Eugenie Scott Quotations

When they say 'teach the controversy' their ringing phrase they want us to pretend to students that scientists are arguing whether evolution took place. This argument is not taking place.

It is already clear that the new slogan for the ID movement is going to be 'Teach the Controversy!' -- even though there is no scientific controversy over the validity of evolution in biology.

I think we should pay attention to him. We ignore public understanding of science at our peril.

Lawsuits, from my standpoint, are a sign of failure. We're hoping the lessons of Dover can be communicated throughout the rest of the country.

This would, of course, not open up science but destroy it.

But no one is using irreducible complexity as a research strategy, and with very good reason ... because it's completely fruitless.

Essentially what goes on in these seminars is an effort to tell students they should ignore or deprecate the information the teacher is presenting to them. As a result teachers may teach less evolution, which means we have less science literacy.

The stakes are high. If Kansas gets away with it ... I anticipate that in every state where science standards are up for revision, we are going to be fighting another battle.

The most toxic thing about this whole discussion is the impression that most of the public has, that there's a line in the sand, and you have to be on one side or the other.

As a legal strategy intelligent design is dead. It will be very difficult for any school district in the future to successfully survive a legal challenge. That doesn't mean intelligent design is dead as a very popular social movement. This is an idea that has got legs.

This decision is a major victory for science, and a major victory for science education.

This action is likely to be the playbook for creationism for the next several years, ... We can predict this fight happening elsewhere.

This is actually, I think, key to understanding this whole controversy in this country: people think that because science restricts itself to a natural cause, it's therefore saying that God had nothing to do with it.

Americans react very positively to the fairness or equal-time kind of argument.

The faith community needs to step up to the plate.

If the parents win the upcoming case, it will definitely throw sand in the gears of the 'intelligent design' movement.

Public schools are where the next generation of leaders are educated and where cultural exchange will take place.

I learned very early on that it's necessary but not sufficient for scientists to go to school board meetings and say, "We shouldn't be teaching creationism." Being right doesn't mean it'll pass.

There's a bait and switch going on here because the critics want the textbooks to question whether evolution occurred. And of course they don't because scientists don't question whether evolution occurred.

I think what bothers me so much of the time, is they take the data and theory and distort it. They must know they're distorting.

Evolution makes biology make sense. And if you don't teach your students the evolutionary core of biology, you're making it harder for them.

Evolution is not controversial in the field of science. It's controversial in the public sphere because public education is highly politicized.

I never say that evolution is a fact. Evolution is a theory. It's much more important than a fact, because theories explain things.

Creationists who want religious ideas taught as scientific fact in public schools continue to adapt to courtroom defeats by hiding their true aims under ever changing guises.

Science is a limited way of knowing, looking at just the natural world and natural causes. There are a lot of ways human beings understand the universe - through literature, theology, aesthetics, art or music.

You can't really be scientifically literate if you don't understand evolution. And you can't be an educated member of society if you don't understand science.

In my opinion, using creation and evolution as topics for critical-thinking exercises in primary and secondary schools is virtually guaranteed to confuse students about evolution and may lead them to reject one of the major themes in science.

People don't show up here (at the courtroom) because they believe evolution is bad science. They show up because they believe that if they accept evolution, then they are abandoning their religious beliefs. They see it as an either/or proposition: Either evolution happened, or God loves you.

This is neo-creationism, trying to avoid the legal morass of trying to teach creationism overtly and slip it in through the backdoor.