92 Evolution and the Fossil Record
sport is stringing together quotations, carefully and sometimes expertly taken out of
context, to show that nothing is really established or agreed upon among evolution-
ists. Some of my colleagues and myself have been amused and amazed to read our-
selves quoted in a way showing that we are really antievolutionists under the skin.As we saw from the Gould quotes just given and Whitcomb and Morris’s (1961) deceptive
use of the quote about the Lewis overthrust earlier in the chapter, quote mining is dishon-
est and unscientific. In his book Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism, Philip Kitcher
(1982:185) said it all,
So it goes. One scientist after another receives the Creationist treatment. Any quali-
fying comment, any deviation from orthodoxy is a potential target. Ripped from its
context, it can be made to serve the Creationists’ purpose, namely, to convince the
uninitiated that Creationist theses are sometimes advanced by scientists in scientific
debates. But anyone can play the same game. In conclusion, I cannot resist turning
the weapon against the Creationist who has used it to its greatest effect. Referring to
the controversy about transitional forms, Gish writes, “There should be no room for
question, no possibility of doubt, no opportunity for debate, no rationale whatsoever
for the existence of the Institute for Creation Research” (Gish, 1981, ii).How true.
For Further Reading
Berra, T. 1990. Evolution and the Myth of Creationism. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Beus, S., and M. Morales, eds. 1990. Grand Canyon Geology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dalrymple, G. B. 1991. The Age of the Earth. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Dalrymple, G. B. 2004. Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies: The Age of Earth and Its Cosmic Surroundings.
Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Eldredge, N. 1982. The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism. New York: Pocket Books.
Eldredge, N. 1985. Time Frames. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Eldredge, N. 2000. The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism. New York: Freeman.
Eldredge, N., and S. J. Gould. 1972. Punctuated equilibria: An alternative to phyletic gradualism. In
Models in Paleobiology, ed. T. J. M. Schopf. San Francisco: Freeman Cooper, 82–115.
Gould, S. J. 1980. Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging? Paleobiology 6:119–130.
Gould, S. J. 1992. Punctuated equilibria in fact and theory. In The Dynamics of Evolution, ed. A. Somit
and S. A. Peterson. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 54–84.
Gould, S. J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Gould, S. J., and N. Eldredge. 1977. Punctuated equilibria: The tempo and mode of evolution recon-
sidered. Paleobiology 3:115–151.
Kitcher, P. 1982. Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Mayr, E. 1942. Systematics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia University Press.
McGowan, C. 1984. In the Beginning: A Scientist Shows Why the Creationists Are Wrong. Buffalo, N.Y.:
Prometheus.
Numbers, R. 1992. The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism. New York: Knopf.
Prothero, D. R. 1990. Interpreting the Stratigraphic Record. New York: Freeman.