23 quotes
Intelligent Design is simply a dead end; it does not deserve to be called a theory.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
Modern science explicitly and emphatically rejects teleology.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
Just because people doing science are embedded in a particular social and cultural milieu, it doesn’t follow that science is not universal.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
Unfortunately, the universe does not come with an instructor’s manual and technical support is as hard to get as it is for some software packages.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
Until creationists accept that their claims must be falsifiable and show how they could be falsified, creationism cannot be said to be a scientific theory.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
To brand evolution as “just a theory” is the finest compliment one can confer on it!
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
Enormous resources are invested in pseudoscience that could be better invested in improving the health and education of the public.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
Concise and coherent is not the same as “simple and obvious.”
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
The scientific point of view is that such claims of postmodernism are a travesty that comes from mixing ideology and politics with science.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
We can define a fact as an observation backed up by such a preponderance of evidence that no useful purpose would be served by doubting it.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
ID (intelligent design) is essentially a total failure of the imagination; just because you do not see how something could have evolved, doesn’t mean that it didn’t.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
The statement “I don’t see how X could have evolved” simply means that you cannot see how X evolved, not that X could not have evolved.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
It is clear today that modern science developed when people stopped debating metaphysical questions about the world and instead concerned themselves with the discovery of laws that were primarily mathematical.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
The charm of our studies, the enchantment of science, is that, everywhere and always, we can give the justification of our principles and the proof of our discoveries.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
If ghosts and witches are not yet altogether exploded, it is the fault, not so much of the ignorant people, as of the law and the government that have neglected to enlighten them.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
Scientists refuse to study astrology, not because of prejudice or because there is a conspiracy afoot, but simply because there is not a shred of evidence that would justify the expenditure of valuable time from a career.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
Imaginary numbers are not imaginary and the theory of complex numbers is no more complex than the theory of real numbers. Complex numbers are as intuitive for an electronics engineer as -100 is for the average person with an overdrawn bank account.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
A good rule of thumb for diagnosing an activity as pseudoscientific is the existence of ad hoc explanations: “my telepathic powers aren’t working today because of a force field emanating from the hostile talk-show host.” There are no “bad-gravity days” and there are no days when your TV set stops working because electromagnetic waves feel hostility.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
Our existence in this world seems insignificant within the extent of space and of time. Therefore, nonreligious people have to come to terms with living in a world full of uncertainty and unknowns. Nevertheless, many people prefer facing the uncertainty, rather than believing in a certainty that makes no sense to them.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)
Needless to say, there is no formal or mathematical content to ID—a “theory” that explains everything, explains nothing, and predicts nothing. ID cannot explain why millions of species were created and then became extinct. Even more importantly, it cannot explain “mistakes” in the design of living organisms such as us.
Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005)