Stephen Jay Gould Quotes

Creationism, perhaps the most pernicious of the intellectual perversions now afflicting the American public.

You don't need to be a scientist to know Earth's age or that life evolved. You just need be one who embraces objective truths

The debate [in Undeniable] was nominally about creationism as a "viable" explanation for what we observe around us. For my side, the debate went very well; I'm not sure what I would change, although I can imagine shortening my answers during the rebuttals, perhaps.

Why, then, do I continue to claim that creationism isn't science? Simply because these relatively few statements have been tested and conclusively refuted.

To those who are trained in science, creationism seems a bad dream, a sudden coming back to life of a nightmare, a renewed march of an Army of the Night risen to challenge free thought and enlightenment.

Tax dollars intended for science education must not be used to teach creationism as any sort of real explanation of nature, because any observation or process of inference about our origin and the nature of the universe disproves creationism in every respect.

By no definition of any modern scientist is intelligent design science, and it's a waste of our students' time to subject them to it.

Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles.

But I firmly believe that evolution be taught in the schools has the best witness of what modern science has taught us. To read the Bible literalistically about such issues disinvites us from using the best of recent scholarships

As a matter of principle, science teachers are professionally bound to limit their teaching to science and should resist pressure [from religious fundamentalists] to do otherwise.

I was defeated by an elite group in Washington that have an agenda, the National Academy of Sciences and other science groups. They have an agenda to get evolution presented as hard, dogmatic fact. It is pure propaganda.

We have politicians running for office—for school boards—in parts of the country who are denying the fundamental principle of biology. They are trying to equate the fact that Evolution is a theory with the idea that Evolution might not be true…. The teaching of Evolution should not be a political issue…. Evolution was discovered, not invented.

The evolution of life, and the evolutionary origin of mankind, are scientifically established as firmly and completely as any historical event not witnessed by human observers. Any concession to anti-evolutionists, suggesting that there are scientific reasons to doubt the facticity of evolution, would be propagating a plain untruth.

People who believe the earth was created 6000 years ago, when it's actually 4.5 billion years old, should also believe the width of North America is 8 yards. That is the scale of the error.

They say, you know, about evolution, it surely happened because their fossil record shows that. Look, my body and your body are miracles of design. Scientists are pretending they have the answer as how we got this way when natural selection couldn't possibly have produced such machines.

As in 1925, creationists are not battling for religion. They have been disowned by leading church men of all persuasions, for they debase religion even more than they misconstrue science. They are a motley collection to be sure, but their core of practical support lies with the evangelical right, and creationism is a mere stalking horse or subsidiary issue in a political program...The enemy is not fundamentalism; it is intolerance. In this case, the intolerance is perverse since it masquerades under the 'liberal' rhetoric of 'equal time'.

Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well.

The fundamentalists deny that evolution has taken place; they deny that the earth and the universe as a whole are more than a few thousand years old, and so on. There is ample scientific evidence that the fundamentalists are wrong in these matters, and that their notions of cosmogony have about as much basis in fact as the Tooth Fairy has.

Now I know which came first - the chicken not the egg.

There is no such thing as evolution.

There are very interesting controversies within evolution; however, whether evolution occurs is not one of them. It definitely does.

Although God believers don't need evolution to be false, atheists need evolution to be true.

Some claim evolution is just a theory. As if it were merely an opinion. The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact. Evolution really happened. Accepting our kinship with all life on Earth is not only solid science. In my view, it’s also a soaring spiritual experience.

I have serious problems with fundamentalist Christians and their creationist theories. Although I believe that scripture is divinely inspired and infallible, I have a hard time going along with the belief that the whole creation process occurred in six twenty-four hour days. My skepticism is due, in part, to the fact that the Bible says that the sun wasn’t created until the fourth day of creation (Genesis 1:16-19). I have a hard time figuring how twenty-four hour days could have been measured before that.

Evolutionism is a religious world view that is not supported by science, Scripture, popular opinion, or common sense. The exclusive teaching of this dangerous, mind-altering philosophy in tax supported schools, parks, museums, etc. is a clear violation of the First Amendment.