Best evolution & adaptation Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“As a consequence, geneticists described evolution simply as a change in gene frequencies in populations, totally ignoring the fact that evolution consists of the two simultaneous but quite separate phenomena of adaptation and diversification.”

Two Facts Evolution Consequence Population Genes Adaptation Frequency Simultaneous Diversification Ignoring Facts

Book:Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist

Source: Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist

“Agricultural practice served Darwin as the material basis for the elaboration of his theory of Evolution, which explained the natural causation of the adaptation we see in the structure of the organic world. That was a great advance in the knowledge of living nature.”

World Natural Practice Materials Theory Evolution Bases Structure Agriculture Adaptation Theory Of Evolution Causation

Book:Soviet Biology: Report to the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Source: Soviet Biology: Report to the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences

“Throughout his last half-dozen books, for example, Arthur Koestler has been conducting a campaign against his own misunderstanding of Darwinism. He hopes to find some ordering force, constraining evolution to certain directions and overriding the influence of natural selection. [...] Darwinism is not the theory of capricious change that Koestler imagines. Random variation may be the raw material of change, but natural selection builds good design by rejecting most variants while accepting and accumulating the few that improve adaptation to local environments.”

“A complete theory of evolution must acknowledge a balance between "external" forces of environment imposing selection for local adaptation and "internal" forces representing constraints of inheritance and development. Vavilov placed too much emphasis on internal constraints and downgraded the power of selection. But Western Darwinians have erred equally in practically ignoring (while acknowledging in theory) the limits placed on selection by structure and development what Vavilov and the older biologists would have called "laws of form.”

Source: Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History

“We are inescapably the result of a long heritage of learning, adaptation, mutation and evolution, the product of a history which predates our birth as a biological species and stretches back over many thousand millennia... Going further back, we share a common ancestry with our fellow primates; and going still further back, we share a common ancestry with all other living creatures and plants down to the simplest microbe. The further back we go, the greater the difference from external appearances and behavior patterns which we observe today.”

“The proof of evolution lies in those adaptations that arise from improbable foundations.”

Lying Evolution Foundation Proof Arise Adaptation Improbable

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“A … difference between most system-building in the social sciences and systems of thought and classification of the natural sciences is to be seen in their evolution. In the natural sciences both theories and descriptive systems grow by adaptation to the increasing knowledge and experience of the scientists. In the social sciences, systems often issue fully formed from the mind of one man. Then they may be much discussed if they attract attention, but progressive adaptive modification as a result of the concerted efforts of great numbers of men is rare.”

“I think nobody would claim that random genetic drift is capable of producing adaptation, that is to say the illusion of design. Random genetic drift can't produce wings that are good at flying, or eyes that are good at seeing, or legs that are good at running. But random genetic drift probably is very important in driving evolution at the molecular genetic level.”

Thinking Important Eye Running Levels Seeing Design Produce Evolution Capable Illusion Claims Wings Legs Driving Flying Adaptation

Author:Richard Dawkins

“Wherever the Net arises, there arises also a rebel to resist human control...A network nurtures small failures in order that large failures don't happen as often. It is...fertile ground for learning, adaptation, and evolution...The only organization capable of unprejudiced growth, or unguided learning, is a network. All other topologies limit what can happen.”

Humans Happens Order Growth Evolution Internet Limits Capable Organization Arise Rebel Free Speech Nurture Adaptation Fertile Fertile Ground Topology

Author:Kevin Kelly

“Slow adaptation is driven by forces such as evolution. Fast adaptation is driven by forces such as insight.”

Force Evolution Insight Driven Adaptation

Author:Gary A. Klein

“Another way to test hypotheses about adaptation is to consider trait variation across a group of species instead of focusing on the trait of a single species. Rather than seeking to explain why polar bears have fur of a certain thickness, one tries to explain why bears in colder climates have thicker fur than bears in warmer climates. The former problem is hard to solve, since it is hard to say exactly what fur thickness polar bears should have if natural selection guided the evolution of that trait.”

“Darwinian evolution is slow and gradual, step by step. Such an evolution can explain micro-evolution but not macro-evolution. For example, how did the eye evolve? The idea behind Darwinism is that organisms adapt, and that nature selects only those genetic changes which are the mutations that serve a good purpose for adaptation. So taken this way, the eye cannot develop gradually because one-thousandth or one-millionth of an eye would be of no value for survival. So generally this question rules out Darwinism as an adequate theory for macro-evolution.”

Eye Purpose Values Taken Evolution Survival Evolve Adaptation Darwinism

Author:Ricky Ray

“Darwin's principle of natural selection leads to the prediction that the proper way to analyze any evolutionary development is to see the new features as adaptive to environments. And that's a perfectly good principle. The problem is that there are many evolutionary biologists who view everything that happens in evolution as directly evolved for adaptive benefit. And that just doesn't work. Whenever you build a structure for adaptive reasons, the structure is going to exhibit properties that have nothing to do with adaptation. They're just side consequences.”

Reason Problem Natural Environment Evolution Consequence Property Adaptation Natural Selection Biologist

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“Some evolutionists will protest that we are caricaturing their view of adaptation. After all, do they not admit genetic drift, allometry, and a variety of reasons for nonadaptive evolution?”

Reason Views Evolution Variety Protest Adaptation

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.”

Science Process Imagine Conditions Depends Evolution Perfection Constant Errors Tendencies Imagine That Organisms Adaptation Modification Remodeling

Book:Evolution and Ethics

Source: Evolution and Ethics

“The proof given by Wright, that non-adaptive differentiation will occur in small populations owing to "drift," or the chance fixation of some new mutation or recombination, is one of the most important results of mathematical analysis applied to the facts of neo-mendelism. It gives accident as well as adaptation a place in evolution, and at one stroke explains many facts which puzzled earlier selectionists, notably the much greater degree of divergence shown by island than mainland forms, by forms in isolated lakes than in continuous river-systems.”

“When environments change, they usually do so pretty rapidly, at rates with which adaptation by natural selection would be hard put to keep up. When such change occurs, the quality of your adaptation to your old habitat is irrelevant, and any competitive advantage you might have had may be eliminated at a stroke.”

May Hard Might Would Be Natural Quality Environment Evolution Advantage Rate Strokes Irrelevant Selection Adaptation Natural Selection Habitat Competitive Advantage

Author:Ian Tattersall

“Culture is the most potent method of adaptation that has emerged in the evolutionary history of the living world. - Theodosius Dobzhanksky...the 'facts' of culture history are interpretations based upon assumed culture process.”

World Facts Culture Process Evolution Method Interpretation Adaptation

Author:Jerry Sabloff

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