To: donh
Some quotes for the current scientific thinkers
Required: Miraculous Additions
"I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent...if I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish."
Charles Darwin,
In a letter to the geologist Charles Lyell shortly after publication of 'Origin'
"The evolution of the genetic machinery is the step for which there are no laboratory models; hence we can speculate endlessly, unfettered by inconvenient facts."
R. Dickerson,
'Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life,' Scientific American, September 1978, p. 70.
"It is therefore a matter of faith, on the part of the biologist, that bio genesis did occur and he can choose whatever method of bio genesis happens to suit him personally; the evidence of what did happen is not available."
G.A. Kerkut,
Implications of Evolution (1960), p. 150.
"Darwin was embarrassed ...
... by the fossil record and we are now about 120-years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded.
We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much.
The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information."
David M. Raup,
Curator of Geology. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology". Field Museum of Natural History. Vol. 50, No. 1, p. 25
"Contrary to the popular notion that only creationism relies on the supernatural, evolutionism must as well, since the probabilities of random formation of life are so tiny as to require a 'miracle' for spontaneous generation tantamount to a theological argument."
Chandra Wickramasinge,
Professor of Applied Math & Astronomy, University College, Cardiff
"Stasis, or nonchange, of most fossil species during their lengthy geological lifespans was tacitly acknowledged by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly because prevailing theory treated stasis as uninteresting nonevidence for nonevolution.
The overwhelming prevalence of stasis became an embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a manifestation of nothing (that is, nonevolution)."
Stephen J. Gould,
'Cordelia's Dilemma', Natural History, 1993, p. 15
And finally
"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy."
Charles Darwin,
Life and Letters, 1887, Vol. 2, p. 229
166 posted on
12/07/2003 1:34:35 PM PST by
snowballinhell
(Me thinks something is afoot)
To: snowballinhell
A string of random quotes from scientists do not the basis of current scientific speculation make. Of course there are doubts and disagreements in science as it progresses from theory to theory.
It is the job of a scientist to struggle with doubts and disagreements--look through any technical scientific journal--that is what they are there for--to disagree and haggle about theories.
168 posted on
12/07/2003 1:47:25 PM PST by
donh
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