Okay, "scientists" and "evolutionists," after you're done with your love-fest with talkorigins, please explain how THESE quotes that were posted HERE are actually misquotes.
The purpose of the following quote is to demonstrate that scientists DO have an a-priori commitment to materialism to the point of tolerating unsubstantiated just-so stories, counterintuitive material explanations of things, and a deliberate effort to exclude the possibility of God having a hand in things. In addition, he admits that it is NOT THE METHODOLOGY OR INSTITUTIONS OF SCIENCE that require material explanations, but the a-priori commitment to materialism.
If anyone believes this is a misquote, the burden is upon you to demonstrate from the larger context that Lewontin is saying that there really is no a-priori commitment to materialism, nobody in the scientific community tolerates unsubstantiated just-so stories, there are no counterintiutive material explanations of things, and that nobody is interested in keeping God out of the picture. You must also demonstrate that he meant to say that the search for material causes comes from the scientific method and scientific institutions, NOT from an a-priori commitment to materialism.
Have at it.
The purpose of the following two quotes is to demonstrate that even staunch evolutionists admit that the fossil record remains problematic for evolution.
You'll need to demonstrate that in the larger context these people were actually saying that the fossil record is not a problem for evolution in order to prove these are misquotes.
Have at it.
I can go on if you like, but I think this will generate enough noise as it is.
The purpose of the following quote is to demonstrate that scientists DO have an a-priori commitment to materialism to the point of tolerating unsubstantiated just-so stories, counterintuitive material explanations of things, and a deliberate effort to exclude the possibility of God having a hand in things. In addition, he admits that it is NOT THE METHODOLOGY OR INSTITUTIONS OF SCIENCE that require material explanations, but the a-priori commitment to materialism.
If anyone believes this is a misquote, the burden is upon you to demonstrate from the larger context that Lewontin is saying that there really is no a-priori commitment to materialism, nobody in the scientific community tolerates unsubstantiated just-so stories, there are no counterintiutive material explanations of things, and that nobody is interested in keeping God out of the picture. You must also demonstrate that he meant to say that the search for material causes comes from the scientific method and scientific institutions, NOT from an a-priori commitment to materialism.
Have at it.
Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons," New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997
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.... To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, than miracles may happen.
The purpose of the following two quotes is to demonstrate that even staunch evolutionists admit that the fossil record remains problematic for evolution.
You'll need to demonstrate that in the larger context these people were actually saying that the fossil record is not a problem for evolution in order to prove these are misquotes.
Have at it.
Stephen Jay Gould Evolution's Eratic Pace. Natural History 1997
The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of palaeontology.The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at their tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.
Niles Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History, Reinventing Darwin. Wiley Press, 1995
No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. [...] When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn palaeontologist looking to learn something about evolution.
I can go on if you like, but I think this will generate enough noise as it is.