65,342. Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose. (Biology & Intelligent Design) Richard Dawkins
107,449. The fact of your own existence is the most unbelievable fact you will ever be asked to believe. On one planet – possibly the only one planet in the entire universe – the laws of physics which elsewhere produce nothing more interesting than bits of rock and sand and water etc. on one planet the laws of physics filtered through a very strange and particular process called Evolution by Natural Selection produced an outstanding array of complex, beautiful, elegant things which carry a gigantic illusion of design. (Evolution & Illusion & Laws of Science & Intelligent Design) Richard Dawkins, lecture Duke University October 2010
95,849. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars. (Insects & Intelligent Design & Darwin) Charles Darwin
2,988. Finally, from what we now know about the cosmos, to think that all this was created for just one species among the tens of millions of species who live on one planet circling one of a couple of hundred billion stars that are located in one galaxy among hundreds of billions of galaxies, all of which are in one universe among perhaps an infinite number of universes all nestled within a grand cosmic multiverse, is provincially insular and anthropocentrically blinkered. Which is more likely? That the universe was designed just for us, or that we see the universe as having been designed just for us? (Universe & Intelligent Design & Life & Cosmology & Multiverse & Anthropic Principle) Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design
6,078. As a historical science, evolution is confirmed by the fact that so many independent lines of evidence converge to its single conclusion. Independent sets of data from geology, palaeontology, botany, zoology, herpetology, entomology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, genetics and population genetics, and many other sciences each point to the conclusion that life evolved. This is a convergence of evidence. Creationists can demand ‘just one fossil transitional form’ that shows evolution. But evolution is not proved through a single fossil. It is proved through a convergence of fossils, along with a convergence of genetic comparisons between species, and a convergence of anatomical and physiological comparisons between species, and many other lines of inquiry. For creationists to disprove evolution, they need to unravel all these independent lines of evidence, as well as construct a rival theory that can explain them better than the theory of evolution. (Evolution & Creationism & Intelligent Design & Fossils) ibid.
53,231. Intelligent Design is a remarkably uncreative theory that abandons the search for understanding at the very point where it is most needed. If Intelligent Design is really a science, then the burden is on its scientists to discover the mechanisms used by the Intelligent Designer. ibid.
95,906. The anatomy of the human eye, in fact, shows anything but ‘intelligence’ in its design. It is built upside down and backwards, requiring photons of light to travel through the cornea, lens, acqueous fluid, blood vessels, ganglion cells, amacrine cells, horizontal cells, and bipolar cells before they reach the light-sensitive rods and cones that transduce the light signals ... Why would an intelligent designer have built an eye upside down and backwards? (Eye & Intelligent Design) Michael Shermer
53,205. Allow intelligent design into science textbooks, lecture halls, and laboratories, and the cost to the frontier of scientific discovery – the frontier that drives the economies of the future – would be incalculable. I don’t want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don’t understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don’t understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole
3,374. Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance. (Science & Intelligent Design) ibid.
53,232. And what comedian configured the region between our legs – an entertainment complex built around a sewage system? ibid.
5,720. There’s been an effort within the scientific community to censor out [tautology] information against evolution ... Teach the controversy ... Scientist are now claiming that they are the only ones who can speak on this issue. (Evolution & Creationism & Intelligent Design) Wendy Richards, Concerned Women for America, interview Professor Richard Dawkins
5,885. To counter the creationists he became a beekeeper in order to show that near perfect hexagons in honeycombs were raised by instinct and not by design. (Evolution & Darwin & Creationism & Intelligent Design) Darwin’s Struggle: The Evolution of the Origin of Species, BBC 2009
53,183. They insist that animals and man were created separately only ten thousand years ago. And that evolutionary theory is not more scientific than what they call Scientific Creationism. They demand their right by law to have it taught in public schools. (Creationism & Intelligent Design & Evolution) Horizon: Did Darwin Get It Wrong? BBC 1981
5,955. One of science’s greatest theories – evolution – is under attack. The threat is emerging from the only scientific super-power on Earth, provoking some of the biggest names in science to hit back. (Evolution & Creationism & Science & Intelligent Design) Horizon: A War on Science, BBC 2006
5,956. This is the story of a battle between faith and knowledge. A defining moment in the scientific landscape of the twentieth century. (Evolution & Creationism & Science & Intelligent Design) ibid.
5,957. Irreducible complexity was a simple but provocative idea. It was based on the observation of natural machines whose parts are so inter-dependant that they could not have evolved. (Evolution & Creationism & Science & Intelligent Design) ibid.
53,184. For scientists ancient religious texts are not sources of knowledge in the natural world. And to treat them as if they are is absurd. There’s no room for the God of Biblical creationism in modern Science. But Creationism like everything else evolves. And in America in the 1990s a new version emerged, claiming it wasn’t based on the Bible but on Science. This movement is called Intelligent Design. (Creationism & Intelligent Design) Horizon: The End of God? A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion, BBC 2010
53,185. In 2006 Horizon covered a legal challenge to the teaching of Intelligent Design. Once again the argument was over what was taught in the American classroom. (Creationism & Intelligent Design) ibid.
53,186. The judge ruled there was a clear religious purpose behind Intelligent Design. (Creationism & Intelligent Design) ibid.
8,612. Highly advanced humans living thousands of years ago. Unidentified DNA in the human genome. And ancient chronicles describing heavenly interventions on Earth. Did humans really evolve from apes or is our intelligence the result of other-worldly design? (Aliens & Ancient Astronaut Theory & Evolution & Intelligent Design) Ancient Aliens s3e16: Aliens and the Creation of Man, History 2011
8,613. 2004: researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Chicago published the results of a study that claims the sophistication of the human brain was the result of a so-called Special Event. (Aliens & Ancient Astronaut Theory & Evolution & Intelligent Design) ibid.
8,614. Might various versions of hominids have been the result of experiments at creating intelligent life on Earth? (Aliens & Ancient Alien Astronaut & Evolution & Intelligent Design) ibid.
8,615. The genetic lineage of every living person could be traced back to a single woman who once lived in Africa. (Aliens & Ancient Astronaut Theory & Evolution & Intelligent Design) ibid.
6,074. The fossil record implies trial and error, the inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with a Great Designer (though not a Designer of a more remote and indirect temperament.) (Evolution & Fossil & Intelligent Design) Carl Sagan, Cosmos
53,214. The idea of a designer is an appealing and altogether human explanation of the biological world. But as Darwin and Wallace showed there is another way, equally human and far more compelling. Natural selection which makes the music more beautiful as the aeons pass. (Intelligent Design & Evolution) Professor Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan, Cosmos: one Voice in the Cosmic Fugue, 1979
53,115. Colossal beauty, awe-inspiring intricacy, are the wonders of our universe a cosmic accident, or the result of intelligent design? For centuries Religion and Science were bitter foes. Now Science actively searches for our Creator. (Creationism & Intelligent Design) Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman: Is There a Creator? Science 2010
53,116. Every culture claims a God. An all-powerful entity that created the world and directs our faith. But why do we share this belief in a cosmic Creator? Did we dream it up to serve a need in our psyche or culture? Is God really out there? Up there? This is a journey into the science of God. (Creationism & Intelligent Design & God) ibid.
53,117. Some physicists believe this calibration of forces is evidence of God. (Creationism & Intelligent Design) ibid.
53,118. One universe, four forces, billions of galaxies. The precision and complexity of our world is enough to make even the sanest cosmologist go just a little bit crazy. How does it all fit together? Is there a single overarching design to the universe? And if we find it, will we glimpse the mind of God? (Creationism & Intelligent Design) ibid.
53,119. They have never found a force carrier for gravity. The elusive gravitons. (Creationism & Intelligent Design & Gravity) ibid.
53,120. What if there is no math that unifies the universe? (Creationism & Intelligent Design & Mathematics & Theory of Everything) ibid.
53,121. Dr Persinger believes the efforts of our brain’s right temporal lobe to relieve the anxiety of death is what we sense when we think we sense the designer. (Creationism & Intelligent Design) ibid.
53,122. God may simply be in our minds. (Creationism & Intelligent Design & God) ibid.
53,123. Maybe we are The Sims and our Creator is sitting at the controls of a super-computer. (Creationism & Intelligent Design & Computer & Simulation Theory) ibid.
53,124. In the past century physicists have discovered that matter really is made of tiny little pixels, fundamental indivisible particles billions of times smaller than an atom. (Creationism & Intelligent Design & Particles & Computer & Simulation Theory) ibid.
53,125. Our world is pixelated and only assumes definite form when observed. The very same way our computer simulations behave. (Creationism & Intelligent Design & Computer & Simulation Theory) ibid.
53,126. Our world bears all the hallmarks of one that is simulated ... Who would be more likely to simulate humans than humans from the future – our descendants. (Creationism & Intelligent Design & Computer & Simulation Theory) ibid.