Quote Mining? No, Fact Stating. S J Gould Essay Disclosing the Debacle of Darwin’s Ev

[Split Rock]

Lyell's geology assumptions have come under some severe catastrophism attack in the past decades but again.....Lyell's uniformatarian geology...along was Darwin on the biological side of the fence... has been taught exclusively for the last century as the ONLY geology. Hence the old education indoctrination approach again. The self-propetuating cycle of ME...-

It is the only geology that works .... unlike YEC where you have to shoe-horn hundreds of meteor impacts, several ice-ages, the weathering of old mountain ranges and the formation of the Grand Canyon into 6,000 years because a dead bishop says so.

 

[Edmond]

It is the only geology that works .... unlike YEC where you have to shoe-horn hundreds of meteor impacts, several ice-ages, the weathering of old mountain ranges and the formation of the Grand Canyon into 6,000 years because a dead bishop says so.

Well. the dead Lyell is now buried in the same crust as the the dead bishop is. I have no idea what that point has to do with anything...except that they are two dead men with oppositing beliefs. They both know which one was right by now.

As for the list of events you sited....For starters, one 'ice age' so called would be sufficent to be included in the chronology of Usher and the flood of Genesis with little problem. It just would not have taking multiple 1000's of years to transpire. Quick frozen mamoths with fresh food still in their stomachs strongly suggests something very instantaniously took place to make a climate change of that rapid magnitude. That is definitley castasrophic chnage. It is not Lyell's uniformitarian concept or even close. It is again...the exact opposite of what his ASSUMPTIONS predict.

I make a point of assumptions because that is all Lyell's idea was when it stated and still is. The crust geology of the earth has been thoroughly defined by the expectations found in the catastrophy concept as well.

The bottom line is....they're both a belief system of rationale. One has simply preceeded the other. Both are supportable by the evidence spread all over the face of the earth. One says both creation and geology happened quickly. The other says it took huge periods or time.....which appealed to Darwin tremendously. Why...because Lyell's time machine gave justification for Darwin's speciation machine....which is by the way...now defunked.

Both of these guys had the same axe to grind....no belief in the reality of the Biblical account of creation. So do I go with two guys who first agree that they disagree about something and then look for an alternative? No thanks...especially if one of them as already been shown to be wrong. That leave their corroberative assumption standing on only one leg. That's not science, that's playing the lotto, using the same odds that you'll win...

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[notto]

Quick frozen mamoths with fresh food still in their stomachs strongly suggests something very instantaniously took place to make a climate change of that rapid magnitude. That is definitley castasrophic chnage.

Why do you assume they are quick frozen? There is no need. We find mastadons in the continentall US that have their stomach contents preserved as well. No flash freezing needed to preserve them.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/oronteus.html
For example, vertebrate paleontologists found plants remains that were once in the guts of a mastodon associated with the skeleton of a mastodon that they excavated from a bog within Ohio (Lepper, et al. 1991, pp. 122-123). Also, paleontologists have recovered other complete mastodon skeletons containing well- preserved plant remains that were once gut and stomach contents in bogs of New York, New Jersey, and other states (Dreimanis 1968, Pp. 264.).

Why would frozen food in the stomachs of a mammoth suggest anything instantaniously? If I find a dead caribou with frozen mountain flowers in its stomach, does that mean that it was instantaneously frozen through a dramatic climate change?

Why can't the natural processes we see today with animals dieing and becoming frozen be the process that preserves mammoths stomach contents?

This is one of the strangest creationist claims around because it just doesn't make any sense and is directly contradicted by additional evidence. It's kind of like the moon dust argument in that it still remains in their PRATT lists even though it is a poor argument.

 

[Electric Sceptic]

I make a point of assumptions because that is all Lyell's idea was when it stated and still is.

No, Lyell's 'idea' was evidenced, and still is.

The crust geology of the earth has been thoroughly defined by the expectations found in the catastrophy concept as well.

It has not.

The bottom line is....they're both a belief system of rationale. One has simply preceeded the other. Both are supportable by the evidence spread all over the face of the earth.

They are not. The young earth idea is not supported by ANY evidence.

The other says it took huge periods or time.....which appealed to Darwin tremendously. Why...because Lyell's time machine gave justification for Darwin's speciation machine....which is by the way...now defunked.

It is not. This is just a blatant lie.

Both of these guys had the same axe to grind

Yes, scientific accuracy.

So do I go with two guys who first agree that they disagree about something and then look for an alternative?

Except that they didn't do that.

No thanks...especially if one of them as already been shown to be wrong.

Neither you, nor anyone else has shown either of them to be wrong. The fact that you think you do just shows how little you know about either of their theories.

 

[Split Rock]

Well. the dead Lyell is now buried in the same crust as the the dead bishop is. I have no idea what that point has to do with anything...except that they are two dead men with oppositing beliefs. They both know which one was right by now.

If I am correct, neither of them know anything because they are both dead.

As for the list of events you sited....For starters, one 'ice age' so called would be sufficent to be included in the chronology of Usher and the flood of Genesis with little problem. It just would not have taking multiple 1000's of years to transpire. Quick frozen mamoths with fresh food still in their stomachs strongly suggests something very instantaniously took place to make a climate change of that rapid magnitude. That is definitley castasrophic chnage. It is not Lyell's uniformitarian concept or even close. It is again...the exact opposite of what his ASSUMPTIONS predict.

Too bad the physical evidence says there were multiple Ice Ages in the past and that each featured multiple advances and retreats of the glaciers. If you want to go with the bible instead, then you have to believe there wan't any Ice Age, since the Bible does not mention it at all! So, what do you creationists do? You pick and choose from the evidence, because, much like with the helio-centric solar system model, you cannot completley ignore the physical evidence of glaciers covering much of North America, even though you would like to.

I make a point of assumptions because that is all Lyell's idea was when it stated and still is. The crust geology of the earth has been thoroughly defined by the expectations found in the catastrophy concept as well.

Nonsense. Your "catastrophy" model provides no expectations at all.

The bottom line is....they're both a belief system of rationale. One has simply preceeded the other. Both are supportable by the evidence spread all over the face of the earth. One says both creation and geology happened quickly. The other says it took huge periods or time.....which appealed to Darwin tremendously. Why...because Lyell's time machine gave justification for Darwin's speciation machine....which is by the way...now defunked.

Guess what, you are wrong again. The geologists at the time did not believe the earth was billions of years old, and this was a major criticism of Darwin's theory. It was only after radiaoactive isotopes were understood (and how they could keep the earth from cooling as quickly as was believed) that the clock on the earth was turned back that far. Once again, you are re-writing history to match your literal-Genesis fantasy world.

Both of these guys had the same axe to grind....no belief in the reality of the Biblical account of creation. So do I go with two guys who first agree that they disagree about something and then look for an alternative? No thanks...especially if one of them as already been shown to be wrong. That leave their corroberative assumption standing on only one leg. That's not science, that's playing the lotto, using the same odds that you'll win...

You said that they were both wrong... now you claim only one was? In any case, it was Genesis-believing creationists that disproved your 6,000 year old earth, long before Lyell and Darwin. Again, you are attempting to re-write history. I suggest that you stop reading creationist junk written by LCWs, so you may actually learn what the truth looks like.

 

[Edmond]

Why do you assume they are quick frozen? There is no need. We find mastadons in the continentall US that have their stomach contents preserved as well. No flash freezing needed to preserve them.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/oronteus.html
For example, vertebrate paleontologists found plants remains that were once in the guts of a mastodon associated with the skeleton of a mastodon that they excavated from a bog within Ohio (Lepper, et al. 1991, pp. 122-123). Also, paleontologists have recovered other complete mastodon skeletons containing well- preserved plant remains that were once gut and stomach contents in bogs of New York, New Jersey, and other states (Dreimanis 1968, Pp. 264.).

Let me put it into the inverse form of the equation. They sure don't equate to Lyell's assumptions of uniform changes over long ages of time....

Why would frozen food in the stomachs of a mammoth suggest anything instantaniously? If I find a dead caribou with frozen mountain flowers in its stomach, does that mean that it was instantaneously frozen through a dramatic climate change?

Why can't the natural processes we see today with animals dieing and becoming frozen be the process that preserves mammoths stomach contents?

This is one of the strangest creationist claims around because it just doesn't make any sense and is directly contradicted by additional evidence. It's kind of like the moon dust argument in that it still remains in their PRATT lists even though it is a poor argument.

Do you see any slight differences in your example given? We're not just talking about frozen food in an animal’s stomach. We talking about AN ENTIRE REGION of the globe having undergone a catastrophic change in temperature almost instantaneously and REMAINING that way. That is evidencer of global catastrophism...not an animal being caught in a local snow storm.

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[Edmond]

If I am correct, neither of them know anything because they are both dead.

Not according to what Jesus claimed to be true. If you have credentials that say you know more than He does about the subject..I'd be glad to hear your conclusions....

<snip>

Nonsense. Your "catastrophy" model provides no expectations at all.

Rock...you should do more reading on that matter. I think you'd find some very interesting predictions and conclisions from the field...

Guess what, you are wrong again. The geologists at the time did not believe the earth was billions of years old, and this was a major criticism of Darwin's theory. It was only after radiaoactive isotopes were understood (and how they could keep the earth from cooling as quickly as was believed) that the clock on the earth was turned back that far. Once again, you are re-writing history to match your literal-Genesis fantasy world. .

Read Gould's comment about that in the OP. He wouldn't agree. It is well known that Darwin viewed Lyell's geologly of all ages as his lauch site. Lyell concurred. ....

You said that they were both wrong... now you claim only one was? In any case, it was Genesis-believing creationists that disproved your 6,000 year old earth, long before Lyell and Darwin. Again, you are attempting to re-write history. I suggest that you stop reading creationist junk written by LCWs, so you may actually learn what the truth looks like.

If you will site the Genesis believers above I'd been interested to read them ...

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[notto]

Do you see any slight differences in your example given? We're not just talking about frozen food in an animal’s stomach. We talking about AN ENTIRE REGION of the globe having undergone a catastrophic change in temperature almost instantaneously and REMAINING that way. That is evidencer of global catastrophism...not an animal being caught in a local snow storm.

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What evidence? The stomach contents of a mammoth are not evidence of an instantaneious change in temperature, as evidenced by the same type of remains in mastadons.

Again, why is it not evidence of an animal dieing and freezing just as we see happening today?

What evidence is there of instantaneous and catastrophic change?

 

[HairlessSimian]

Darwin was one of the initiators of the assumption of modern evolution (ME). His theory to support that assumption is completely false and inverse to what is actually present in the fossil data....and elsewhere.

The assumption of ME has now been with us for over a century. Science will continue to view it as an assumption until it is eventually accepted to be unviable.

Gould evaluated evolution as a possibility for several 'practical' reasons more than scientific reasons. One 'practical' reason most scientist won't disagree with the assumption is pure and simple economics. ME has become the base of economics for reseach in much of the scientific 'community'..a very large community...for the past 100 years. That is one of the major reason most scientists don't dare speak against it. Millions of them maintain their liveihood trying to find the magic pill that's supposed to make ME work.

Millions of scientists working countless billions of hours on endless types of research for the past 125 years while stretching of every possible or plausable idea have still ended up with nothing but fragments of almost nothing that will substantiate such an assumption.

If biological evolution was the true conerstone of speciation and the origins of life the evidence found would be so pervasion and obvious anywhere you looked and handle-full of even a thousand scientists would have confirm its unquestiionable aithenticity in less than twenty-five years.

Now the economic momentum around the assumption is so pervasive in research, publishing, government authentication, public education and not least of all...the 'credibility' of these institutions. ME has now become a self-pepetuating assumption that is institutionally propelled. It has now become the proverbial game of looking for the needle in the haystack. Since the haystack is made of hay (creation) and not from needles (evolution assumption) it is almost impossible to find a needle. If the stack was made of needles, you wouldn't need to go 2 feet to find a hand full.

Yes, they will most probably keep looking...and not findings. I doubt anyone will have the guts to stop it. And their fan club of arm chair supporters who want their conclusions to be right will continue to support them a cheer them on. ME has become a self-perpetuating country club.

Of course Gould would not renounce evolution. But he was somone who did have the intellectual honsety to finally say after 100 years of research that its original assumption are debacled. He then graciously proposed another set of assumptions.....inversely opposite to those of the original set and said, since the other didn't work at all... let's try these. Now they're trying other set of assumption. The whole concept is more accurately the assumption of evolution. The ideas of both Lyell and Darwin were both totally based on their own asumptions. Darwin's have proven to be completely wacko.

Lyell's geology assumptions have come under some severe catastrophism attack in the past decades but again.....Lyell's uniformatarian geology...along was Darwin on the biological side of the fence... has been taught exclusively for the last century as the ONLY geology. Hence the old education indoctrination approach again. The self-propetuating cycle of ME...
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Millions of scientists? Billions of hours?
plausable? unquestiionable aithenticity? uniformatarian? looking... and not findings?
Evolution, a 150-year old hoax? Evolution the base of research economics ?

This would be laughable if it weren't so completely idiotic and disturbing.

Edmond, no one can take you seriously, not the least reason for which is the obvious fact that you don't know what you're talking about.

Worse. This is a rant. A rant bordering on the incoherent. Not only is this a pack of lies and false witness, it reeks of envy, hatred, a persecution complex and paranoia. To be generous, maybe you just don't know what you're saying.

SO stop it. Give your pastor a call. Or give your computer to someone who can use it to do good, like learn something, then stay off the boards and stay off the streets.

 

[Edmond]

Millions of scientists? Billions of hours?
plausable? unquestiionable aithenticity? uniformatarian? looking... and not findings?
Evolution, a 150-year old hoax? Evolution the base of research economics ? This would be laughable if it weren't so completely idiotic and disturbing.

I'll give you the math on just one of these issues...Here are some very real and highly under-estiamted figures on your first 'laughable' subject. Do the highly conservative basic math on the amount of scientists who have worked on trying to find evidence for the assumption of evolution for JUST the past 100 years and you would well surpass the billion man-hour mark.

An average 2080 hr. work year at just 40 hours a week. Multiple that times 10,000 scientists and researchers working on attempting to find and define information and evidence relating to the theory of evolution (again way underestiamted ) = 20,800,000 man hrs worked. Multiply that X only 100 yrs = 2,0800,000,000 (that's two billion eighty million) man hours applied to reasearch investigating and attempting to catalog information relating just to the theory of evolution in just that period of time. This estimate is highly conservative by at least half of what has been expended. Investigate the rest of your responses at your own leisure.if you wish to do so. Those facts will indeed disturb you.

Edmond, no one can take you seriously, not the least reason for which is the obvious fact that you don't know what you're talking about.

Worse. This is a rant. A rant bordering on the incoherent. Not only is this a pack of lies and false witness, it reeks of envy, hatred, a persecution complex and paranoia. To be generous, maybe you just don't know what you're saying.

SO stop it. Give your pastor a call. Or give your computer to someone who can use it to do good, like learn something, then stay off the boards and stay off the streets.

The rest of your response is simply common rhetoric and doesn't reqiure a response. ...

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[HairlessSimian]

I'll give you the math on just one of these issues...Here are some very real and highly under-estiamted figures on your first 'laughable' subject. Do the highly conservative basic math on the amount of scientists who have worked on trying to find evidence for the assumption of evolution for JUST the past 100 years and you would well surpass the billion man-hour mark.

An average 2080 hr. work year at just 40 hours a week. Multiple that times 10,000 scientists and researchers working on attempting to find and define information and evidence relating to the theory of evolution (again way underestiamted ) = 20,800,000 man hrs worked. Multiply that X only 100 yrs = 2,0800,000,000 (that's two billion eighty million) man hours applied to reasearch investigating and attempting to catalog information relating just to the theory of evolution in just that period of time. This estimate is highly conservative by at least half of what has been expended. Investigate the rest of your responses at your own leisure.if you wish to do so. Those facts will indeed disturb you.

Oh, so now we're down to just 10,000 scientists from millions earlier. Phew! Now we're also down to 100 years from 125. Well, that's closer. All of whom apparently spend 100% of their time with no vacation "trying to find evidence for the assumption of evolution" (as if evolution was an assumption! Ha!). That surely is another exaggeration.

Look, Edmond. You're attempting to justify the "billions of hours" as if it mattered to me. My point was that your earlier statement, calling for millions of scientists working billions of hours for 125 years, was pure invention. It still is. You have no clue how many evolutionary scientists there actually are. You certainly have no sense of the numbers of evolutionary scientists there have been over the decades. And you have no idea how many hours have been spent on "trying to find evidence for the assumption of evolution". You were making the numbers up. That was my point.
As to what they were actually doing, well that's for them to know and you to wonder about.

If you ever get anything out of this waste of my time, get this: Those scientists and their biology colleagues who don't study evolution are fond of saying that "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution". (I'd cite the original author if I knew who he/she was.) Before evolutionary ideas took hold, biology was a hodge-podge of facts. Evolution provides the glue that structures biology. You're not going to undo that. Get that, and leave science alone. You're apparently not up to it.

 

[Edmond]

Oh, so now we're down to just 10,000 scientists from millions earlier. Phew! <snip>...
Look, Edmond. You're attempting to justify the "billions of hours" as if it mattered to me. My point was that your earlier statement, calling for millions of scientists working billions of hours for 125 years, was pure invention.<snip>

I think that you may have difficulty with basic concepts like numbers and principles and examples given in problems. 10,000 scientist is an average number used to give the example of the amount of hours use. Think for just one moment before jumping to the next conclusion. Try to reason for a minute before leaping...the same 10,000 scientists would not be living in their work carreer for the same 100 year period. Do you begin to get the picture. There is the cycle of numerous numbers of sceintists who would cycle through the various fields over the 100 year example.

I'd suggest you try using a little more reasoning in your thinking. It may also help you understand where some of the fallacies of evolution are. In the meantime, I am not going to take the time to go through each of the issues here to explain what is being said. It seems apparent you are much more eager to object to want is presented then to follow any line of thinking that would offer any reason to the matter...

The hours?...not pure invention at all....that's a definition that fits Darwin's assumption. The hours are pure and simple math..Its just that people like yourself have never given consideration to the massive amounts of time that has been given to the task of trying to prove evolution to be viable. Yet, the amount of real evidence yielded is practically nill in comparision. That is the point.


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[Edmond]

Edmond, I do not think you know what evolution means.

I'm going to ask what I ask most creationists. I know what answer to expect (scroll below to see) but I'll ask it anyways:

What classes/training have you had in any of the following subjects: biology, geology, genetics, and paleontology.

If you can answer that you are well versed in any you may be able to speak from authority but if you answer no, why don't you learn something first.

----my guess to this question----

Edmond has no real background in any of those subjects besides what he has learned from creationist literature.

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So, edmond, am I right or wrong?

I try to gain my expertise and come to conclusions on a subject by reading the conclusions of authoritative experts like Gould who are willing to be objective and realistic have come to and how they reached those conclusions. I don't make statements on a subject or issues within a subject until I have reached those conclusions.

I beleive S J Gould to be an honest and honorable man in what he does. He, unlike many other 'scientists', is not affraid to speak the truth about what he sees and knows to be fact.

How do you gain your expertise on a subject? ....

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[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

I try to gain my expertise and come to conclusions on a subject by reading the conclusions of authoritative experts like Gould who are willing to be objective and realistic have come to and how they reached those conclusions. I don't make statements on a subject or issues within a subject until I have reached those conclusions.

And Gould's conclusion is that evolution happened, but the main means of speciation is rapid speciation in isolated populations rather than gradualism. The mechanism of that evolution is still random mutation and natural selection. Punk Eek is only about speciation.

I beleive S J Gould to be an honest and honorable man in what he does. He, unlike many other 'scientists', is not affraid to speak the truth about what he sees and knows to be fact.

Which would include the antiquity of the earth and Darwinian evolution. Does that mean that you are now a TE?

 

[Loudmouth]

The rest of your response is simply common rhetoric and doesn't reqiure a response. ...

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MMMMM, irony meter broken it is.

 

[Edmond]

Just another thread full of lies and strawmen from Edmond. Nothing new here.

Electric, I'm not sure how you reach the conclusions you do about issue you read. But your case in point as it applies in this example is way off. The core information that you strawman as being from Edmond is form Stephen Jay Gould, a well known and highly respected scientist in his field.

Your beliefs seem to be a very easily threatened when faced with information that challenges your own conclusions. It seems that when information does not agree with what you believe that information is classified by you as being either a lie or a strawman.

Such conclusions generally come from and person whose mind is entirely closed to listening to or evaluating anything that challenges what they want to believe to be true. That is a potentially disabling mental perspective. It produces a person who becomes a blind follower rather than an person who is an objective and individual thinker. I would encourage you to develop the latter not the former when it comes to evaluating ALL sides of the information on a subject...

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[Electric Sceptic]

Electric, I'm not sure how you reach the conclusions you do about issue you read. But your case in point as it applies in this example is way off. The core information that you strawman as being from Edmond is form Stephen Jay Gould, a well known and highly respected scientist in his field.

I reach the conclusions I do by acquiring information. Unlike you and your quote mines, I've actually read Gould - a lot of him. Obviously you haven't or you wouldn't be silly enough to try to use him to support your case. He is one of the naughty 'evolutionists' you loathe so.

Your beliefs seem to be a very easily threatened when faced with information that challenges your own conclusions. It seems that when information does not agree with what you believe that information is classified by you as being either a lie or a strawman.

False. Next?

Such conclusions generally come from and person whose mind is entirely closed to listening to or evaluating anything that challenges what they want to believe to be true. That is a potentially disabling mental perspective. It produces a person who becomes a blind follower rather than an person who is an objective and individual thinker. I would encourage you to develop the latter not the former when it comes to evaluating ALL sides of the information on a subject.

That's nice. If 'such conclusions' came from me, I'd be worried. They DO come from you. Be worried.

 

[Split Rock]

Edmond:

I noticed that you ignored part of my last post, as follows:

Too bad the physical evidence says there were multiple Ice Ages in the past and that each featured multiple advances and retreats of the glaciers. If you want to go with the bible instead, then you have to believe there wan't any Ice Age, since the Bible does not mention it at all! So, what do you creationists do? You pick and choose from the evidence, because, much like with the helio-centric solar system model, you cannot completley ignore the physical evidence of glaciers covering much of North America, even though you would like to.

I would really like a response from you on this matter. If you use just the physical evidence, there is not enough room for all the advances and retreats of the Ice Ages recorded in the past. If you use just the bible, you have no information aout Ice Ages at all. How do you justify shoe-horning a single, short Ice Age event into your 6,000 year earth model? Is it because you can't fit anything more? Why wasn't such an important event recorded by the writers of Genesis? Could it be they just didn't know about it, like they knew nothing about the rest of earth's past?

 

[Grummpy]

To every one and Edmund


I have read every post in this forum and I may have some relevant info" Edmund EJGould would take a bat to you were he living for misusing and lying about his position on evolution, let's hear from the man himself:

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"--part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science--that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."
Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.
Stephen J. Gould, " Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981

Hairless Simian said

If you ever get anything out of this waste of my time, get this: Those scientists and their biology colleagues who don't study evolution are fond of saying that "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution". (I'd cite the original author if I knew who he/she was.)

This may be the quote tou were thinking of:

Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms.
- Theodosius Dobzhansky "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution", American Biology Teacher vol. 35 (March 1973)

Hope this helps

Grumpy

 

[Split Rock]

Edmond has decided to quote-mine from S.J. Gould's writings in a pathetic attempt to support his religious dogma. But what did Gould really have to say about Creationism and Evolution? Let's take a look....


"...we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent observations and inferences by the thousands. The earth is billions of years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary descent. Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither flat nor at the center of the universe? Science *has* taught us some things with confidence! Evolution on an ancient earth is as well established as our planet's shape and position. Our continuing struggle to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not cast our documentation of its occurrence -- the "fact of evolution" -- into doubt.

-"The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol XII No. 2

"Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectualy heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise?

-"The Skeptical Inquirer", Vol. 12, page 186

"The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the ideas of their opponents."

-"The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 87/88, pg. 186

From: http://vbeaud.free.fr/Sciences/Gould/quotes.html