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Evolution Quotes

Browse 3937 quotes about Evolution.

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Evolution Quotes

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”

MeanTechnologyProgressEvolutionEfficientTechnologicalBackwardsScience And TechnologyComputer TechnologyTechnological ProgressScience TechnologyTechnological AdvancementBrave New World TechnologyTechnology And EducationProgress In ScienceOld TechnologyAdvancement Of Science
Book:Ends and Means: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Ideals and Into the Methods Employed for Their Realization
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“Society's only real 'progressives' are the deviants and mutants. Look at evolution - fish who didn't deviate never became amphibians; frogs who didn't mutate never became reptiles; conformist snakes never became mammals , etc. Normal Humans will remain humans, and they'll be subjugated by the digital monsters of the next few millenia.”

HumansLooksRealNextEvolutionNormalFishesMonstersEtcDigitalSnakesFrogsMammalsConformistDeviateReptilesMutantsDeviantsAmphibians
Author:Jim Goad
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“The theory that the biosphere was created without evolution, a few thousand years ago, is ruled out by overwhelming scientific evidence. To claim that there are 'alternative (always better) Biblical explanations of the same data', which make creationism a reasonable alternative to our best theories of biology and physics, is appalling intellectual dishonesty.”

YearsTheoryEvolutionThousandIntellectualEvidenceYears AgoClaimsPhysicsDataAlternativesExplanationReasonableBiologyOverwhelmingBiblicalThousand YearsDishonestyCreationismBiosphereScientific EvidenceIntellectual Dishonesty
Author:David Deutsch
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“To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.”

ShouldWellsFactsUsedTheoryEvolutionAlternativesExplanationImperfectClassroomGroundedPropositionsHypothesisThrustPretextScientific TheoryTheory Of Evolution
Author:Jon Jones
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“Life is all about evolution. What looks like a mistake to others has been a milestone in my life. Even if people have betrayed me, even if my heart was broken, even if people misunderstood or judged me, I have learned from these incidents. We are human and we make mistakes, but learning from them is what makes the difference.”

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Author:Ameesha Patel
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“Evolution has long been badly taught. In particular, students - and even professional biologists - acquire theories of evolution without any deep understanding of what problem these theories attempt to solve. They learn but little of the evolution of evolutionary theory.”

LittlesLongProblemUnderstandingStudentsTaughtParticularTheoryEvolutionSolveAcquireBiologistTheory Of EvolutionDeep Understanding
Book:Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology
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“The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections: the skillful evolutions of war may inform the mind, and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood, and horror, and confusion . . .”

MindMayWarBloodEvolutionHeroHorrorAffectionConfusionFancyCombatUniformsAssaultFablesSkillfulPernicious
Book:The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812
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“But the 20th century suffered "two" ideologies that led to genocides. The other one, Marxism, had no use for race, didn't believe in genes and denied that human nature was a meaningful concept. Clearly, it's not an emphasis on genes or evolution that is dangerous. It's the desire to remake humanity by coercive means (eugenics or social engineering) and the belief that humanity advances through a struggle in which superior groups (race or classes) triumph over inferior ones.”

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Author:Steven Pinker
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“To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason. Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature, and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of evolution.”

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Author:Charles Sanders Peirce
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“It is an odd fact of evolution that we are the only species on Earth capable of creating science and philosophy. There easily could have been another species with some scientific talent, say that of the average human ten-year-old, but not as much as adult humans have; or one that is better than us at physics but worse at biology; or one that is better than us at everything. If there were such creatures all around us, I think we would be more willing to concede that human scientific intelligence might be limited in certain respects.”

IfsThinkingYearsHumansHas BeensPhilosophyFactsMightWould BeEarthCertainTalentWillingEvolutionTenCreaturesCreatingCapableAdultsSpeciesAveragePhysicsOddBiologyCould Have BeenScience And Philosophy
Author:Colin McGinn
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“One way to think about what psychedelics are is as catalysts for language development. They literally force the evolution of language. You cannot evolve faster than your language because the language defines the culture of meaning. So if there's a way to accelerate the evolution of language then this is real consciousness expansion and it's a permanent thing. The great legacies of the 60's are in attitudes and language. It boils down to doing your own thing, feeling the vibe, ego-trip, blowing your mind.”

IfsThinkingWayMindRealFeelingsCultureLanguageForceConsciousnessAttitudeDevelopmentEvolutionEgoOne WayFasterLegacyEvolvePermanentExpansionCatalystAccelerateEgo TripDoing Your Own ThingPermanent ThingsLanguage DevelopmentEvolution Of Language
Author:Terence McKenna
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“I do not think that the government, under the guise of some phony, alarmist, pseudo-scientific rhetoric, should attempt to control the evolution of consciousness. After all, if these things truly are consciousness-expanding, it doesn't take too much intelligence to realize that it is the absence of consciousness that is causing our flirtation with extinction and planetary disaster.”

IfsThinkingShouldGovernmentRealizingConsciousnessToo MuchEvolutionAbsenceDisasterRhetoricExpandingExtinctionPhonyGuisePseudoFlirtationAlarmistsConsciousness Expanding
Author:Terence McKenna
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“What is happening, I think, it's really bigger than psychedelics, it's bigger than human evolution. We are not making the waves in this ocean. We are corks, riding the waves of the ocean. But we are privileged, by perhaps chance alone, to occupy a unique moment in the history of the universe. A moment when the universe goes through some kind of self-transforming, evolutionary, inflationary expansion. That's what's happening.”

ThinkingHumansKindSelfMomentsUniverseChanceEvolutionOceanUniqueHappeningsBiggerWaveRidingExpansionPrivilegedTransformingHuman EvolutionCork
Author:Terence McKenna
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“But what, after all, is faith? It is a state of mind that leads people to believe something - it doesn't matter what - in the total absence of supporting evidence. If there were good supporting evidence then faith would be superfluous, for the evidence would compel us to believe it anyway. It is this that makes the often-parroted claim that 'evolution itself is a matter of faith' so silly. People believe in evolution not because they arbitrarily want to believe it but because of overwhelming, publicly available evidence.”

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Author:Richard Dawkins
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“In the evolution of knowledge-mistaken and unnecessary beliefs are forced out and supplanted by truer and more necessary knowledge. So too in the evolution of feelings, which takes place by means of art. Lower feelings-less kind and less needed for the good of humanity-are forced out and replaced by kinder feelings which better serve us individually and collectively. This is the purpose of art.”

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Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“I think we have got to start again and go right back to first principles. The argument I shall advance, surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the evolution of modern man, we must begin by throwing out the gene as the sole basis of our ideas on evolution. If there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? ... Is he manuvering to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings?”

IfsThinkingMenFirstsMayMadeIdeasSeemsSportsEnjoyUnderstandingPrinciplesBloodModernTelevisionHe ManEvolutionArgumentBasesCreatorThrowingGenesSurprisingSoleChaptersTigersSpectatorsLambsRatingModern ManCheetahsGazelles
Book:The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition
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“Turtles hate heights. They don't even like being a few feet off the ground. It's the main reason they have resisted evolution for so long-fear of heights. Turtle thinking goes thus: Sure, first our scales turn into feathers and the next thing you know we're flying and chirping and perching on trees. We've seen it happen. Thanks, but we're staying right here in the mud where we belong. You're not going to see us flying full-tilt boogie into a sliding glass door.”

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Author:Christopher Moore
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“Over the years, I think I've matured in my spiritual evolution and development to understand a bit more than the narrow religious thinking - to move beyond that through a sort of perfection of the grandiose nature of the universe, and how perfect it is it in its sense and how satisfied we should all be in our place in that.”

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Author:Buzz Aldrin
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“Progress was a labyrinth ... people plunging blindly in and then rushing wildly back, shouting that they had found it ... the invisible king-the élan vital-the principle of evolution ... writing a book, starting a war, founding a school.”

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Book:The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works
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