Liz Williams Quotes
I have issues with anyone who tries to claim that science is unworkable - creationists who deny evidence for past history, yet are happy to benefit from the products of the methodology that they otherwise deny.
Williams, Liz. "Paganism: a beginner's guide - part 4: Science and magic." The Guardian, 29 Sep. 2008.
Conflict between religion and evolution does not exist in most churches. There are exceptions of some orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. However, in this case the highest prelate of the American Episcopal Church not only sees no conflict but urges that evolution be taught in schools.
While many people in America say they do not “believe in” evolution almost all of them do not know what evolution is much less understand what it is that they think is false. There are very few people who have studied evolution who reject it as being without merit in explaining life forms and their history. Almost all who are against it are religious fundamentalists who take the Judeo-Christian Bible literally. For their particular religion, evolution is a false doctrine, but there are many major religions in America for whom evolution is no problem. For example, Quakers, Unitarians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Reform Jews, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox just to list some. Creationism, of which the quote author is an advocate, is an excellent religious solution to the contradiction between Evolution and the literal word of the Bible, but it is such terrible science, that it is not even considered science or taught in science curricula.
The Science Guy
This quotation is significant for several reasons. The 3 time candidate for President not only railed against anything having to do with evolution, but in this same year, participated as a prosecutor in the infamous Scopes Trial in Tennessee where a school teacher was convicted of a crime for discussing the idea of evolution in a high school classroom. In this case, he attacked anthropologist Henry Fairfield Osborn who had hypothesized that a fossilized tooth he had found might have come from a humanoid predecessor of Homo Sapiens. Bryan of course ignored the even then overwhelming evidence of evolution as a mechanism. He was actually right in criticizing Osborn in this case although Bryan had no real evidence for it. Two years later, Osborn published a retraction and correction indicating that better tools and methods of analysis indicated that the tooth was from a primitive species of pig and not of a pre human.
Liz Williams (born 1965) is a British science fiction writer, historian and occultist. The Ghost Sister, her first novel, was published in 2001. Both this novel and her next, Empire of Bones (2002) were nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. She is also the author of the Inspector Chen series, and of the historical survey of magic in the British Isles and beyond Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism (2020).
