Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted.

In order to say that some function is understood, every relevant step in the process must be elucidated.

Biology has progressed tremendously due to the model that Darwin put forth. But the black boxes Darwin accepted are now being opened, and our view of the world is again being shaken.

Skin is made in large measure of a protein called collagen.

This fact immediately suggested a singular event - that at some time in the distant past the universe began expanding from an extremely small size. To many people this inference was loaded with overtones of a supernatural event - the creation, the beginning of the universe.

The point here is that physics followed the data where it seemed to lead, even though some thought the model gave aid and comfort to religion.

In many biological structures proteins are simply components of larger molecular machines.

A man from a primitive culture who sees an automobile might guess that it was powered by the wind or by an antelope hidden under the car, but when he opens up the hood and sees the engine he immediately realizes that it was designed.

The basic structure of proteins is quite simple: they are formed by hooking together in a chain discrete subunits called amino acids.

It is often said that science must avoid any conclusions which smack of the supernatural.

But sequence comparisons simply can't account for the development of complex biochemical systems any more than Darwin's comparison of simple and complex eyes told him how vision worked.

In Darwin's time all of biology was a black box: not only the cell, or the eye, or digestion, or immunity, but every biological structure and function because, ultimately, no one could explain how biological processes occurred.

The question of how the eye works - that is, what happens when a photon of light first impinges on the retina - simply could not be answered at that time.

The theory of undirected evolution is already dead, but the work of science continues.

Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted.

It was only about sixty years ago that the expansion of the universe was first observed.

We are not inferring design to account for a black box, but to account for an open box.

Thus it seemed to Haeckel that such simple life could easily be produced from inanimate material.

By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.

Although Darwin was able to persuade much of the world that a modern eye could be produced gradually from a much simpler structure, he did not even attempt to explain how the simple light sensitive spot that was his starting point actually worked.

Throughout history there have been many other examples, similar to that of Haeckel, Huxley and the cell, where a key piece of a particular scientific puzzle was beyond the understanding of the age.

It was a shock to people of the nineteenth century when they discovered, from observations science had made, that many features of the biological world could be ascribed to the elegant principle of natural selection.

Since natural selection requires a function to select, an irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would have to arise as an integrated unit for natural selection to have anything to act on.

Proteins are the machinery of living tissue that builds the structures and carries out the chemical reactions necessary for life.

It is a shock to us in the twentieth century to discover, from observations science has made, that the fundamental mechanisms of life cannot be ascribed to natural selection, and therefore were designed. But we must deal with our shock as best we can and go on.

In the 19th century the anatomy of the eye was known in great detail and the sophisticated mechanisms it employs to deliver an accurate picture of the outside world astounded everyone who was familiar with them.

As can be seen even by this limited number of examples proteins carry out amazingly diverse functions.

The conclusion of design flows naturally from the data we should not shrink from it we should embrace it and build on it.

The most important training, though, is to experience life as a writer, questioning everything, inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do that, all the other things will come; if you don't, there's no hope for you.

And let me take one of the explanations most commonly given: Analysts were pressured to reach conclusions that would fit the political agenda of one or another administration. I deeply think that is a wrong explanation.

And the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations in terms of physics and chemistry.

The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.

There is a strong tendency in explanatory prose to invoke quantities of tension, energy, and whatnot to explain the genesis of pattern. I believe that all such explanations are inappropriate or wrong.

It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises-but only performance is reality.

There are no explanations, there are no answers.

In business, words are words; explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.

When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.

It is characteristic of science that the full explanations are often seized in their essence by the percipient scientist long in advance of any possible proof.

Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.

You don't need an explanation for everything, Recognize that there are such things as miracles - events for which there are no ready explanations. Later knowledge may explain those events quite easily.

We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words.

Introspection and preserved writings give us far more insight into the ways of past humans than we have into the ways of past dinosaurs. For that reason, I'm optimistic that we can eventually arrive at convincing explanations for these broadest patterns of human history.

I think it is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises - but only performance is reality.

Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted.

I'm not satisfied with the explanations I get from tv or from school.

A key issue in developmental biology at that time was the problem of how cells underwent differentiation, with most workers concentrating on explanations in terms of changes in enzyme and gene regulation.

The truly privileged theories are not the ones referring to any particular scale of size or complexity, nor the ones situated at any particular level of the predictive hierarchy, but the ones that contain the deepest explanations.

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

When my daughter asks, 'What do you do?', every movie I have a different answer. As she grows, she wants more explanations.