Under the caption, " Scientists Speak About Darwin's flawed Theory...A Few Examples", some wonderful examples of flawed thinking. Norm Weatherby can't possibly be serious about these.
"I have always been slightly suspicious of the theory of evolution because of its ability to account for any property of living beings (the long neck of the giraffe, for example).
OK, I've heard that before. But it's almost invariably followed by:
I have therefore tried to see whether biological discoveries over the last thirty years or so fit in with Darwin's theory. I do not think that they do. To my mind, the theory does not stand up at all."—*H. Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physic Bulletin, 31 (1980), p. 138.
Well, almost anything, right? (Amusing note: "Physic" bulletin. Haw!)
Here's an interesting quote, wrenched out of context:
"I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know."—*Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," Discover 2(5):34-37 (1981).
This bears on the nature of "falsifiability". Any scientific theory has to stick its neck out. There must be some conceivable observation that can show it to be false. Lipson's suspicions are raised when he sees evolution as a theory that can account for any property of living beings. The reason suspicions would be raised by such a theory is that a theory that can account for anything at all winds up accounting for nothing. Only if there are things a theory also rules out does the theory have any real power.
I recall this quote of Gould's. He states that every theory he's aware of is sticking its neck out. There are observations that can be imagined, which would prove that theory false.
So why are these quotes being dredged up?
I've looked for opinions not "contaminated" by the new Intelligent Design controversy. Too many people just assume that scientists have always backed Darwin in past years and that the current controversy has no historical basis. Wrong. There are literally thousands of quotes from distinguished scientists in every discipline that pronounce Darwinism as fraud or worse. Check the dates on these.-Q
Harumph. The fact that the same "arguments" used to support "scientific creationism" are now used to support "Intelligent Design/Intelligent Origin Theory" doesn't mean ID/IOT is right. What it does mean is that ID/IOT is "Creation Science" in a new suit. And "Creation Science" is Biblical creation myth in a lab coat.
We see that the only "proof" offered in support of any of these is attempts to poke holes in evolution – as if getting rid of one means the other wins by default.
Well, it doesn't work that way. Suppose evolution is thrown out the window tomorrow. *poof* Gone. Neither creationism, nor "Creation Science" nor ID/IOT have any theories to offer in its place. They're not viable alternatives to evolution because they're not theories at all.
Furthermore, I suspect these quotes were probably culled from a list of quotes taken from an ID/IOT website or book, and if read in context, we'd find two kinds. The first kind would be those uttered by people who hadn't studied the subject, and were not qualified to render an opinion. The second kind, from people with expertise in the field, would turn out, once the context was restored, to support naturalistic evolution.
For example, Gould always believed that living things descended from a common ancestor by means of naturalistic processes. No need for an Intelligent Designer anywhere in the process. The use of quotes to suggest the opposite is dishonest, and taints anything else coming from that source.
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