[Quotes] [Religion, #1, #3, #4, #5]
"But evolution is different. Evolutionists purport to explain where we came from and how we developed into the complex organisms that we are. Physicists, by and large, do not. So, the study of evolution trespasses on the bailiwick of religion. And it has something else in common with religion. It is almost as hard for scientists to demonstrate evolution to the lay public as it would be for churchmen to prove transubstantiation or the virginity of Mary." (Wills C., "The Wisdom of the Genes: New Pathways in Evolution," Basic Books: New York NY, 1989, p.9).
[top]"Finally, the evolutionary vision is enabling us to discern, however incompletely, the lineaments of the new religion that we can be sure will arise to serve the needs of the coming era. Just as stomachs are bodily organs concerned with digestion, and involving the biochemical activity of special juices, so are religions psychosocial organs concerned with the problems of human destiny, and involving the emotion of sacredness and the sense of right and wrong. Religion of some sort is probably necessary." (Huxley J.S., "The Humanist Frame," in "Essays of a Humanist," [1964], Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1969, reprint, p.91).
[top]"But in our own culture, where many people officially have no religion at all, and those who have can chop and change, new faiths have much more scope and can become more distinctive. They are hungrily seized on by people whose lives lack meaning. When this happens, there arise at once, unofficially and spontaneously, many elements which we think of as characteristically religious. We begin, for instance, to find priesthoods, prophecies devotion, bigotry, exaltation, heresy- hunting and sectarianism, ritual sacrifice, fanaticism, notions of sin, absolution and salvation, and the confident promise of a heaven in the future. ... Marxism and evolutionism, the two great secular faiths of our day, display all these religious-looking features. They have also, like the great religions and unlike more casual local faiths, large-scale, ambitious systems of thought, designed to articulate, defend and justify heir ideas - in short, ideologies." (Midgley M., "Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears," [1985], Methuen: London, 1986, reprint, p.15. Ellipses mine.)
[top]"The doctrine of evolution by natural selection as Darwin formulated, and as his followers still explain it, has a strong anti-religious flavour. This is due to the fact that the intricate adaptations and co-ordinations we see in living things naturally evoking the idea of finality and design and, therefore of an intelligent providence, are explained, with what seems to be a rigorous argument, as the result of chance. It may be said, and the most orthodox theologians indeed hold, that God controls and guides even the events due to chance - but this proposition the Darwinians emphatically reject, and it is clear that in the Origin evolution is presented as an essentially undirected process. For the majority of its readers, therefore, the Origin effectively dissipated the evidence of providential control. It might be said that this was their own fault. Nevertheless the failure of Darwin and his successors to attempt an equitable assessment of the religious issues at stake indicates a regrettable obtuseness and lack of responsibility." (Thompson W.R.*, "Introduction," in Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1967, reprint, p.xxiii).
[top]"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox but harder to eradicate." (Dawkins R., "Is Science a Religion?" The Humanist, Vol. 57, No. 1., January/February 1997. http://humanist.net/publications/humanist/dawkins.html).
[top]"In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created: it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion. " (Huxley J.S., "The Humanist Frame", in "Essays of a Humanist," [1964], Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1969, reprint, pp.82-83).
[top]"Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned. He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal, and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed to all that is material." (Simpson G.G., "The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of its Significance for Man," [1949], Yale University Press: New Haven CT, 1960, reprint, p.344).
[top]"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." (Dawkins R., "Put Your Money on Evolution", Review of Johanson D. & Edey M.A., "Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution", in New York Times, April 9, 1989, sec. 7, p34)
[top]"With the failure of these many efforts [to explain the origin of life] science was left in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate. After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort, could not be proved to take place today had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past." (Eiseley L.C., "The Immense Journey," [1946], Vintage: New York NY, 1957, reprint, p.199).
[top]"Evolution is the creation-myth of our age. By telling us our origin it shapes our views of what we are. It influences not just our thought, but our feelings and actions too, in a way which goes far beyond its official function as a biological theory." (Midgley M., "The Religion of Evolution," in Durant J., ed., "Darwinism and Divinity: Essays on Evolution and Religious Belief," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1985, p.154).
[top]"How much of this can be believed? Every generation needs its own creation myths, and these are ours. They are probably more accurate than any that have come before, but they are undoubtedly subject to revision as we find out more about the nature and the history of life. The best that can be said for any scientific theory is that it explains all the data at hand and has no obvious internal contradictions." (Wilson E.O., et al., "Life on Earth", [1973], Sinauer Associates: Sunderland MA, 1975, reprint, p.624).
[top]"Today, our duty is to destroy the myth of evolution, considered as a simple, understood, and explained phenomenon which keeps rapidly unfolding before us. Biologists must be encouraged to think about the weaknesses of the interpretations and extrapolations that theoreticians put forward or lay down as established truths. The deceit is sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and the falsity of their beliefs." (Grasse P- P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation", Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.8).
[top]"There was little doubt that the star intellectual turn of last week's British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Salford was Dr John Durant, a youthful lecturer from University College Swansea. Giving the Darwin lecture to one of the biggest audiences of the week, Durant put forward an audacious theory-that Darwin's evolutionary explanation of the origins of man has been transformed into a modern myth, to the detriment of science and social progress. Durant said that scientists and popularisers have asked too much of the theory of evolution, demanding that it explain... "Life, the Universe, and Everything". As a result Darwin's theory has burst at the seams, leaving a wreckage of distorted and mutilated ideas, and man's understanding of his society has been hobbled by his inability to escape the conservative myths he has created. Durant bemoaned the transformation of evolutionary ideas into "secular or scientific myths". ... they have assumed the social role of mythslegends about remote ancestors that express and reinforce peoples' ideas about the society around them. "Like the creation myths which have so largely replaced, theories of human evolution are basically stories about the first appearance of man on Earth and the institution of human society," said Durant. ... Durant concludes that the secular myths of evolution have had "a damaging effect on scientific research", leading to "distortion, to needless controversy, and to the gross misuse of science". (Anonymous, "How evolution became a scientific myth," New Scientist, 11 September 1980, p.765).
[top]"The more one studies palaeontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone; exactly the same sort of faith which it is necessary to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion." (More L.T., "The Dogma of Evolution," Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1925, Second Printing, p.160).
[top]"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory-is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation-both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof." (Matthews L.H., "Introduction," in Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species," [1872], Everyman's University Library: J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 1972, reprint, p.xi)
[top]"Discussions of evolution came to an end primarily because it was obvious that no progress was being made....When students of other sciences ask us what is now currently believed about the origin of species we have no clear answer to give. Faith has given place to agnosticism.... Biological science has returned to its rightful place, investigation of the structure and properties of the concrete and visible world. We cannot see how the differentiation into species came about. Variation of many kinds, often considerable, we daily witness, but no origin of species.... I have put before you very frankly the considerations which have made us agnostic as to the actual mode and processes of evolution. When such confessions are made the enemies of science see their chance.... Let us then proclaim in precise and unmistakable language that our faith in evolution is unshaken." (Bateson W., "Evolutionary Faith and Modern Doubts." Address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 28 December, 1921, Science, vol. 55, p.55., in More L.T., "The Dogma of Evolution", Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1925, p.28).
[top]"Thus, a century ago, Darwinism against Christian orthodoxy. To-day the tables are turned. The modified, but still characteristically Darwinian theory has itself become an orthodoxy, preached by its adherents with religious fervour, and doubted, they feel, only by a few muddlers imperfect in scientific faith." (Grene M., "The Faith of Darwinism," Encounter, Vol. 74, November 1959, pp.48-56, p.49).
[top]* Authors with an asterisk against their name are believed not to be evolutionists.
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Created: 28 August, 1999. Updated: 20 August, 203.