Colin Patterson FRS (1933–1998), was a British palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London from 1962 to his official retirement in 1993[1] who specialised in fossil fish and systematics, advocating the transformed cladistics school.
[3] After National Service in the Royal Engineers, Patterson studied zoology at Imperial College, London (1954–57).
[6][7] Patterson did not support creationism, but his work has been cited by creationists with claims that it provides evidence of the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record.
[8][9] In the second edition of Evolution (1999), Patterson stated that his remarks had been taken out of context: Because creationists lack scientific research to support such theories as a young earth ... a world-wide flood ... or separate ancestry for humans and apes, their common tactic is to attack evolution by hunting out debate or dissent among evolutionary biologists.
I learned that one should think carefully about candour in argument (in publications, lectures, or correspondence) in case one was furnishing creationist campaigners with ammunition in the form of 'quotable quotes', often taken out of context.