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“As a rule, theologians know nothing of this world, and far less of the next; but they have the power of stating the most absurd propositions with faces solemn as stupidity touched by fear.

It is a part of their business to malign and vilify the Voltaires, Humes, Paines, Humboldts, Tyndalls, Haeckels, Darwins, Spencers, and Drapers, and to bow with uncovered heads before the murderers, adulterers, and persecutors of the world. They are, for the most part, engaged in poisoning the minds of the young, prejudicing children against science, teaching the astronomy and geology of the bible, and inducing all to desert the sublime standard of reason.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

“Adam is fading out. It is on account of Darwin and that crowd. I can see that he is not going to last much longer. There's a plenty of signs. He is getting belittled to a germ鈥攁 little bit of a speck that you can't see without a microscope powerful enough to raise a gnat to the size of a church.

('The Refuge of the Derelicts' collected in Mark Twain and John Sutton Tuckey, The Devil's Race-Track: Mark Twain's Great Dark Writings (1980), 340-41. - 1980)”
― Mark Twain

“Compare King William with the philosopher Haeckel. The king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim鈥攐ne upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen Victoria. The Queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius.

The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart.

We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor to hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the intensity and glory of the flame.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child

“It seems to be characteristic of the human mind that when it sees a black box in action, it imagines that the contents of the box are simple.
A happy example is seen in the comic strip <>.
Calvin is always jumping in a box with his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, and travelling back in time, or <> himself into animal shapes, or using it as a <> and making clones of him-self. A little boy like Calvin easily imagines that a box can fly like an airplane (or something), because Calvin doesn't know how airplanes work.
In some ways, grown-up scientists are just as prone to wishful thinking as little boys like Calvin.
For example, centuries ago it was thought that insects and other small animals arose directly fom spoiled food. This was easy to believe, because small animals were thought to be very simple (before the invention of the microscope, naturalists thought that insects had no internal organs). But as biology progressed and careful experiments showed that protected food did not breed life, the theory of spontaneous generation retreated to the limits beyond which science detect what was really happening.
(...)
The key to persuading people was the portrayal of the cells as <>. One of the chief advocates of the spontaneous generation during the middle of the nineteenth century was Ernst Haeckel, a great admirer of Darwin and an eager popularizer of Darwin's theory.
From the limited view of cells that microscope provided, Haeckel believed that a cell was a <> not much different from a piece of microscopic Jell-O. So it seemed to Haeckel that such simple life, with no internal organs, could be produced easily from inanimate material. Now, of course, we know better.”
― Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution

“It seems to be characteristic of the human mind that when it sees a black box in action, it imagines that the contents of the box are simple.
A happy example is seen in the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes".
Calvin is always jumping in a box with his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, and travelling back in time, or "transmogrifying" himself into animal shapes, or using it as a "duplicator" and making clones of him-self. A little boy like Calvin easily imagines that a box can fly like an airplane (or something), because Calvin doesn't know how airplanes work.
In some ways, grown-up scientists are just as prone to wishful thinking as little boys like Calvin.
For example, centuries ago it was thought that insects and other small animals arose directly fom spoiled food. This was easy to believe, because small animals were thought to be very simple (before the invention of the microscope, naturalists thought that insects had no internal organs). But as biology progressed and careful experiments showed that protected food did not breed life, the theory of spontaneous generation retreated to the limits beyond which science detect what was really happening.
(...)
The key to persuading people was the portrayal of the cells as "simple". One of the chief advocates of the spontaneous generation during the middle of the nineteenth century was Ernst Haeckel, a great admirer of Darwin and an eager popularizer of Darwin's theory.
From the limited view of cells that microscope provided, Haeckel believed that a cell was a "simple lump of albuminous combination of carbon" not much different from a piece of microscopic Jell-O. So it seemed to Haeckel that such simple life, with no internal organs, could be produced easily from inanimate material. Now, of course, we know better.”
― Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution

“We are invited by Dawkins and Darwin to believe that the evolution of the eye proceeded step-by-step through a series of plausible intermediates in infinitesimal increments. But are they infinitesimal? Remember that the "light-sensitive spot" that Dawkins takes as his atarting point requires a cascade of factors, including 11-cis-retinal and rhodopsin, to function.
Dawkins doesn't mention them. And where did the "little cup" come from? A ball of cells--from which the cup must be made--will tend to be rounded unless held in the correct shape by molecular supports. In fact, there are dozens of complex proteins involved in mantaining cell shape, and dozens more that control extracellular structure; in their absence, cells take the shape of so many soap bubbles. Do these structures represent single-step mutations? Dawkins did not tell us how the apparently simple "cup" shape came to be. And although he reassures us that any "translucent material" would be an improvement (recall that Haeckel mistakenly thought it would be easy to produce cells since they were certainly just "simple lumps"), we are not told how difficult it is to produce a "simple lens". In short, Dawkins's explanation is only addressed to the level of what is called gross anatomy.”
― Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution