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James Gould
(Hy was ’n evolusionis en hy was agnosties.)
Charles Lyell was a lawyer by profession, and his book is one of the most brilliant briefs ever published by an advocate … Lyell relied upon true bits of cunning to establish his uniformitarian views as the only true geology. First, he set up a straw man to demolish … In fact, the catastrophists were much more empirically minded than Lyell. The geologic record does seem to require catastrophes: rocks are fractured and contorted; whole faunas are wiped out. To circumvent this literal appearance, Lyell imposed his imagination upon the evidence. The geologic record, he argued, is extremely imperfect and we must interpolate into it what we can reasonably infer but cannot see. The catastrophists were the hard-nosed empiricists of their day, not the blinded theological apologists.
[Uit Up with Catastrophism!]
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Zumberge
From a purely scientific point of view, it is unwise to accept uniformitarianism as unalterable dogma.… (One) should never close his mind to the possibility that conditions in post geological time were different than today.…
[Uit Up with Catastrophism!]
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Onbekend
It is both easy and tempting … to adopt a neocatastrophist attitude to the fossil record.… This is a heady wine and has intoxicated paleontologists since the day when they could blame it all on Noah’s flood. In fact, books are still being published by the lunatic fringe with the same explanation. In case this book should be read by some fundamentalist searching for straws to prop up his prejudice, let me state categorically that all my experience (such as it is) has led me to an unqualified acceptance of evolution by natural selection as a sufficient explanation for what I have seen in the fossil record. I find divine creation, or several such creations, a completely unnecessary hypothesis. Nevertheless this is not to deny that there are some very curious features about the fossil record.
[Uit Up with Catastrophism!]
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Derek Ager
(Nie ’n skeppingsleerder nie.)
The hurricane, the flood, or the tsunami may do more in an hour or a day than the ordinary processes of nature have achieved in a thousand years.
In other words, the history of any one part of the earth, like the life of a soldier, consists of long periods of boredom and short periods of terror.
[Uit Up with Catastrophism!]
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Charles Lyell (author of “Principles of Geology”), stated in 1881 that his aim was to “free science from Moses” (Vol 1, p268) – not a geological aim but a philosophical aim.
Charles Lyell (outeur van “Principles of Geology”), het in 1881 verklaar dat sy doelwit was om “wetenskap van Moses te bevry” (Vol 1, p268 – nie ’n geologiese doelwit nie maar ’n filosofiese doel.
“I am sure you may get into Q. R. [Quarterly Review] what will free the science from Moses … . I conceived the idea five or six years ago, that if ever the Mosaic geology could be set down without giving offence, it would be in an historical sketch, and you must abstract mine … .”
Ek is seker dat jy in Q.R. dit gaan kry wat die wetenskap van Moses sal bevry… Ek het vyf of ses jaar gelede die idee verwek dat indien die Mosaiese geologie [geologie gebaseer op die Bybel, dus die sondvloed] sonder aanstoot verwerp wil word sou dit wees in ’n historiese skets en jy moet my opsomming gebruik.
“I request that people will … not form an opinion from what history has recorded.”
Ek versoek dat mense nie hulle opinie sal vorm gebaseer op die [Bybelse] geskiedenis nie.
[Kyk Charles Lyell’s hidden agenda—to free science “from Moses” en Charles Lyell: the man who tried to rewrite history.]