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• It is sad to find him belaboring the science community for its united opposition to ignorant creationists who want teachers and textbooks to give equal time to crank arguments that have advanced not a step beyond the flyblown rhetoric of Bishop Wilberforce and William Jennings Bryan.
  -- Martin Gardner, Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol....
• Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around the sun.
  At one time this was called the Copernican theory...
• Prevalent beliefs that knowledge can be tapped from previous incarnations or from a "universal mind" (the repository of all past wisdom and creativity) not only are implausible but also unfairly demean the stunning achievements of individual human brains.
  -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousne...
• Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of the person making the claim, not the critic.
  It is not the responsibility of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals or colored lights never healed anyone....
• Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of the person making the claim, not the critic.
  It is not the responsibility of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals or colored lights never healed anyone....
• Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. There are many examples of outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, but they prevailed with irrefutable data.
  More often, egregious findings that contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts....
• Our journeys to the stars will be made on spaceships created by determined
  hardworking scientists and engineers applying the principles of science, not aboard flying saucers piloted by little gray aliens from some other dimension....
• we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent observations and inferences by the thousands.
  The earth is billions of years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary descent....