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Quotes from Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism — Philip Kitcher

born 1947 England

← All quotes by Philip Kitcher

13 quotes

People who live in Creationist houses should not throw methodological stones.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

Consistency is not the hobgoblin of the Creationist mind.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

The road to Creationism is paved with bad philosophy.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

This response gets high marks for low cunning.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

For Creation “scientists” data has only one function; it is a potential source of problems for evolution. Counterexamples to the “theory” of Creation “science” do not count.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

This is purely a figment of Gish’s imagination. He speculates about the character of transitional forms, and then chides paleontologists because they do not find what he demands.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

It is hard to resist the impression that all these computations are designed to bamboozle those who become weak at the knees at the sight of numbers.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

Creationist strategy is often to run entirely different issues together, to concoct a muddy paste out of distinct allegations about the evils of evolution and the glories of Creationism.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

My conclusion can be summarized in a sentence. It is educationally irresponsible to pretend that an idea that is scientifically worthless deserves scientific discussion.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

Even postulating an unobserved Creator need be no more unscientific than postulating unobservable particles. What matters is the character of the proposals and the ways in which they are articulated and defended.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

Respect for the truth does not require one to take seriously ideas simply because they are popular or backed by influential people. Once it has become clear that a proposal makes no contribution to our understanding, we are not compelled by tolerance to give it further attention.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

Ironically, philosophers of science owe the Creationists a debt. For the “scientific” Creationists have constructed a glorious fake, which we can use to illustrate the differences between science and pseudoscience. By examining their scientific pretensions, I have tried to convey a sense of the nature and methods of science.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

The formulation that I have given accords with those found in textbooks on physics. But it does not coincide with the statements of the second law offered by some Creationists.
Creationists like to present the second law either by omitting any mention of its restriction to closed systems or by choosing a statement that does not make this restriction clear.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Philip Kitcher (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.