Quotes regarding Evolution?

Question

“The macro-molecule-to-cell transition is a jump of fantastic dimensions, which lies beyond the range of testable hypothesis. In this area all is conjecture. The available facts do not provide a basis for postulating that cells arose on this planet.” David Green and Robert F. Goldberger, Molecular Insights into the Living Process, (New York, N.Y.:Academic Press, 1967), p. 406-407.

One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet we are here as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.” George Wald, “The Origin of Life,” Scientific American, 191:48 (May 1954).

“The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.” Sir Fred Hoyle, in “Hoyle on Evolution,” in Nature, vol. 294, (11/12/1981), p. 105

I got more of these so just wait a minute

I wanna no what ppl think about these, preferably Christian ppl

“One reason Darwin was such a brilliant scientist is he was a great questioner; he didn’t just accept the answers that people gave him...He kept looking at the evidence to come up with answers that he was satisfied with. How ironic it is today that people who support Darwin’s theory are using it to close off questioning...Science progresses by allowing criticism — by allowing people to hear alternate points of view.” John West, assoc. professor of political science at Seattle Pacific University. Icons of Evolutions. DVD

FYI, Sir Fred Hoyle is an Evolutionist, and no mathematician can possibly believe in Evolution. Why do you BELIEVE in the THEORY of Evolution, which is assumed to be SCIENCE? (You can’t believe in science. Science is proven)

Why don’t you guys ever talk about the Pre-Cambrian explosion where a myriad of different species of animals appear fully formed — thus contradicting the Evolutionary tree of life?
Why would any animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would only make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances for survival?

Wrath of God, u do know I'm not an evolutionist, right?

Isn't ne1 gonna talk about the Pre-Cambrian explosion?

don't panic, ur suggesting that life HAD to happen with the Big Bang/Evolution. It ain't like rolling a die that has a 100% possibilty of having an outcome

If the creation of the universe was random, chaotic, and unpredictable, modern scientific investigation could never have been developed. Isn't ne1 gonna talk about the Pre-Cambrian explosion? Come on! I want to learn about Evolution!!! For those who r confused, I was being sarcastic

Answer 1

Life is more than just physics and chemistry; life is built on information. Tightly coiled up inside the center of every cell, this information is contained in that molecule of heredity, called “DNA” which has a digital code inscribed alone its spine.

Now, information is something different from matter and energy. For example, a book contains information, but the paper and ink are not the information—they can only transmit it.

Life is an information-based process in which the DNA contained within each cell is based on a genetic language using four nucleotide bases. It has been said that if transcribed into English, the DNA in the human genome would fill a 300-volume set of encyclopedias of approximately 2,000 pages each.

It has also been said that if the amount of information in just a pinhead volume of DNA was written into paperback books, it would make a pile 500 times the distance from here to the moon. The knowledge currently stored in all of the libraries of the world would only take up about 1% of that. DNA is by far the densest information storage mechanism in the known universe.

And we know from experience: If you have a computer program, you need a computer programer. Any time we find information, whether it is in the form of a hieroglyphic inscription or a newspaper article, there was invariably an intelligent agent behind that information.

Evolutionists have not been able to explain the origin of information in cells; information has not been shown to spontaneously arise from matter and energy. The existence of the information can only be explained through a pre-existing intelligence that put it there.

Dr. Werner Gitt, Professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, said, “A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor) … It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required ...There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.”

I think we can therefore deduce that the huge amount of information in living things must have originally come from an intelligence, which had to have been far superior to ours, as scientists are revealing every day.

Scientists have also found that within a cell, there are thousands of what are often called “biochemical machines.” Lester and Hefley said, “We once thought that the cell, the basic unit of life, was a simple bag of protoplasm. Then we learned that each cell in any life form is a teeming micro-universe of compartments, structures, and chemical agents...”

Dr. Stephen Meyer said, “Over the last 25 years, scientists have discovered an exquisite world of nanotechnology within living cells. Inside these tiny labyrinthine enclosures, scientists have found functioning turbines, miniature pumps, sliding clamps, complex circuits, rotary engines, and machines for copying, reading and editing digital information—hardly the simple "globules of plasm" envisioned by Darwin's contemporaries.”

As Dr. Michael Behe has said, “Cells swim using machines, copy themselves with machinery, ingest food with machinery. . . highly sophisticated molecular machines control every cellular process.”

And these elegant machines are of greater sophistication than we are capable of making. Dr. Michael Denton (a non-Christian molecular biologist) said, “Alongside the level of ingenuity and complexity exhibited by the molecular machinery of life, even our most advanced artifacts appear clumsy. We feel humbled, as neolithic man would in the presence of twentieth-century technology.”

In trying to understand these biological systems, molecular biologists actually need to “reverse engineer” them. Is that not strong evidence that they were engineered to begin with? But they can’t or won’t see it. That just blows my mind.

And speaking of mind, there is so much about the brain and the brain-mind relationship that we don’t understand; it is far too complex for us. In the words of Isaac Asimov (the anti-creationist), “In man is a three-pound brain, which as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe.”

It has been estimated that the human brain processes more than a million messages a second, with all that is going on in our bodies. It has also been estimated that if we learned something new every second of our lives, it would take three million years to exhaust the capacity of our brain.

Ornstein and Thompson speaking about the human brain said, “After thousands of scientists have studied it for centuries, the only word to describe it remains amazing.”

It makes the complex computer look like a child’s toy in comparison to complexity. If you were walking along a deserted Island and just so happen to come across a computer, the first thing you would think is, “Look what nature made,” right? Is it logical to believe that the brain designed the computer, but the brain is a product of time and chance?

The logical response, is to say as the Psalmist did, “I give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14).

Reliable methods for detecting design exist and are employed in forensics, archeology, and data fraud analysis. These methods can easily be employed to detect design in biological systems. When being interviewed by Tavis Smiley, Dr. Stephen Meyer said, “There are developments in some technical fields, complexity and information sciences, that actually enable us to distinguish the results of intelligence as a cause from natural processes. When we run those modes of analysis on the information in DNA, they kick out the answer, ‘Yeah, this was intelligently designed’ . . . There is actually a science of design detection and when you analyze life through the filters of that science, it shows that life was intelligently designed.”

So here is my question: What is more absurd? To believe God designed all of this, or given enough time, hydrogen turns into humans, molecules to man, particles to people, microbes to microbiologists, protozoa to ponies, pelicans and politicians? If a frog turns into a prince in an instant—well, that’s a fairy tale. But if a frog turns into a prince over millions of year—well, that’s evolution. But I still say it’s a fairy tale.

Answer 2

1954, 1961 and 1981 are hardly cutting edge. Any sources that old must be questioned.

As for the arguments, try this little experiment. Roll a die ten times and record the results. Now do the same thing again. What were the chances that both series came out the same? Quite small. But in each case, you had a result.

The chances of a specific life form evolving just so are vanishingly small. But in each case, the processes behind it led to a result.

As for abiogenesis, the origins of life itself, again the chances of it happening in a particular way are vanishingly small. All that means is that if it happened another way, we might be silicon-based life forms rather than carbon. Or something else altogether.

There will always be a result. The probability is 100%. That's where the arguments you've posted go wrong, they're looking at the wrong probability.

Answer 3

let's see, I discard the 1967 (!) quote and the 1954 (!) quote because
a) they are about ABIOGENESIS, not EVOLUTION (why can't you people see the difference?)
b) we have have made such advances since then that it really doesn't make any sense to drag them out and demolish them, and the fun part is they don't say what you think they say. But I'll just let them slide.

As for Hoyle, Hoyle promoted the theory that life evolved in space, spreading through the universe via panspermia, and that evolution on earth is driven by a steady influx of viruses arriving via comets. Additionally, the 747 remark is a sure sign of somebody who did not understand natural selection.

John West is a member of a think tank promoting intelligent design and the religious goal outlined in the institute's Wedge strategy to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions. Sounds REAL objective. No agenda at all. Uh huh.

The Cambrian Explosion (not pre-, please get your facts straight) is indeed somewhat of a mystery, would you like to place your god in this gap? Do you think that is wise?
Additionally, there is more data on it than there was in Darwin's time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion#Significance_of_the_data

Speaking of which, do you know about bifurcation?
http://images.google.com/images?q=bifurcation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bifurcation_theory

it is quite likely that life just 'took off' when certain conditions were met. The base of the Cambrian is also marked by strong geochemical perturbations, including excursions in carbon and sulfur isotopes.

And, are you REALLY sure you want to argue about the Cambrian period? You know it makes mince meat out of Genesis? Or did god create a lot of creatures in the Cambrian, because he felt like it? Where in the bible is that mentioned, exactly?

Answer 4

"The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein"

This fallacy is in no way similar to evolution. Not to mention that biology and mechanics are not the same thing.

Answer 5

You don't even appear to understand the quotations you are listing, let alone anything close to an understanding of evolution. The Wald quote, for instance, you seem to think is *against* evolution. It's not. Hoyle's quote is the subject of a chapter in The God Delusion. Dawkins himself only recently concedes that the circumstances that resulted in protein bases forming self-replicating chains was remarkable to extremes we can barely contemplate, but nevertheless it happened.

This is what happens when Creationists try to gain "knowledge" in soundbite sized chunks instead of actually reading and critically analysing their material. In the long run this approach makes things very easy for your opponents. Not to convince you, of course - you're mules. But to show others that these kinds of arguments have no basis in fact. Try harder.

Answer 6

Perhaps the reason so many people continue to reject the notion of evolution is that it seems contrary to ordinary experience. Things left to chance just don't get done. Random changes in anything simply do not produce higher levels of organization and complexity. Rather, all complex machines and devices with which we are familiar are the result of intelligent design and manufacture. Random changes can only destroy them.

I have heard many Christians say that evolution doesn't concern them because, after all, it's "only a theory." Presumably they think that the word "theory" means about the same thing as a "pipe dream." But the term theory, at least as it applies to experimental science, has a much nobler meaning than that. A scientific theory is a careful attempt to explain certain observable facts of nature by means of experiments. Since many Christians have concluded that evolution is incompatible with the Biblical account of creation, we would do well to investigate if evolution is a fact or a theory -- or perhaps neither.

What then shall we say of evolution? First, evolutionists tell us that major evolutionary changes happen far too slowly, or too rarely, to be observable in the lifetime of human observers. The offspring of most living organisms, for example, are said to remain largely unchanged for tens of thousands, or even millions of years. Second, even when evolutionary changes do occur, evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky tells us they are by nature "unique, unrepeatable, and irreversible." Dobzhansky concludes that the "applicability of the experimental method to the study of such unique historical processes is severely restricted." Finally, evolutionist Paul Ehrlich concedes that the theory of evolution "cannot be refuted by any possible observations" and thus is "outside of empirical science."
We see that creation by intelligent design is a vastly more reasonable explanation for the origin of the complexity we see in living things than is evolution by mere chance and the intrinsic properties of matter.
By the way Darwin married his cousin and for the rest of his life we worried whether or not the genetic profiles of himself and his spouse may have been responsible for a lot of his childrens sickness and one death due to them being so close in family.


*Whew*
I have more to say but not enough room.

Answer 7

None of those are remotely regarding evolution.

The first one says that we cannot tell how cells came about. It does NOT say anything regarding evolution between life forms (homo erectus to homo sapiens, say).

The second one says that there is spontaneous generation that exists, AND again does not say anything regarding evolution. It merely says that things cannot spring into existence full-blown, like Minerva from Zeus' head.

The third one does not say which way indeed higher life forms emerged. Furthermore, Hoyle is an astronomer whose theories are widely disbelieved in the astronomy field. He is NOT a biologist, chemist, or anything else having to do with living organisms.

Taking your first two quotes from sources that are multiple generations old is bad research, too. Science as a whole has advanced greatly since 1967, and almost unimaginably since 1954. They simply throw up their hands and say they don't know, but who's to say their questions haven't been answered by now?

Please provide appropriate quotes from timely sources next time.

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Ah, additions! Furthermore, WHY can no mathematician remotely believe in evolution? Prove your claims. Cite your sources. Otherwise your claim is in error.

Answer 8

Yes, you get quotes from the minute % of scientists, if they really are qualified scientists, who still DENY evolution. There really is no debate here bud. Quote all the creationists you want. To the person above me, there is no such thing as micro, and macro evolution, they are the same thing, species are identified by identifiable traits, micro evolution over millions of years transforms these traits, which can easily be seen by the fact that all animals have parts in the turned off while they are active in other species groups.

Answer 9

im not religious but heres what i think...you need updated information - your quotes above are way out of date with current science - as im sure you can cherry-pick more recent ones from the likes of william dembski or micheal behe...two "intelligent design" creationists...this is the information age dude!...update your spin at least will ya?...oh, and by the way, real, actual scientists reached a consensus about evolution long ago...also, i suggest you take a look at "the spark of life" by wills and bada...this was written as of the year 2000...

Answer 10

In Darwins same book, the Origin of Species
CHAPTER VI - DIFFICULTIES OF THE THEORY
(did you catch that chapter name?)

human eye

Organs of extreme Perfection and Complication. To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility.