Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense.
Interpretation
Gould emphasizes that evolution is a testable scientific theory despite criticism.
In this quote, Stephen Jay Gould defends the scientific validity of evolution against creationist critiques, asserting that the claim that evolution cannot be tested is fundamentally flawed. He highlights the importance of evaluating scientific theories based on their ability to be scrutinized and tested, reiterating that evolution meets these criteria, thus firmly placing it within the realm of scientific inquiry.
In practice
In a debate about the teaching of evolution in schools, one might use this quote to defend the scientific basis of evolution.
The human mind delights in finding pattern—so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning. No other habit of thought lies so deeply within the soul of a small creature trying to make sense of a complex world not constructed for it.
Some evolutionists will protest that we are caricaturing their view of adaptation. After all, do they not admit genetic drift, allometry, and a variety of reasons for nonadaptive evolution?
Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.
Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
For Dawkins, evolution is a battle among genes, each seeking to make more copies of itself. Bodies are merely the places where genes aggregate for a time.
The revolution which began with the creation of quantum theory and relativity theory can only be finished with their unification into a single theory that can give us a single, comprehensive picture of nature.
For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.
Science is a beautiful gift to humanity; we should not distort it.
If African farmers can use improved seeds and better practices to grow more crops and get them to market, then millions of families can earn themselves a better living and a better life.
When I test I never go right to the limit. Only because when you are below the limit you can go at the same speed all day, and that's the only way you can be absolutely sure about what you are testing.
The most important tool of the theoretical physicist is his wastebasket.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.