Creation/Evolution Quotes:
Design #4 Creation/Evolution Quotes:
Design #4[Contents] [Design, #1, #2, #3]
"As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency-or, rather, Agency-must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit? Do we not see in its harmony, a harmony so perfectly fitted to our needs, evidence of what one religious writer has called "a preserving, a continuing, an intending mind, a Wisdom, Power and Goodness far exceeding the limits of our thoughts?" A heady prospect. Unfortunately I believe it to be illusory. As I claim mankind is not the center of the universe, as I claim anthropism to be different from anthropocentrism, so too I believe that the discoveries of science are not capable of proving God's existence-not now, not ever. And more than that: I also believe that reference to God will never suffice to explain a single one of these discoveries. God is not an explanation." (Greenstein, George [Professor of Astronomy, Amherst College, USA]., "The Symbiotic Universe: Life and Mind in the Cosmos," William Morrow & Co: New York NY, 1988, pp.27-28)
[Top of page]"Those who rejected natural selection on religious or philosophical grounds or simply because it seemed too random a process to explain evolution continued for many years to put forward alternative schemes with such names as orthogenesis, nomogenesis, aristogenesis or the "omega principle" of Teilhard de Chardin, each scheme relying on some built-in tendency or drive toward perfection or progress. All these theories were finalistic: they postulated some form of cosmic teleology, of purpose or program. The proponents of teleological theories, for all their efforts, have been unable to find any mechanisms (except supernatural ones) that can account for their postulated finalism." (Mayr, Ernst [Emeritus Professor of Zoology, Harvard University], "Evolution," Scientific American, Vol. 239, No. 3, pp.39-47, September 1978, p.42).
[Top of page]"A typical trick is the so-called anthropic principle - that if the situation is not exactly the way we find it we would not be here to discuss it. Therefore, remarkable as the accidents may look at first sight, our presence is a guarantee that they occurred. But our presence could just as well be a guarantee that life is purposive, planned. The situation is decidedly unproven, with the anthropic principle no more than a tautology" (Hoyle, Fred [late mathematician, physicist and Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University] & Wickramasinghe, Chandra, [Professor of Applied Mathematics & Astronomy, University of Wales], "Our Place in the Cosmos: The Unfinished Revolution," [1993], Phoenix: London, 1996, reprint, pp.32-33)
[Top of page]"This fine-tuning has two possible explanations. Either the Universe was designed specifically for us by a creator or there is a multitude of universes- a `multiverse'." (Chown, Marcus [Science Editor, New Scientist], "Anything Goes," New Scientist, 6 June 1998, Vol. 158, No. 2137, p.28).
[Top of page]"Let us recognize these speculations for what they are. They are not physics but, in the strictest sense, metaphysics. There is no purely scientific reason to believe in an ensemble of universes. By construction these other worlds are unknowable by us. A possible explanation of equal intellectual respectability - and to my mind greater economy and elegance would be that this one world is the way it is because it is the creation of the will of a Creator who purposes that it should be so." (Polkinghorne, John C.* [former Professor of Mathematical Physics, Cambridge University, and Anglican priest], "One World: The Interaction of Science and Theology," [1986], SPCK: London, 1987, p.80)
[ Top of page]"At first sight the biological sector seems full of purpose. Organisms are built as if purposefully designed, and work as if in purposeful pursuit of a conscious aim. But the truth lies in those two words 'as if'. As the genius of Darwin showed, the purpose is only an apparent one." (Huxley, Julian S. [late grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, former Professor of Zoology at King's College, London, and founding Director-General of UNESCO], "Evolution in Action," [1953], Penguin: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1963, reprint, p.16)
[Top of page]"All this apparent design has come about without a designer. No purpose, no goals, no blueprints. Natural selection is simply about genes replicating themselves down the generations. Genes that build bodies that do what's needed-seeing, running, digesting, mating-get replicated; and those that don't, don't." (Cronin, Helena [Darwinian philosopher, London School of Economics], "The Evolution of Evolution," TIME, Summer 1997/98, p.80).
[Top of page]"All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way." (Dawkins, Richard [Zoologist and Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford University], "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.5)
[Top of page]"Granted that Nature's laws are in fact life-permitting Darwinian accounts give (although usually only in very compressed form) the causal story of Life's evolution ... Still, not just any universe would be one in which Darwinian evolution would work. If a tiny reduction in the early cosmic expansion speed would have made everything recollapse within a fraction of a second while a tiny increase would quickly have yielded a universe far too dilute for stars to form, then such changes would (presumably) have been disastrous to Evolution's prospects." (Leslie, John [Professor of Philosophy, University of Guelph, Canada], "Universes", [1989], Routledge: London, 1996, reprint, p.108).
[Top of page]"Henry Ward Beecher, America's premier pulpiteer during Darwin's century, defended evolution as God's way in a striking commercial metaphor: "`Design by wholesale is grander than design by retail' - better, that is, to ordain general laws of change than to make each species by separate fiat." (Gould, Stephen J. [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University, USA], "Knight Takes Bishop?," in Bully for Brontosaurus: Further Reflections in Natural History," [1991], Penguin: London, 1992, p.400)
[Top of page]"We can reconstruct the argument from spatial order as follows. We see around us animals and plants, intricate examples of spatial order in the ways which Paley set out, similar to machines of the kind which men make. We know that these animals and plants have evolved by natural processes from inorganic matter. But clearly this evolution can only have taken place, given certain special natural laws. These are first, the chemical laws stating how under certain circumstances inorganic molecules combine to make organic ones and organic ones combine to make organisms. And secondly, there are the biological laws of evolution stating how organisms have very many offspring, some of which vary in one or more characteristics from their parents, and how some of these characteristics are passed on to most offspring, from which it follows that, given shortage of food and other environmental needs, there will be competition for survival, in which the fittest will survive. Among organisms very well fitted for survival will be organisms of such complex and subtle construction as to allow easy adaptation to a changing environment. These organisms will evince great spatial order. So the laws of nature are such as, under certain circumstances, to give rise to striking examples of spatial order similar to the machines which men make. Nature, that is, is a machine-making machine. In the twentieth century men make not only machines, but machine making machines. They may therefore naturally infer from nature which produces animals and plants, to a creator of nature similar to men who make machine-making machines." (Swinburne, Richard G. [Professor of the philosophy of the Christian religion, Oxford University], "The Existence of God," Clarendon Press: Oxford UK, Revised Edition, 1991, pp.135-136) .
[Top of page]"The speculations of the Origin of Species turned out to be wrong, as we have seen in this chapter. It is ironic that the scientific facts throw Darwin out, but leave William Paley, a figure of fun to the scientific world for more than a century, still in the tournament with a chance of being the ultimate winner. It is ironic that the scientific facts throw Darwin out, but leave William Paley, a figure of fun to the scientific world for more than a century, still in the tournament with a chance of being the ultimate winner." (Hoyle, Fred [late mathematician, physicist and Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University] & Wickramasinghe, Chandra, [Professor of Applied Mathematics & Astronomy, University of Wales], "Evolution from Space," [1981], Paladin: London, 1983, reprint, pp.96-97)
[Top of page]"And as Darwinists and neo-Darwinists have become ever more adept at finding possible selective advantages for any trait one cares to mention, explanation in terms of the all-powerful force of natural selection has come more and more to resemble explanation in terms of the conscious design of the omnipotent Creator." (Ho, Mae-Wan [Biologist, The Open University, UK] & Saunders, Peter T. [Mathematician, University of London], eds., "Beyond Neo- Darwinism: An Introduction to the New Evolutionary Paradigm," Academic Press: London, 1984, pp.ix-x)
[Top of page]* Authors with an asterisk against their name are believed to be creationists.
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