....Note what Patterson said in his response to the anticreationist in question:
I seem fated continually to make a fool of myself with creationists.
I hope that by now I have learned to be more circumspect in dealing with creationists, cryptic or overt. But I still maintain that scepticism is the scientists duty, however much the stance may expose us to ridicule.1
He seems to be saying that its OK to doubt as long as we dont let the creationists know.
Being a world-renowned fossil expert, Pattersons frank admissions were embarrassing to adherents of the religion of evolutionincluding himself, it would appear. But there were even more devastating revelations to come from Dr Patterson.
During a public lecture presented at New York Citys American Museum of Natural History on 5 November 1981, he dropped a bombshell among his peers that evening, who became very angry and emotional. Here are some extracts from what he said:
Im speaking on two subjects, evolutionism and creationism, and I believe its true to say that I know nothing whatever about either
One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, well, lets call it non-evolutionary, was last year I had a sudden realisation.
One morning I woke up
and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff [evolution] for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it.the late Dr Colin Patterson, formerly senior paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History
One morning I woke up
and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff [evolution] for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it.
He added:
That was quite a shock that one could be misled for so long
Ive tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that you think is true? I tried that question on the geology staff in the Field Museum of Natural History, and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago
and all I got there was silence for a long time, and then eventually one person said: Yes, I do know one thing. It ought not to be taught in high school..6
Although these are only excerpts from Pattersons very frank and startling lecture that evening (the full text is even more revealing), it is plain to see the doubts he was having.
It also shows that creationist usage of such quotes by Patterson does not amount to creationist foul play....