Charles Darwin:
Darwin wrote in his Origin of the Species,
“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”
“Suppose that the eye with all of its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different differences, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberrations, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species. New York: Avenel Books, 1979,
pg 217.
On the importance of evolution:
In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.
pg 217.
On the importance of evolution:
In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.
Kirschner, Marc. Boston Globe, Oct. 23, 2005.
Dr Marc Kirschner, Founding Chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.
Soren Lovtrup
Darwin was not without his critics. In his book, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, Soren Lovtrup points out that "some critics turned against Darwin's teachings for religious reasons, but they were a minority; most of his opponents ... argued on a completely scientific basis." He goes on to explain:
"...the reasons for rejecting Darwin's proposal were many, but first of all that many innovations cannot possibly come into existence through accumulation of many small steps, and even if they can, natural selection cannot accomplish it, because incipient and intermediate stages are not advantageous."
**Lovtrup, S. (1987)
Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth
Croom Helm Ltd., Beckingham, Kent, p. 275
Dr Marc Kirschner, Founding Chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.
The following quotes are from the book: Evolution: The Grand Experiment, by Dr. Carl Werner
Notice the word “possibly” and the inference of possibility but not reality.....
Dr. Clemens : “We speak of convergent evolution to describe phenomena where two groups of organisms, possibly distantly related, evolve into similar pattern and come to look like one another.”
“Far from being hopeless, there is every reason to expect that similarly exciting pinniped missing links are out there waiting quietly [to be discovered], who knows where or when.” Dr. Clayton Ray, former Curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
“What bothered Darwin about the fossil record more than anything else was the pattern of paleontology that we’ve been talking about…the oldest fossils you see are both diverse and complex, [such as] fabulously complicated things like trilobites. “
Dr. Andrew Knoll, Paleontologist and Professor of Biology, Harvard University.
“.. the transition from spineless invertebrates to the first backboned fishes is still shrouded in mystery, and many theories abound as to how the changes took place. “
“The evolution of fish is still very much debated amongst paleontologists… I think that within the next ten years, we’ll probably get some resolution on the origin and interrelationships of the major groups of fishes. “
Dr. Long, paleontologist and Head of Science at the Museum Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
March 8, 2005.
“We have no evidence for this evolution. The bats appear perfectly developed in the
Eocene. “
Dr. Viohl, Curator of the famous Jura museum in Eichstatt, Germany
“We have found more than 650-670 specimens so far [at this one location alone in Germany]. We have no fossil records of bats during the Cretaceous period. This means that we are only depending on speculation, when it [bat evolution] started and what happened in that time. “
Dr. Joerg Habersetzer
Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Frankfurt, Germany, specializes in bat evolution
“We know only little about the evolution of pterosaurs. The ancestors are not known…When the pterosaurs first appear in the geological record they aer completely perfect. They were perfect pterosaurs.” Dr. Gunter Viohl,curator Jura Museum Germany
“As for the ancestors, the possible ancestors of pterosaurs, there are only theories hypotheses of course… In fact, it is a mystery which group of reptiles , prior to the Triassic, might have given rise to the pterosaurs. “
Dr. Wellnhofer, Curator Emeritus of the Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology n Munich and author of The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Prehistoric Flying Reptiles.
"There are still many things we don’t understand about the early evolution of flowering plants, particularly how the detailed reproductive structures of the flowers were constructed [evolved], how you get fruits [how fruits evolved]…We don’t really understand those kinds of things so well yet, Sot there is still an element of mystery,”
Dr. Peter Crane, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in London, England and formerly Director and Curator at the Field Museum in Chicago, and one of the leading experts in plant evolution.
MORE QUOTES FROM VARIOUS SOURCES:
Richards Dawkins said, " Of course it's counter-intuitive that you can get something from nothing. Of course common sense doesn't allow you to get something from nothing. That's why it's interesting. It's get to be interesting in order to give rise to the universe at all. Something pretty mysterious had to give rise to the origin of the universe." as quoted in Creation Ministries International Feb. 2014 newsletter.
Richards Dawkins said, " Of course it's counter-intuitive that you can get something from nothing. Of course common sense doesn't allow you to get something from nothing. That's why it's interesting. It's get to be interesting in order to give rise to the universe at all. Something pretty mysterious had to give rise to the origin of the universe." as quoted in Creation Ministries International Feb. 2014 newsletter.
Darwin was not without his critics. In his book, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, Soren Lovtrup points out that "some critics turned against Darwin's teachings for religious reasons, but they were a minority; most of his opponents ... argued on a completely scientific basis." He goes on to explain:
"...the reasons for rejecting Darwin's proposal were many, but first of all that many innovations cannot possibly come into existence through accumulation of many small steps, and even if they can, natural selection cannot accomplish it, because incipient and intermediate stages are not advantageous."
**Lovtrup, S. (1987)
Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth
Croom Helm Ltd., Beckingham, Kent, p. 275
"We must ask first whether the theory of evolution by natural selection is scientific or pseudoscientific .... Taking the first part of the theory, that evolution has occurred, it says that the history of life is a single process of species-splitting and progression. This process must be unique and unrepeatable, like the history of England. This part of the theory is therefore a historical theory, about unique events, and unique events are, by definition, not part of science, for they are unrepeatable and so not subject to test."
**Patterson, Colin (1978)
Evolution
London: British Museum of Natural History, pp. 145-146
(Dr. Colin Patterson is Senior Principal Scientific Officer of the Paleontology Department of the British Museum of Natural History in London.)
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
**Lewontin, Richard
"Billions and Billions of Demons"
New York Review of Books
January 9, 1997, p. 28
**Eldredge, N., 1989
Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks
McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York, p. 22
We are faced more with a great leap of faith -- that gradual, progressive adaptive change underlies the general pattern of evolutionary change we see in the rocks -- than any hard evidence.
**Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I. (1982)
The Myths of Human Evolution
Columbia University Press, p. 57
"We have had enough of the Darwinian fallacy. It is time that we cry: 'The emperor has not clothes.'"
**K. Hsu (1986)
"Darwin's Three Mistakes"
Geology, vol. 14, p. 534
(K. Hsu is a geologist at the Geological Institute at Zurich.)
"[L]arge evolutionary innovations are not well understood. None has ever been observed, and we have no idea whether any may be in progress. There is no good fossil record of any."
**R. Wesson (1991)
Beyond Natural Selection
MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, p. 206
"To propose and argue that mutations even in tandem with 'natural selection' are the root-causes for 6,000,000 viable, enormously complex species, is to mock logic, deny the weight of evidence, and reject the fundamentals of mathematical probability."
**Cohen, I.L. (1984)
Darwin Was Wrong: A Study in Probabilities
New York: New Research Publications, Inc., p.
Dr. Robert Macnab of Yale University concluded a major 50 page review of the sensory and motor mechanism of the bacterium, E. coli, with these remarks:
As a final comment, one can only marvel at the intricacy in a simple bacterium, of the total motor and sensory system which has been the subject of this review and remark that our concept of evolution by selective advantage must surely be an oversimplification. What advantage could derive, for example, from a "preflagellum" (meaning a subset of its components), and yet what is the probability of "simultaneous" development of the organelle at a level where it becomes advantageous (Macnab, 1978)?
**Macnab, R. (1978)
"Bacterial Mobility and Chemotaxis: The Molecular Biology of a Behavioral System"
CRC Critical Reviews in Biochemistry, vol. 5, issue 4, Dec., pp. 291-341
"The point, however, is that the doctrine of evolution has swept the world, not on the strength of its scientific merits, but precisely in its capacity as a Gnostic myth. It affirms, in effect, that living beings created themselves, which is, in essence, a metaphysical claim.... Thus, in the final analysis, evolutionism is in truth a metaphysical doctrine decked out in scientific garb."
**Smith, Wolfgang
Teilhardism and the New Religion
Tan Books and Publishers, 1988, Rockford, Illinois, p. 242.
"The 'RNA world' scenario hinges on some rather far-fetched assumptions about the catalytic ability of RNA. For example, RNA polymerase ribozymes must have been responsible for replicating the ribozymes of the RNA world, including themselves (via their complementary sequences). RNA replication is a very challenging set of reactions -- far more challenging than those yet known to be catalyzed by RNA."
**Bartle, David P. and Unrau, Peter J.
"Constructing an RNA World"
Trends in Biochemical Sciences 24 (1999): M9-M13.
... The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, (must) be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.
**Darwin, C. (1859)
The Origin of Species (Reprint of the first edition)
Avenel Books, Crown Publishers, New York, 1979, p. 292
"The facts of microevolution do not suffice for an understanding of macroevolution."
**Goldschmidt, Richard B. (1940)
The Material Basis of Evolution
New Haven Connecticut: Yale University Press, p. 8
This from those who have openly questioned Darwinian Evolution:
"Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority. There is no publication in the scientific literature in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. There are assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations."
**Behe, Michael J. (1996)
Darwin's Black Box
The Free Press, p. 185
"Considering the way the prebiotic soup is referred to in so many discussions of the origin of life as an already established reality, it comes as something of a shock to realize that there is absolutely no positive evidence for its existence."
**Denton, Michael
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
Bethesda, Maryland: Adler and Adler Publishers, 1986
p.261
"At the tiniest levels of biology--the chemical life of the cell--we have discovered a complex world that radically changes the grounds on which Darwinian debates must be contested."
Michael Behe
Darwin's Black Box
pg. 31
"Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological system, such as a crystal or a snowflake, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceive."
Denton, Michael
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
Bethesda, MD: Adler and Adler Publishers, Inc., 1986
pp. 249-250
