When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff. ~  Cicero

I shall prepare an answer to Mr. Darrow's charge that I am an ignorant bigot. I am not vain enough to think that this compliment -- for coming from him, it was a compliment -- was intended for me alone. While it was addressed to me, it was intended for all who dare differ from him to the extent of believing in the Bible, the God whom it reveals and the supernatural Christ of whom it tells.  ~ William Jennings Bryan 

I always find when I meet creationists or non-evolutionists or critics or whatever, I find it a lot easier to hate them in print than I do in person. ~ Michael Ruse 

Creationists today -- at least the majority of their spokesmen -- are highly educated, intelligent people. Skilled debaters, they have always done their homework. ~ Niles Eldredge 

For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived.   ~ Charles Darwin  

Yet even here, where Darwin’s arguments are strongest, nagging questions remain. For example, a reader of the Origin might be justified in wondering what Creationist view Darwin is referring to. Perhaps this is a problem more for the present-day reader. Darwin’s contemporaries may have known exactly what he meant, though I doubt it. Often the Creationist position seems merely a straw man-set up only to be knocked down. The constraints on space in the Origin, which led Darwin to abandon his original intention of arguing on both sides of the mutability issue, add to this feeling. The result is that the Creationist position is never clearly defined in the Origin. ~ Barry Gale 

When you ask a Darwinist, 'What evidence do you have for your mechanism that random variation and natural selection can actually do any creating?' the Darwinist will say, 'Well, tell me what God looks like, Why did he do this or that? I want you to show me God doing the creating because if you can't show me that, we can get rid of God or the creator and what's left is Darwinism, so it's got to be true.' It's the variation of, 'This is the only thing that could have happened, so it doesn't have to be demonstrated, it can just be assumed to be true.' And anyone who doubts that it could be true has to provide ironclad proof and justification for an alternative.  ~ Phillip Johnson 

When a valid criticism of Darwinism is first proposed, it is dismissed without an adequate response, either on some technicality or with some irrelevancy or by simply being ignored. As time passes, people forget that Darwinists never adequately met the criticism. But Darwinism is still ruling the roost. Since the criticism failed to dislodge Darwinism, the criticism itself must have been discredited or refuted somewhere. Thereafter the criticism becomes known as "that discredited criticism that was refuted a long time ago." And, after that, even to raise the criticism betrays an outdated conception of evolutionary theory. In this way, the criticism, though entirely valid, simply vanishes into oblivion.  ~ William Dembski  

It is said that there is no place for an argument from authority from science. The community of science is constantly self-critical ... It is certainly true that within each narrowly defined scientific field there is constant challenge to new technical claims and to old wisdom. ... But when scientists transgress the bounds of their own specialty they have no choice but to accept the claims of authority, even though they do not know how solid the grounds of those claims may be. Who am I to believe that quantum physics if not Steven Weinberg, or about the solar system if not Carl Sagan? What worries me is that they may believe what Dawkins and Wilson tell them about evolution. ~ Richard Lewontin   

As to assertions without adequate evidence, the literature of science is filled with them, especially the literature of popular science writing. Carl Sagan's list of the "best contemporary science-popularizers" includes E.O. Wilson, Lewis Thomas, and Richard Dawkins, each of whom has put unsubstantiated assertions or counterfactual claims at the very center of the stories they have retailed in the market.  ~ Richard Lewontin 

As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists, not only about the causes of evolution but even about the actual process. This divergence exists because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusion. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution. But some recent remarks of evolutionists show that they think this unreasonable. This situation, where scientific men rally to the defence of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigour, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science. ~ W.R. Thompson 

Evolutionists have often protested ‘unfair’ to quoting an evolutionist as if he were against evolution itself. So let it be said from the outset that the vast majority of authorities quoted are themselves ardent believers in evolution. But that is precisely the point... The foundations of the evolutionary edifice are hardly likely to be shaken by a collection of quotes from the many scientists who are biblical creationists. In a court of law, an admission from a hostile witness is the most valuable. Quoting the evolutionary palaeontologist who admits the absence of in-between forms, or the evolutionary biologist who admits the hopelessness of the mutation/selection mechanism, is perfectly legitimate if the admission is accurately represented in its own right, regardless of whether the rest of the article is full of hymns of praise to all the other aspects of evolution.  ~ Andrew Snelling 

Coyne complains the book is ‘heavily larded’ with quotations from evolutionists. This leads into his being upset with being quoted himself, as discussed above. That aside, however. I don’t know what to make of this statement. What is a book concerning evolution supposed to contain if not quotes from evolutionists? Quotes from accountants? ~ Michael Behe 

One of the ironies of the whole controversy is that it's a stock in trade for the Darwinists to say, 'The critics are religiously motivated and they believe in God and they're throwing their religion at us and they shouldn't be doing that, and they should keep that out of science,' But being religious or antireligious is the same thing: It's a position about religion and God, and it goes beyond the evidence and into very confident assertions that are based more on personal convictions than they are scientific testing.  ~ Phillip Johnson

In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government, but not Darwin.  ~ J.Y. Chen   

Creationists will have to speak louder. I continue to support those who would like to have their voices heard in biology classes. I encourage the effort to limit the teaching of evolutionary biology until such time as evolutionists encourage a more inclusive participation of students. The very idea of the American Civil Liberties Union conspiring with evolutionary biologists to limit the free speech of the majority of the high school students in this county is grotesque. ~ William Provine 

Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.  ~ Eric Hoffer

See also: A Layman's Guide to Discussing Evolutionism

See also: Creationism Misquotes

See also: Bias 

See also: Dawkins  2

See also: Teaching the Non-Controversy

See also: When telling the truth means telling lies