naval man but one whose avowed object was to spend his life 
preaching the Gospel as a minister of religion. ...As already noted, on one occasion during the voyage, 
Darwin quoted the Gospel in defence of a certain point in morals, and was laughed at by the crew. Certainly 
Fitzroy, his constant companion, was a convinced Christian, so that Darwin was not without Christian 
companionship. Nor is there any evidence that he reacted strongly against the rather narrow 
fundamentalism of his friend, for a close friendship between them continued for many years to come. On 
returning home, Darwin read further books about Christianity. For long he still intended to be ordained, but 
his notes and specimens kept him busy and he decided to finish his scientific work first of all. This task 
proved unending and, unconsciously at least, Darwin probably wanted it to be unending. As the years 
passed, doubts gradually began to assail him. First of all his faith in the Old Testament was shattered. Then 
he could no longer believe in the miracles of the New. Finally he was left wondering whether Christianity 
was a Divine revelation at all. For a while, so he tells us, Charles would day-dream of wonderful new MSS 
that had been unearthed in the Middle East, which would substantiate the Gospel record and set his mind at 
rest. He cites this as evidence that at heart he truly wanted to believe and that his loss of faith was no fault 
of his own. Yet ... his words really point to the opposite conclusion for he finishes by saying: `I found it 
more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would convince 
me.' No remark could reveal more clearly that, while pretending to himself that he wanted to believe, Charles 
was really determined at all costs not to believe and so, in order to rationalize bis unbelief, he 
steadily raised the level of evidence he required before he would be convinced.Eventually, of course, he 
abandoned his earlier plan of seeking ordination and, as he was now well provided for by his father, and 
further moneys came to him through the death of his brother and the royalties on his books, no financial 
anxiety was involved.Such are the outward facts about the decline of Darwin's faith in Christianity-the facts 
recorded by most of his biographers. Yet there is abundant evidence that they tell only half the story. 
Darwin's loss of faith must have had a far greater effect upon his mind than he himself realized at the time. .... 
As Darwin's religion faded, so he consecrated his life to science with what has aptly been described as an 
almost religious enthusiasm. But his illnesses became worse and worse. What was wrong with him? 
Nothing, apparently. Indeed, his friends generally supposed that he was shamming, for he looked well and 
that his constitution was sound would appear to follow from the fact that he lived to an old age. yet he was 
a chronic invalid. ... Psychologically there can be little doubt as to the meaning of these symptoms. Charles 
Darwin was suffering from a feeling of guilt. But what was worrying him? At first sight, the answer might 
appear to be clear. As we saw in the last chapter, he experienced considerable anxiety with regard to his 
theory of evolution-fearing that it might be rejected and damage his reputation. But that this was not 
primarily at the root of his trouble is clear from the fact that, even after he had won the battle for 
evolution, even after his reputation was assured, his psychological suffering continued as before. Fear of 
the outcome of the evolutionary battle, in short, was only a symptom of a deeper and more fundamental 
anxiety and feeling of guilt. The answer to the riddle is not far to seek. Darwin's trouble almost certainly lay 
in the suppression of his religious needs. His life was one long attempt to escape from Paley, to escape from 
the Church, to escape from God. It is this that explains so much that would otherwise be incongruous in his 
life and character." (Clark R.E.D.*, "Darwin: Before and After: An Examination and Assessment," [1948], 
Paternoster: Exeter, Devon UK, 1966, reprint, p.81-86. Emphasis in original)

13/01/2005
"I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call 
cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land 
with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to make 
things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, 
with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas-he's 
the controller-and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It 
looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo 
cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're 
missing something essential, because the planes don't land. .... But there is one feature I notice that is 
generally missing in cargo cult science. ... It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought 
that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty -a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing 
an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid-not only what you think is 
right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've 
eliminated by some other experiment, And how they worked-to make sure the other fellow can tell they have 
been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. you 
must do the best you can-if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong-to explain it. If you make a 
theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree 
with it, as well as those that agree with it. ... In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to 
help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one 
particular direction or another. ... We've learned from experience that the truth will out. Other experimenters 
will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or 
they'll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you 
will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in his kind of work. And 
it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of he 
research in cargo cult science. ... The first principle is that you must not fool yourself-and you are the 
easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy 
not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that. I would like to add 
something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not 
fool the layman when you're talking as a scientist. ... I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is 
not lying, out bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, that you ought to have when 
acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to 
laymen. For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. 
He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications 
of this work were. `Well,' I said, `there aren't any.' He said, `Yes, but then we won't get support for more 
research of this kind.' I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you 
should explain to the layman what you're doing and if they don't want to support you under those 
circumstances, then that's their decision." (Feynman R.P., "Cargo Cult Science," in "`Surely You're Joking, 
Mr Feynman!': Adventures of a Curious Character," [1985], Unwin Paperbacks: London, 1990, reprint, 
pp.340-343)

14/01/2005
"Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan 
consequences, has no purpose in view. Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us 
with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and 
planning. .. We may say that a living body or organ is well designed if it has attributes that an intelligent and 
knowledgeable engineer might have built into it in order to achieve some sensible purpose, such as flying, 
swimming, seeing, eating, reproducing, or more generally promoting the survival and replication of the 
organism's genes. It is not necessary, to suppose that the design of a body-or organ is the best that an 
engineer could conceive of. ... But any engineer can recognize an object that has been designed, even 
poorly designed, for a purpose, and he can usually work out what that-purpose is just by looking at the 
structure of the object." (Dawkins, R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.21)

15/01/2005
"Darwin did not invent the struggle for existence. As Eiseley points out, it is an "obvious and self-evident 
fact," [Eiseley, L.C., "Darwin's Century," Doubleday, 1961, p.52]. and it had been mentioned by naturalists 
several times before Darwin was born. What Darwin did was to make the phrase a familiar shibboleth, assign 
a creative role to the process, and praise it as virtuous. In a way that none of my paperback authors would 
dare to imitate nowadays, he asserted that it favored the welfare of the right sorts: `All that we can do, is to 
keep steadily in mind that each organic being is striving to increase at a geometrical ratio; that each at some 
period of its life, during some season of the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for 
life, and to suffer great destruction. When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full 
belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the 
vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.' [Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species," [1859], 
Harvard University Press, 1966, reprint, pp.78-79] Darwin's followers, in their enthusiasm for the principle, 
carried it to extraordinary lengths. [Eiseley, 1961, pp.334-336] T.H. Huxley said that all the molecules within 
each organism were competing with each other as to which should be re-created. Wilhelm Roux developed 
the theory that the organs were struggling with each other for nourishment, kidneys against lungs, heart 
against brain. Neither Darwin nor his immediate followers had much feeling for the internal stability and 
harmony of the organism. [Eiseley, 1961, p.336] Darwin was not working in a vacuum, but in nineteenth-
century England. His ideas, or rather his slogans, were caught up at once and applied in the social sphere. 
As Simpson says, with much restraint: "These concepts had ethical, ideological, and political repercussions 
which were, and continue to be, in some cases, unfortunate." [Simpson G.G., "The Meaning of Evolution," 
[1949], Yale University Press, Revised edition, 1967, p.221] G.B. Shaw, using no restraint, gives a more 
colorful description: `Never in history, as far as we know, had there been such a determined, richly 
subsidized, politically organized attempt to persuade the human race that all progress, all prosperity, all 
salvation, individual and social, depend on an unrestrained conflict for food and money, on the suppression 
and elimination of the weak by the strong, on Free Trade, Free Contract, Free Competition, Natural Liberty, 
Laisser-faire: in short, on "doing the other fellow down" with impunity.' [Shaw G.B., "Back to Methuselah," 
Penguin, 1921, preface] When the first enthusiasm wore off and the bill for the damages came in, the 
biologists realized that things had gone too far. There had been bad science as well as bad sociology, and 
they had to put their house in order. This was accomplished in two ways. First, the emphasis on struggle 
was played down. Instead of being obvious and selfevident, it became almost invisible. Simpson, for 
example, allows it practically no role in the modern view of evolution: `Struggle is sometimes involved, but it 
usually is not, and when it is, it may even work against rather than toward natural selection. Advantage in 
differential reproduction is usually a peaceful process in which the concept of struggle is really irrelevant. It 
more often involves such things as better integration into the ecological situation, maintenance of a balance 
of nature, more efficient utilization of available food, better care of the young, elimination of intragroup 
discords (struggles) that might hamper reproduction, exploitation of environmental possibilities that are not 
the objects of competition or are less effectively exploited by others. [Simpson,1949, p.222] Second, the 
influence of cooperation in nature was emphasized. This was not difficult, since cooperation is as obvious 
and self-evident in nature as struggle had ever been. In Russia, even before the Bolshevik Revolution, the 
scientists always laid more stress on mutual aid than on competition. Nowadays this is also fashionable in 
the West. [Huxley J.S., "Evolution, the Modern Synthesis," Allen & Unwin: London, 1942, 479-480] 
Symbiosis and ecology are popular. Biologists recoil in horror from Tennyson's famous line about "Nature 
red in tooth and claw." Professor W.C. Allee expresses the modern attitude when he says: "The ... life of 
animals shows two major tendencies: one towards aggressiveness, which is best developed in man and his 
fellow vertebrates; the other towards ... cooperation. ... I have long experimented upon both tendencies. Of 
these, the drive toward cooperation ... is the more elusive and the more important." [Allee, W.C., "Biology," 
in J. Newman, ed., "What Is Science?," Simon & Schuster, 1955, p.243). It is my belief that Allee represents 
the general opinion of the biologists and would be indorsed by most reasonable men. .... Sir Julian Huxley, 
for example, goes even further than Simpson in toning down the struggle. He makes the following 
remarkable statement: "The struggle for existence merely signifies that a portion of each generation is bound 
to die before it can reproduce itself." [Huxley J.S., "Evolution in Action," Mentor, 1957, p.34.] Here Darwin's 
original concept is utterly denatured. There is no struggle at all. Some die before maturity, but that sad fact 
was known to Solomon. It is a truism. Darwin would not regard it as a discovery." (Macbeth N., "Darwin 
Retried: An Appeal to Reason," Gambit: Boston MA, 1971, pp.56-58)

16/01/2005
"Trouble arose not in the incentive for the Copernican cosmology, but in its execution.... When Copernicus, 
after considerable toil, managed to complete a fully realized model of the universe based upon the 
heliocentric hypothesis-the model set forth, eventually, in De Revolutionibus-he found that it worked little 
better than the Ptolemaic model. One difficulty was that Copernicus, like Aristotle and Eudoxus before him, 
was enthralled by the Platonic beauty of the sphere-"The sphere," he wrote, echoing Plato, "is the most 
perfect ... the most capacious of figures ... wherein neither beginning nor end can be found" -and he 
assumed, accordingly, that the planets move in circular orbits at constant velocities. Actually, as Kepler 
would establish, the orbits of the planets are elliptical, and planets move more rapidly when close to the sun 
than when distant from it. Nor was the Copernican universe less intricate than Ptolemy's: Copernicus found 
it necessary to introduce Ptolemaic epicycles into his model and to move the center of the universe to a 
point a little away from the sun. Nor did it make consistently more accurate predictions, even in its 
wretchedly compromised form; for many applications it was less useful. This, in retrospect, was the tragedy 
of Copernicus's career that while the beauty of the heliocentric hypothesis convinced him that the planets 
ought to move in perfect circles around the sun, the sky was to declare it false. Settled within the stone walls 
of Frauenburg Cathedral, in a three-story tower .... Copernicus carried out his sporadic astronomical 
observations, and tried, in vain, to perfect the heliocentric theory he had outlined while still a young man. 
For decades he turned it over in his thoughts, a flawed jewel, luminous and obdurate. It would not yield." 
(Ferris T., "Coming of Age in the Milky Way," [1988], Vintage: London, 1991, reprint, pp.65-66)

17/01/2005
Psalm 104:24-30 (NIV) "[20] You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl. [21] 
The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. [22] The sun rises, and they steal away; they 
return and lie down in their dens. [23] Then man goes out to his work, to his labor until evening. [24] How 
many are your works, O LORD ! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. [25] There 
is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number- living things both large and small. [26] 
There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. [27] These all look to you 
to give them their food at the proper time. [28] When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open 
your hand, they are satisfied with good things. [29] When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you 
take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. [30] When you send your Spirit, they are created, and 
you renew the face of the earth. "

17/01/2005
"It is good thus to try in imagination to give to any one species an advantage over another. Probably in no 
single instance should we know what to do. This ought to convince us of our ignorance on the mutual 
relations of all organic beings; a conviction as necessary as it is difficult to acquire. All that we can do, is to 
keep steadily in mind that each organic being is striving to increase in a geometrical ratio; that each at some 
period of its life, during some season of the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for 
life and to suffer great destruction. When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full 
belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the 
vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply." (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means 
of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1928, reprint, p.79)

17/01/2005
"But as Darwin clearly pointed out, evolution can proceed only over the dead bodies of the unfit, the losers 
in the struggle for life. As Darwin wrote in the closing paragraphs of Origin of Species, "the 
production of higher animals" can only proceed "from the war of nature, from famine and death." Even the 
evolution of cooperation can proceed only over the dead bodies of those that don't cooperate. Does that 
sound like the means that God would use to make a world that reflected God's care and concern, God's plan 
and purpose?" (Parker G.E., "Creation: the Facts of Life," Master Book Publishers: San Diego CA, 1980, 
p.143)

17/01/2005
Romans 12:14,17-21 (NIV) "[14] Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ... [17] Do not repay 
anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. [18] If it is possible, as far as it 
depends on you, live at peace with everyone. [19] Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's 
wrath, for it is written: `It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. [Dt. 32:35] [20] On the contrary: `If 
your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap 
burning coals on his head.' [Pr 25:21,22 ] [21] Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. "

17/01/2005
Matthew 7:1-5 (NIV) "[1]  Do not judge, or you too will be judged. [2] For in the same way you judge others, 
you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  [3] "Why do you look at the 
speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? [4] How can you 
say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own 
eye? [5] You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the 
speck from your brother's eye."

18/01/2005
"This is an anti-Darwinism book. It is written both against the Darwinism of Darwin and his 19th century 
disciples, and against the Darwinism of such influential 20th century Darwinians as G.C. Williams and W.D. 
Hamilton and their disciples. My object is to show that Darwinism is not true: not true, at any rate, of 
our species. If it is true, or near enough true, of sponges, snakes, flies, or whatever, I do not mind 
that. What I do mind is, its being supposed to be true of man. But having said that, I had better add at once 
that I am not a 'creationist', or even a Christian. In fact I am of no religion. ... I do not even deny that natural 
selection is probably the cause which is principally responsible for the coming into existence of new species 
from old ones. I do deny that natural selection is going on within our species now, and that it 
ever went on in our species, at any time of which anything is known." (Stove D.C., "Darwinian Fairytales," 
Avebury: Aldershot UK, 1995, p.vii. Emphasis in original)

18/01/2005
"While Darwin was proud of his theory of natural selection, his most important single contribution to the 
evolutionary argument, he saw as one of its main virtues the fact that it provided a counterblow to the idea 
of creation. This is made clear in two of his letters to Asa Gray. `I rest on the fact that the theory of natural 
selection explains many lapses of facts, which, as far as we can see, repeated acts of Creation do not 
explain,' he told Gray a few weeks after publication of The Origin. `On this latter view we can only say "so it 
is" and not all "why it is so." Pray do not decide either way till you have read Ch. XIII and the 
Recapitulation Ch. XIV which will, I think, aid you in balancing facts." And writing in the spring of 1861 of 
change of species by descent, he said: `That seems to me the turning point. Personally, of course, I care 
much about Natural Selection; but that seems to me utterly unimportant compared with the question of 
Creation or Modification.'" [Darwin C.R., Letter to Asa Gray, May 11, 1861]"
 (Clark R.W., "The Survival of Charles Darwin: A Biography of a Man and an Idea," [1984], Weidenfeld and 
Nicolson: London, 1985, p.123)

18/01/2005
"Lyell also appears to have agreed with this method of keeping one's religious faith yet not offending 
science by doing so, and wrote to Darwin, who had told him of his reaction to Wallace. `I quite agree with 
you that Wallace's sketch of natural selection is admirable,' Lyell said. `I wrote to tell him so after I had read 
the article, and in regard to the concluding theory, I reminded him that as to the origin of man's intellectual 
and moral nature I had allowed in my first edition that its introduction was a real innovation, interrupting the 
uniform course of the causation previously at work on the earth. I was therefore not opposed to his idea, 
that the Supreme Intelligence might possibly direct variation in a way analogous to that in which even the 
limited powers of man might guide it in selection, as in the case of the breeder and horticulturist. In other 
words, as I feel that progressive development or evolution cannot be entirely explained by natural selection, 
I rather hail Wallace's suggestion that there may be a Supreme Will and Power which may not abdicate its 
functions of interference, but may guide the forces and laws of Nature. This seems to me the more probable 
when I consider, not without wonder, that we should be permitted to give rise to a monstrosity like the 
pouter pigeon, and to cause it to breed true for an indefinite number of generations, certainly not to the 
advantage of the variety or species so created.' [Lyell C., Letter to Charles Darwin, May 5, 1869]" (Clark 
R.W., "The Survival of Charles Darwin: A Biography of a Man and an Idea," [1984], Weidenfeld and 
Nicolson: London, 1985, p.134)

18/01/2005
"I should also say here that I have no professional qualifications of any kind for writing about Darwinism. I 
am not a biologist: merely a former professional philosopher, who happens to have both 40 odd years' 
acquaintance with Darwinian literature, and a strong distaste for ridiculous slanders on our species. These 
are evidently not ideal qualifications for criticising Darwinian views of man. But on the other hand, 
Darwinism is not yet so arcane a branch of science that criticism of it by an outsider can be automatically 
assumed to he incompetent." (Stove D.C., "Darwinian Fairytales," Avebury: Aldershot UK, 1995, p.viii)

19/01/2005
"Some friends of the great physicist Enrico Fermi were once trying to persuade him, so the story goes, that 
an abundance of life and technological civilizations must exist on an almost limitless number of other worlds. 
`OK,' he said, `but where is everybody?' That was in 1943, and although much has happened since to make a 
convincing theoretical case for an abundance of life throughout the universe, we are still asking Fermi's 
question. However, having the advantage of several decades of scientific progress, we are now able to offer 
possible answers, and technology s available (mainly in radio astronomy) to begin to check our answers. 
What was once only entertaining speculation has become firmly based in science and technology. Fermi's 
question is tantalising. A mass of indirect evidence from widely different sources supports the probability 
that extraterrestrial life and civilizations do exist, yet no one has so far discovered any acceptable direct 
evidence." (Ashpole E., "Where is Everybody?: The Search for Extraterrestrial intelligence," [1989], Sigma 
Press: Wilmslow UK, 1997, p.7)

19/01/2005
"The scenario that Dawkins embraced had been formulated by two biologists, Dan Nilsson and Susanne 
Pelger. They began with their hypothetical eye being already in a formative stage that consisted of a patch 
of light-receptive cells at the skin's surface that was sandwiched between a transparent protective layer of 
cells above and a layer of darkly pigmented cells below. By way of mathematical modeling, Nilsson and 
Pelger calculated, conservatively, that it would take only 400,000 generations for this non-eye region of skin 
to be transformed into an organ of sight. Even when only a 1 percent change per generation is invoked over 
what is really a relatively short period of geologic time, Nilsson and Pelger predicted that selection would be 
able to cause the skin to invaginate, bringing the presumptive retinal layer down with it, and then to fill with 
fluid of a very low refractive index. Still no functional eye, but then a lens begins to emerge and eventually it 
achieves a refractive index sufficient to provide sight. The maximum number of tiny steps required to go 
from the flat to the invaginated structure was estimated at 1,033. It took only 529 more steps to make a lens 
and put the eye into its final, semi-flattened shape. Absent from this simulation was consideration of the 
origin of the patch of layered cells in the right place, the development of a variable iris and controlled 
focusing, the creation of the nervous optic chiasma that is the region in which the optic nerves cross over, 
and the innervation of the eyeballs by the optic nerves, which constitute one of the twelve pairs of primary 
nerves that emanate from the brain itself. Curiously lacking, as well, was any discussion by Dawkins of the 
selection pressure that would have set the process in motion and of the selective advantage members of 
more than 399,000 generations of their species would have enjoyed as they served as conduits for this ever-
invaginating, liquid-filled pair of pockets in their head region. But, once the process had taken off on this 
trajectory, there was, as Dawkins saw it, no turning back. For, in his view of evolution, `[u]nlike human 
designers, natural selection can't go downhill, not even if there is a tempting higher hill on the other side of 
the valley.' It is, however, one thing to model how such changes might have occurred seamlessly and 
gradually, and another to have a basis for doing so." (Schwartz J.H., "Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and 
the Emergence of Species," John Wiley & Sons: New York NY, 1999, pp.361-362)

20/01/2005
Revelation 21:1-8 (NIV). The New Jerusalem. [1] Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first 
heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. [2] I saw the Holy City, the 
new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her 
husband. [3] And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he 
will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. [4] He will 
wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order 
of things has passed away." [5] He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then 
he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." [6] He said to me: "It is done. I am the 
Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost 
from the spring of the water of life. [7] He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will 
be my son. [8] But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who 
practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars-their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the 
second death."]

21/01/2005
"In general, then, evolutionary algorithms generate not true specified complexity but at best the 
appearance of specified complexity. This claim is reminiscent of one made by Richard Dawkins. On 
the opening page of The Blind, Watchmaker he states, "Biology is the study of complicated things 
that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." Just as the Darwinian mechanism does 
not generate actual design but only its appearance, so too the Darwinian mechanism does not generate 
actual specified complexity but only its appearance. " (Dembski, W.A.*, "No Free Lunch: Why Specified 
Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence," Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham MD, 2002, p.183. 
Emphasis in original)

21/01/2005
"DARWINISTS SPEAK OF `NATURAL SELECTION' AS IF IT WERE A CREATIVE force, but it is really 
just a fancy name for nonrandorn death. From a Darwinian viewpoint, however, the presence of a lot of 
fossils of extinct creatures testifies to the emergence of newer, fitter forms of life that prevailed in the 
struggle for existence. Extinction of the unfit is also cited as evidence against intelligent design in biology. 
Why would a wise Creator design creatures that were unfit to survive? In fact, there is no reason to believe 
that extinct forms of life were any less fit to survive under the normal conditions of their time than are 
modern plants and animals, including ourselves. Whatever the true explanation of extinctions may be, the 
Darwinian explanation finds no support whatever in the fossil evidence, as David Raup explains in 
Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck (Norton, 1991) [http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/raup.htm]. This 
essay has a poignant history for me. While Darwin on Trial was in page proofs, an editor from The Atlantic 
phoned with an offer to let me write a long article based on the book for his magazine. Alas, I had already 
published just such an article in First Things-an estimable journal, but one of far less circulation. Under the 
circumstances the editor withdrew the offer but, as a consolation prize, allowed me to review the book of my 
choice. I picked the Raup volume and set to work establishing my thesis that the Darwinian theory of 
extinction cannot be separated from the Darwinian theory of biological creation. The piece barely made it to 
publication, as it was assigned to a subeditor who was an enthusiastic Darwinist and thought my line of 
reasoning was crazy. It was carried in the February 1992 issue. Letters to the editor were carried in three 
subsequent issues of the magazine. All the published letters were vehemently hostile, but Raup himself 
wrote to me privately and said I was right on target." (Johnson, P.E.*, "Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?," 
in "Objections Sustained: Subversive Essays on Evolution, Law & Culture," InterVarsity Press: Downers 
Grove IL, 1998, p.41. Emphasis original)

21/01/2005
"The notion that slow, gentle pressure produces extinction is part of the Darwinian paradigm. In The 
Origin of Species, Darwin used the metaphor of a log of wood with many wedges driven into its surface. 
Newly driven wedges were the newly evolved species. With crowding of wedges (species), each new wedge 
displaced and expelled old ones from the log. The clear implication is that gentle pressure exerted by new 
and better-adapted species leads to the extinction of one or more incumbent species. This idea is appealing 
and has been learned by generations of biology students. But its verification from actual field data is 
negligible." (Raup D.M., "Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?," [1991], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, 
1993, Reprint, pp.184-185)

21/01/2005
"As natural selection acts solely by the preservation of profitable modifications, each new form will tend in a 
fully stocked country to take the place of, and finally to exterminate, its own less improved parent-form and 
other less-favoured forms with which it comes into competition. Thus extinction and natural selection go 
hand in hand. Hence, if we look at each species as descended from some unknown form, both the parent and 
all the transitional varieties will generally have been exterminated by the very process of the formation and 
perfection of the new form." (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], 
Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1928, Reprint, pp.156-157)

22/01/2005
"For example, evolution, as defined by the geneticists, is `a change of gene frequencies in populations.'" 
(Mayr, E.W., "Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist," Harvard University 
Press: Cambridge MA, 1988, p.529)

22/01/2005
"At the genetic level, evolution consists of changes in the genetic constitution of populations." (Ayala F.J. 
& Kiger J.A. Jr., "Modern Genetics," [1980], Benjamin/Cummings: Menlo Park CA, Second Edition, 1984, 
p.771)

22/01/2005
"The problems connected with rates and trends of evolution could be interpreted in terms of the geneticists' 
formula that evolution is a change in gene frequency. However, this is a meaningless formulation as far as 
most other problems of macroevolution are concerned, and is one of the reasons why genetics made such a 
relatively small contribution to the solution of macroevolutionary problems. This inappropriate formulation 
is also responsible for the considerable time lag between the synthesis and an adequate treatment of some 
of these problems." (Mayr, E.W., "The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance," 
Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, 1982, p.610)

22/01/2005
"Evolution The gradual process by which the living world has been developing following the origin of life." 
(Mayr, E.W., "What Evolution Is," Basic Books: New York NY, 2001, p.286. Emphasis original)

22/01/2005
"The naturalists who contributed so much to the evolutionary synthesis showed how incomplete if not 
misleading was the reductionist definition of evolution, as a change in gene frequencies. As I have pointed 
out previously (Mayr 1977, 1982) this definition quite misses the point. ... Changes in gene frequencies are 
merely a byproduct of these more basic processes. Furthermore, it is questionable to what extent changes in 
the frequency of neutral genes can be designated as evolution. The now rejected definition is most nearly 
correct for prokaryotes, but it is singularly inappropriate for complex higher organisms." (Mayr E., 
"Introduction: An Overview of Current Evolutionary Biology," Warren L. & Koprowski H., eds, "New 
Perspectives on Evolution," WileyLiss: New York NY, 1991, p.2)

23/01/2005
"Multiple hypotheses should be proposed whenever possible. Proposing alternative explanations that can 
answer a question is good science. If we operate with a single hypothesis, especially one we favor, we may 
direct our investigation toward a hunt for evidence in support of this hypothesis. ... A hypothesis can be 
falsified by experimental tests, especially if the experiments are repeated with the same results. ... But ... It is 
impossible to repeat an experiment enough times to be absolutely certain that the results will always be the 
same. And some false hypotheses make accurate predictions. ... Of the many hypotheses proposed to 
answer a particular question, the correct explanation may not even be included. Even the most thoroughly 
tested hypotheses are accepted only conditionally, pending further investigation." (Campbell N.A., Reece 
J.B. & Mitchell L.G., "Biology," [1987], Benjamin/Cummings: Menlo Park CA, Fifth Edition, 1999, pp.14-15)

23/01/2005
"Thus our term `phyletic gradualism' in general means slow, steady change by degrees.' In particular, it 
refers to the slow, steady transformation of an entire species. We presented evidence that, contrary to the 
long-held picture of gradual evolutionary change through time, most species hardly change much at all once 
they appear in the fossil record-the phenomenon we called `stasis.' We pointed out that paleontologists 
clung to the myth of gradual adaptive transformation even in the face of plain evidence to the contrary-
paleontology's `trade secret,' as Gould later called it. ... neo-Darwinians-right on down through today's ultra-
Darwinians-have tenaciously clung to the original Darwinian vision of gradualism. ... The ultra-Darwinian 
embrace of phyletic gradualism reveals some very serious flaws in their grasp of the basic organization of 
biological nature." (Eldredge N., "Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate," Phoenix: London, 
1996, pp.63-64)

23/01/2005
"phyletic gradualism A theory holding that macroevolution is merely the operation of microevolution, which 
operates gradually and more or less continuously over relatively long periods of time. Thus gradual changes 
eventually will accumulate to the point at which descendants of an ancestral population diverge into 
separate species, genera, or higher-level taxa." (Allaby M., ed., "Oxford Dictionary of Zoology," [1991], 
Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, Second Edition, 1999, p.410)

23/01/2005
"Today, it seems nearly everyone is an astrobiologist. A decade ago, I knew essentially none. Why this 
sudden obsession with a field that encompasses so many diverse areas in both the physical and life 
sciences? So far, life has not been found to exist away from Earth, although the surge in interest in 
astrobiology suggests there is intense optimism within at least parts of the science community that this 
singularity will change in the future. But scientific curiosity alone likely cannot explain the explosive growth 
of astrobiology. After reading The Living Universe: NASA and the Development of Astrobiology, I came to 
the conclusion that one of the field's attractions was money--and lots of it." (Bada J.L., "A Field with a Life 
of Its Own." Review of "The Living Universe: NASA and the Development of Astrobiology," by Steven J. 
Dick and James E. Strick, Rutgers University Press: Piscataway NJ, 2004. Science, Vol. 307, 7 January 2005, 
p.46. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/307/5706/46)

23/01/2005
"Well in my book ["Darwin Retried" (1971) ] I pointed out that Goldschmidt in 1940 had propounded the idea 
that has come to be known as the Hopeful Monster. In desperation about finding any mechanism that was 
operating slowly and steadily in the Darwinian sense, he stated that it seemed to him impossible to explain 
evolution on the basis of cumulating tiny little steps. Therefore he was driven to the idea that there must 
have been something very sudden, large and sudden, and this is why it came to be known as Systemic 
Mutation, a complete shake-up. Well, it was pointed out that if you shook things up as badly as that and 
had a new form appearing suddenly, first it would be very unlikely to survive and second, it would be very 
difficult for it to reproduce because it couldn't find a partner that was equally monstrous and novel. ... Now 
Goldschmidt was fully aware of this and only suggested that it must be something like that because nothing 
else worked. He was completely and totally rejected. To be a Goldschmidtian for the next thirty years was 
impossible. It would have been suicidal in the fraternity. But strange to say, since my book came out almost 
exactly ten years ago, there has been a great revival of interest in Goldschmidt. He has been rehabilitated in 
a very big way. Stephen Jay Gould and a number of others are now saying Goldschmidt was on the right 
track. He didn't produce anything that you could document, but they say it did happen that way in sudden 
and big jumps, not in cumulating what Darwin called insensible changes." (Macbeth N., "Darwinism: A Time 
for Funerals," Robert Briggs Associates: San Francisco CA, 1982, p.4)

24/01/2005
"I am a believer that some of the basic statements of neo-Darwinism are vacuous; and I think there is a 
confusion here, possibly, about whether we are talking about Darwinism or neo-Darwinism. Dr. Medawar 
mentioned this phrase, `the survival of the fittest,' and it is a very elementary, old-fashioned, long outdated 
concept; but, of course, this is what Darwin was talking about. By `fittest,' he meant best able to carry out 
the functions of life, best adapted to some environmental situation and some way of life. By a fit horse, he 
meant a horse that could gallop fastest and escape best from wolves, or whatever it might be. That is a real 
theory which is perfectly capable of refutation. What has happened to it since, in the process of turning this 
into a lot of mathematics, is that `fitness' has been redefined, leaving out anything to do with way of life, 
simply in terms of leaving offspring. So the theory of neo-Darwinism is a theory of the evolution of the 
changing of the population in respect to leaving offspring and not in respect to anything else. Nothing else 
is mentioned in the mathematical theory of neo-Darwinism. It is smuggled in and everybody has in the back 
of his mind that the animals that leave the largest number of offspring are going to be those best adapted 
also for eating peculiar vegetation, or something of this sort; but this is not explicit in the theory. All that is 
explicit in the theory is that they will leave more offspring. There, you do come to what is, in effect, a 
vacuous statement: Natural selection is that some things leave more offspring than others; and you ask, 
which leave more offspring than others; and it is those that leave more offspring; and there is nothing more 
to it than that. The whole real guts of evolution-which is, how do you come to have horses and tigers, and 
things-is outside the mathematical theory."(Waddington C.H., "Discussion: Paper by Dr. Eden," in 
Moorhead P.S. & Kaplan M.M., ed., "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of 
Evolution: A Symposium Held at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, April 25 and 26, 1966," The 
Wistar Institute Symposium Monograph Number 5, The Wistar Institute Press: Philadelphia PA, 1967, pp.13-
14)

24/01/2005
"It has never been possible to break out of the circle by finding a better word than fittest. But, since 
something had to be done to restore logical respectability, a new meaning was foisted on the old word. 
Fitness was redefined to mean "having the most offspring." Mayr says: "...those individuals that 
have the most offspring are by definition...the fittest ones." [Mayr E., "Animal Species and Evolution," 
Harvard University Press, 1963, p.183] ... Simpson, the dean of the evolutionists, nails the point down even 
more firmly, stating that among geneticists fitness has nothing to do with the common understanding of the 
term: "If genetically red-haired parents have, on an average, a larger proportion of children than blondes or 
brunettes, then evolution will be in the direction of red hair. If genetically left-handed parents have more 
children, evolution will be toward left-handedness. The characteristics themselves do not directly matter at 
all. All that matters is who leaves more descendants over the generations. Natural Selection favors fitness 
only if you define fitness as leaving more descendants. In fact geneticists do define it that way, which may 
be confusing to others. To a geneticist fitness has nothing to do with health, strength, good looks, or 
anything but effectiveness in breeding." [Simpson G.G., "This View of Life," Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964, 
p.273]" (Macbeth N., "Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason," Gambit: Boston MA, 1971, pp.63-64. 
Emphasis and ellipses original)

24/01/2005
"Goldschmidt had practically no evidence to offer to support his suggestion and I think he recognized that 
clearly. He found what scraps he could as slightly helpful, but he recognized that he was, to some extent, 
pipedreaming about it. But he felt it necessary to pipedream because the Synthetic Theory offered nothing. 
... He made a frank confession of the terrible lack of any really supportive mechanism behind Darwinism. He 
was driven to despair. He had thirty years with the fruit flies and he felt they were getting nowhere. He was 
the man who said you could have a thousand point mutations in one fruit fly ... and it would still be a fruit 
fly. ... Therefore it must be something bigger. ... I did not espouse the idea of a Hopeful Monster because as 
far as I can see, as Goldschmidt could see, as any fool can see, it is extremely difficult to document, in fact 
impossible. It is not a scientific theory, it is only a statement that we are in such terrible shape that it must 
have been something on the order of a miracle."
(Macbeth N., "Darwinism: A time for funerals," Robert Briggs Associates: San Francisco CA, 1982, p.4)

24/01/2005
"Natural selection favors fitness only if you define fitness as leaving more descendants. In fact geneticists 
do define it that way, which may be confusing to others. To a geneticist fitness has nothing to do with 
health, strength, good looks, or anything but effectiveness in breeding." [Simpson G.G., "This View of Life," 
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964, p.273] The explanation by Simpson just quoted indicates why it is not easy 
to formulate the theory of natural selection other than as a tautology. It may seem obvious, for example, that 
it is advantageous for a wild stallion to be able to run faster, but in the Darwinian sense this will be true only 
to the extent that a faster stallion sires more offspring. ... In all such cases we can presume a characteristic to 
be advantageous because a species which has it seems to be thriving, but in most cases it is impossible to 
identify the advantage independently of the outcome. That is why Simpson was so insistent that 
"advantage" has no inherent meaning other than actual success in reproduction. All we can say is that the 
individuals which produced the most offspring must have had the qualities required for producing the most 
offspring." (Johnson, P.E.*, "Darwin on Trial," [1991], InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, Second Edition, 
1993, p.20)

25/01/2005
"Kimura's estimate is based essentially on an argument first put forward by Haldane (Haldane J.B.S., 
J.Genet., Vol. 55, 1957, p511); it is this argument which I believe to be erroneous. Haldane bases his 
argument on the idea of the "cost" of natural selection. The unit step in evolution is the substitution of one 
allele, say A, for another, a, in a population. This happens because individuals carrying the gene a are killed 
selectively or because they have a lower fertility. The larger the number of selective deaths, the more rapidly 
will gene frequencies change. Haldane estimated the total number of selective deaths (that is, deaths of 
individuals who would have survived had they had the optimum genotype) required to substitute one allele 
for another. He concluded that, for a diploid population with moderate selective advantage, the total 'cost" 
of selection would be between 10 and 100 times the population size, per gene substitution. Now there is an 
upper limit to the number of selective deaths which can occur in one generation. Thus if, for example, a 
population consisting wholly of individuals of optimal genotype could in favourable circumstances increase 
by a factor R. then the fraction of selective deaths cannot be greater than (R-1)/R per generation. This places 
an upper limit on the rate of evolution." (Smith J.M., "`Haldane's Dilemma' and the Rate of Evolution," 
Nature, Vol. 219, 1968, p.1114)

25/01/2005
"HALDANE'S DILEMMA Consider a population in which a gene A1 confers on its carriers a Darwinian 
fitness greater than in the carriers of A2. Natural selection acts to enhance the frequency of A1 and to 
reduce that of A2. This may happen because the progeny of A1 survive more frequently than of A2, or 
because the former have a greater fecundity, sexual activity, longevity, or any combination of these and 
other advantages. Whatever the cause, one may say that carriers of A2 are eliminated by `genetic deaths.' 
Substitution of more favorable for less favorable alleles by natural selection occurs at a `cost,' and imposes 
upon the population a `substitutional' genetic load. The concept of substitutional load has a paradox at its 
core. Imagine a population in which every member has a high Darwinian fitness; a new and still more 
favorable mutation arises; now every member except the carrier of the mutant has a new genetic load that 
must be eliminated for the population to reach a still higher level of fitness. In 1957 Haldane analyzed the 
consequences of this situation. During the passage of a favorable mutant from its origin to fixation many 
individuals have to suffer genetic death; the number of such individuals is generally much greater than the 
number of individuals alive in any one generation. Crow and Kimura (1970) give the following example of 
gene substitution `if the typical allele has an initial frequency of l0^-4, a population of one million individuals 
will have to have nine million genetic deaths each generation if it is to substitute an average of one allele per 
generation. Or more probably, if there is to be a gene substitution every 100 generations, the average fitness 
will be lowered by 0.09.' Now, in evolution many genes must be changed to transform one species into 
another. Granted that most living species produce numbers of progeny far in excess of those needed to have 
the population survive, it is difficult to understand how evolution can happen at such an enormous cost in 
genetic deaths. Haldane saw clearly that he was confronted by a dilemma. In his words, `I am quite aware 
that my conclusions will probably need a drastic revision. But I am convinced that quantitative arguments of 
the kind here put forward should play a part in all future discussions of evolution." (Dobzhansky T., Ayala 
F.J., Stebbins G.L. & Valentine J.W. "Evolution," W.H. Freeman & Co: San Francisco CA, 1977, pp.163-164. 
Emphasis original)

25/01/2005
"But just as evolution is not a steady march of progress, it cannot run backward either. Evolution is change, 
nothing more or less. Tetrapods took their heroic crawl out of the water 360 million years ago, and their 
descendants have gone back in more than a dozen times. When they entered the water, they did not 
degenerate into lancelets, let alone lobe-fins, Instead, they became things altogether new, such as whales." 
(Zimmer C., "Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea," HarperCollins: New York, 2001, p.135)

25/01/2005
"So, the geological time scale and the basic facts of biological change over time are totally independent of 
evolutionary theory. It follows that the documentation of evolution does not depend on Darwinian theory or 
any other theory. Darwinian theory is just one of several biological mechanisms proposed to explain the 
evolution we observe to have happened." (Raup D.M., "Evolution and the Fossil Record," Science, Vol. 213, 
No. 4505, 17 July 1981, p.289)

25/01/2005
"The most consequential change in man's view of the world, of living nature and of himself came with the 
introduction, over a period of some 100 years beginning only in the 18th century, of the idea of change 
itself, of change over long periods of time: in a word, of evolution. Man's world view today is dominated by 
the knowledge that the universe, the stars the earth and all living things have evolved through a long 
history that was not foreordained or programmed, a history of continual, gradual change shaped by more or 
less directional natural processes consistent with the laws of physics. Cosmic evolution and biological 
evolution have that much in common." (Mayr, E.W., "Evolution," Scientific American, Vol. 239, No. 3, 
September 1978, p.39)

25/01/2005
"Darwin as he articulated his theory of evolution by natural selection. He had identified a powerful 
mechanism of change in living systems. He had summarized incontrovertible evidence that evolution had 
taken place in the fundamental sense of change in life over time (species, genera, whole phyla). He had 
demonstrated the equally fundamental weakness of "multiple creations" as a cause of the different faunas 
and floras existing in similar climatic regimes (Europe versus North America, for example). His problem was 
the demonstration of a direct and causal linkage between the evidence of change and the postulated 
mechanism." (Thomson K.S, "Natural Selection and Evolution's Smoking Gun," American Scientist, Vol. 85, 
No. 6, November- December 1997, p.516)

25/01/2005
"All of this makes one sympathetic with Nicholas Wade of The New York Times, who recently wrote an 
article entitled "Leapin' Evolution Is Found in Lizards." This was a report on an experiment in which lizards 
of the species Anolis sagrei from an island in the Bahamas were released onto an island lacking lizards and 
with a different vegetation pattern (Losos, Warheit and Schoener 1997). After 10 years, the limb proportions 
of the experimental population had shifted significantly in the direction predicted on the basis of the new 
host ecology. Whether the results document a case of evolution depends, of course, on definitions. 
Certainly it is a form of change over time, and such demonstrations are a necessary requirement for 
documenting a case of Darwinian evolution caught in flagrante delicto. But it is not sufficient to the case. 
All evolution is change, but not all change is evolution. " (Thomson K.S, "Natural Selection and Evolution's 
Smoking Gun," American Scientist, Vol. 85, No. 6, November- December 1997, p.518)

25/01/2005
"All scholarly subjects seem to go through cycles, from periods when most of the answers seem to be 
known to periods when no one is sure that even the questions are right. Such is the case for evolutionary 
biology. Twenty years ago Mayr, in his Animal Species and Evolution (1), seemed to have shown that if 
evolution is a jigsaw puzzle, then at least all the edge pieces were in place. But today we are less confident 
and the whole subject is in the most exciting ferment. Evolution is both troubled from without by the 
nagging insistencies of antiscientists and nagged from within by the troubling complexities of genetic and 
developmental mechanisms and new questions about the central mystery-speciation itself. In looking over 
recent literature in and around the field of evolutionary theory, I am struck by the necessity to reexamine the 
simpler foundations of the subject, to distinguish carefully between what we know and what we merely think 
we know. The first and strongest of our critics to be answered should be ourselves. Scientists can always 
do themselves a great service by being scrupulously precise about the nature of their statements. Are they 
statements of fact, strong logical inferences from scientific methods, or hypotheses? In this essay I will 
attempt to show that the word evolution is currently used in at least three quite separate senses. The first 
way in which the term evolution has come to be used is the oldest: it is the general sense of change over 
time." (Thomson K.S., "The Meanings of Evolution," American Scientist, Vol. 70, September-October 1982, 
pp.529-531, p.530)

25/01/2005
"It was the aim of our nineteenth-century forebears to produce a description of the evolutionary process 
that would serve biology as Newtonian mechanics had served the physical sciences. The first two meanings 
of evolution provide the necessary basis for this unifying theory. Change over time is a fact, and descent 
from common ancestors is based upon such unassailable logic that we act as though it is a fact. Natural 
selection provides the outline of an explanatory theory. When physicists probed deeper, they found 
unsuspected complexity and uncertainty. It will be interesting to see what the next twenty years will bring 
for evolutionary biology." (Thomson K.S., "The Meanings of Evolution," American Scientist, Vol. 70, 
September-October 1982, pp.529-531, p.531)

25/01/2005
"As science, ID holds that it's possible to seek and study evidence of intelligent design in the physical and 
biological worlds without positing either the identity or intent of the designer. So far, much of the work has 
centered on Darwinian materialism, which is not exactly the same thing as evolution. No serious scientist or 
informed layperson denies the fact of evolution, in the sense that species come, go and change over time. 
There's a fossil record of infuriating gaps, wondrous complexity and endless surprises to ponder. The 
problem with Darwinian materialism is that, as a matter of faith, it holds that all this happened at 
random...and that, as a matter of dogma, no other explanations may even be considered. (Gold P., 
"Darwinism in denial?," The Washington Times, August 23, 2001. 
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&program=CSCStories&id=1026)

25/01/2005
"If one defines evolution broadly enough (say, as a belief that organisms change over time), then no one 
seriously denies that evolution has occurred. But the modern theory of neo-Darwinism goes much further. It 
claims that the evolution of life is driven by a blind process of natural selection acting on random variations, 
a process that is said to have `no specific direction or goal.' In other words, neo-Darwinism teaches as a 
matter of scientific truth that life as we know it, including all human life, has behind it no creative intelligence 
and before it no goal or purpose. It is this more specific claim about evolution that is being challenged today 
by a growing number of scientists." (West J.G., Jr., "Intelligent design could offer fresh ideas on evolution", 
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 6, 2002. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/98810_idrebut06.shtml)

25/01/2005
"Evolution is still dogmatically upheld, of course. But intellectual opposition is growing rapidly. The 
collapse of the idea of progress, so strong in Darwin's day, has no doubt played a role. We can now see that 
supporting evidence for the theory has scarcely been unearthed at all. The late Colin Patterson, a curator of 
paleontology at the British Museum of Natural History, questioned in the 1980's whether we really know 
anything about evolution. The supporters of the theory are at their most dogmatic when they tell us that it is 
a `fact,' but when pressed they say that what they mean by evolution is `change over time.' Oh. Or a `change 
in gene frequencies.' As Phil Johnson says, this claim is so weak that it is confirmed every time a baby is 
born. Although portrayed as a science, evolution is more truly an ideology. It is based on the premise of 
materialism, or naturalism. This may be characterized as the belief that nothing exists except for `molecules in 
motion' (in Lenin's apt formulation). If materialism is true, then evolution indeed must be true. Organisms do 
exist, so they must have assembled themselves out of blindly whirling atoms. Evolution, then, is a 
straightforward deduction from a world view, rather than an observation." (Bethell T., "The Evolution Wars: 
Good science encounters a bad philosophy," The American Spectator, December 199- January 2000. 
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a384e87e563fc.htm)

26/01/2005
"Yes, the micro[evolution] is rather easy, because you can see so much happening when you have artificial 
breeding of plants and animals. How many varieties of roses are there? How many varieties of maize? 
Several thousand I think. Look at the incredible variety among dogs: Chihuahuas and St. Bernards, Afghans 
and bulldogs. ... There's a great flexibility in almost any species, but it doesn't go too far. It comes to the 
point, and every breeder knows this, when they either go sterile or snap back to the original form. Darwin 
was aware of this himself, so was Luther Burbank, the greatest breeder of all. This leaves us with an 
elasticity in the species but nothing like sufficient elasticity to produce something utterly new, not to turn a 
tree shrew about an inch long into a whale, which is the sort of problem you get with macro-evolution." 
(Macbeth N., "Darwinism: A time for funerals," Robert Briggs Associates: San Francisco CA, 1982, pp.5-6)

28/01/2005
"The idea of punctuated equilibria comes from Gould and Eldredge. In it they recognize the dominance, in 
the fossil record, of what they call stasis, that nothing happens and yet new forms appear. So they've come 
out with the idea that off-stage, invisible to us, there are short bursts of rapid evolution. Then the results, 
animal or plant, reappear on stage and remain in a state of stasis for the rest of their existence, hundreds of 
millions of years perhaps. Unfortunately, of course, nobody sees the burst of evolution and it leaves no 
traces. They try to explain this as perhaps due to the fact that it occurred in a small and remote region and 
the chances were very slight that fossils would be preserved. This isn't very persuasive after you have 
heard it a hundred times for all the different creations of both animal and plant. It can't all have happened 
that way, and again it appears a pipe- dream. It's called the Sewall Wright Effect, or genetic drift, or the 
colony principle, or the founder principle. I have rather sharp comments by several people, including Ernst 
Mayr, about its being rather unethical almost for biologists to invoke genetic drift whenever they get in 
trouble and ... rely on ... the Sewall Wright Effect ... happening to small populations in remote spots, where 
they don't leave any record. They are in a condition of bankruptcy." (Macbeth N., "Darwinism: A time for 
funerals," Robert Briggs Associates: San Francisco CA, 1982, pp.6-7)

29/01/2005
"... it's more exciting to think of a meeting held in Chicago in October of 1980. ... There were about 150 
scientists of various kinds assembled together, and they spent three or four days on the problems of 
macroevolution and got absolutely nowhere. They were still arguing punctuated equilibria as though it was 
something important, which I really don't think it is; it's only a different way of explaining microchanges. 
They actually had difficulty persuading some of the geneticists that the fossil record showed stasis, this 
terrible lack of any change at all. Geneticists had apparently not been talking to the palaeontologists or 
reading their material and they were surprised, literally surprised, that the palaeontologists had found this 
stasis going on. They had to be persuaded by the testimony of eminent palaeontologists that this was what 
they found in the fossil record. The fruit-fly men had got rapid change in no time at all. The full record of 
that conference is probably on tape somewhere, but a great deal was said out in the corridors and in the 
cloakrooms, etc. that isn't in the record at all, and the impression I got from two or three people who 
attended it was one of really spectacular bankruptcy. They had no theory whatsoever as to macroevolution. 
It's still in the condition it was in Goldschmidt's time with Gould and others now recognizing this." (Macbeth 
N., "Darwinism: A time for funerals," Robert Briggs Associates: San Francisco CA, 1982, pp.6-7)

29/01/2005
"It is thus likely, to say the least, that major as well as minor changes in evolution have occurred gradually 
and that the same forces are at work in each case. Nevertheless there is a difference and many of the major 
changes cannot be considered as simply caused by longer continuation of the more usual sorts of minor 
changes. For one thing, there is excellent evidence that evolution involving major changes often occurs with 
unusual rapidity, although, as we have seen, there is no good evidence that it ever occurs instantaneously. 
The rate of evolution of the insectivore forelimb into the bat wing, to give just one striking example, must 
have been many times more rapid than any evolution of the bat wing after it had arisen. The whole record 
attests that the origin of a distinctly new adaptive type normally occurs at a much higher rate than 
subsequent progressive adaptation and diversification within that type. The rapidity of such shifts from one 
adaptive level or equilibrium to another has suggested the name `quantum evolution,' under which I have 
elsewhere discussed this phenomenon at greater length. " (Simpson G.G., "The Meaning of Evolution: A 
Study of the History of Life and of its Significance for Man," Yale University Press: New Haven CT, 1949, 
pp.234-235)

30/01/2005
"Circular Definitions and Question Begging One way to eliminate vagueness and to make sure that 
abstractions adequately represent constructions is to define the terms carefully. Clear definitions may not 
solve all difficulties .... Be this as it may, bad definitions multiply them. The most notorious fault with 
definition is circularity, although formal definitions are circular in the sense that the defining term and the 
term to be defined are interchangeable. By `circular definition' is meant a definition which attempts to resolve 
a point at issue by defining a term so as to preempt the point. Such a definition `begs the question.' " 
(Fearnside, W.W. & Holther, W.B., "Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument," Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs 
NJ, 1959, 25th printing, p.165. Emphasis original)

30/01/2005
"Imposing Restrictions ... For while we can indeed impose whatever restrictions we wish, what we cannot do 
is then without further argument claim that the results of following those restrictions will be truth, 
approximate truth, self-correction or anything of the sort. The problem is that nature may or may not 
conform to our stipulations. For instance, suppose that some czar wishes to be a respected scientist but just 
cannot do much math. One solution to his problem would be to decree that mathematics could not be 
employed in science-that in what he means by science mathematical concepts are by definition 
prohibited. Well, the czar's scientists, and even the czar himself, might construct a pretty amazing system. 
But if nature is fundamentally mathematical, that pretty amazing system would still be pretty amazingly 
mistaken. The czar cannot both put a priori restrictions on science and claim that the results reflect 
reality. If nature itself violates those restrictions, the results are going to be wrong. Those who simply 
stipulate a naturalism in science face exactly the same situation. If nature is not a closed, naturalistic system-
that is, if reality does not respect the naturalists' edict-then the science built around that edict cannot be 
credited a priori with getting at truth, being self-corrective or anything of the sort. Now if we had some 
rational reason for accepting naturalism as in fact true, then stipulating that science had to be naturalistic in 
order to have a chance at uncovering genuine truth would make perfect sense. But that would involve 
making a case for naturalism-not simply decreeing that science was by definition or for convenience 
naturalistic, which is the path taken by various evolutionists. ... Some people have recognized that confining 
science to naturalism would nearly guarantee that some truths were forever beyond science should it turn 
but that supernatural events or processes did at times intersect the empirical realm. And some, recognizing 
that and faced with the dilemma of either giving up stipulating naturalism in science or risking the possibility 
that science will be incapable of getting at such truth, have chosen the latter. For instance, Niles Eldredge 
says, `It could even be true-but it cannot be construed as science,' [Eldredge N., `The Monkey Business' 
Washington Square: New York NY, 1982, p.134] while Douglas Futuyma adds, `It isn't necessarily wrong. It 
just is not amenable to scientific investigation.' [Futuyma D., `Science on Trial', Pantheon: New York NY, 
1983, p.169] Michael Ruse agrees: `It is not necessarily wrong ... but it is not science ` [Ruse M., `But is It 
Science?', Prometheus: Buffalo NY, 1996, p301] So if say, we want to know about origins, and if the truth is 
supernatural, that truth cannot be a part of our science, even if we had some additional access to that truth. 
One characterization of science that has been popular among scientists is that it is `a search for truth, no 
holds barred.' On the present view, though, if one had some rationally defensible grounds for thinking that 
God had ... created ... one would evidently as a scientist by definition have to pretend that one really did not 
know that particular truth. That particular hold would be barred. But then, exactly what sort of project is 
science supposed to be if truth is not the, or at least an, ultimate object?" (Ratzsch, D.L.*, "The Battle of 
Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate," InterVarsity Press: Downers 
Grove IL, 1996, pp.166-168. Emphasis in original)

February [top]
1/02/2005
"There is another, far less conclusive, strand of research on prayer and disease that has tried to measure the 
effects of so-called `intercessory' prayer. This is a more daring enter prise: attempting to measure the effect 
of prayer not simply on the health of one who prays, but also on the health of others. In one 1969 triple-
blind study, a prayer intervention group prayed for ten children with leukemia (the children were not aware 
they were being prayed for). another eight children served as a control group, for which the intervention 
group did not pray. (A. number of critics have raised ethical issues about such studies, with reason.) After a 
fifteen-month period, seven out of ten children in the prayer group were alive; only two of the eight in the 
control group were alive. The point was to determine whether intercessory prayer could affect disease; 
however, critics point out that the sample was far too small to draw any conclusions." (Glynn P.*, "God: The 
Evidence: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World," Forum: Rocklin CA, 1997, p.90)

2/02/2005
"An even tougher problem concerns the coding assignments, i.e. which triplets code for which amino acids. 
How did these designations come about? As nucleic acid bases and amino acids don't recognize each other 
directly, but have to deal via chemical intermediaries, there is no obvious reason why particular triplets 
should go with particular amino acids. Other translations are conceivable. Coded instructions are a good 
idea, but the actual code seems to be pretty arbitrary. Perhaps it is simply a frozen accident, a random choice 
that just locked itself in, with no deeper significance." (Davies P.C.W., "The Fifth Miracle: The Search for 
the Origin of Life," Penguin: Ringwood, Australia, 1998, pp.79-80)

2/02/2005
"The striking utility of encoded genetic data stems from the fact that amino acids `understand' it. The 
information distributed along a strand of DNA is biologically relevant. In computerspeak, genetic 
data is semantic data. To