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Evolution Quotes

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Evolution Quotes

“Evolution is an obstacle course not a freeway; the correct analogue for long-term success is a distant punt receiver evading legions of would-be tacklers in an oddly zigzagged path toward a goal, not a horse thundering down the flat.”

“In the course of evolution nature has gone to endless trouble to see that every individual is unlike every other individual....Physically and mentally, each one of us is unique. Any culture which, in the interests of efficiency or in the name of some political or religious dogma, seeks to standardize the human individual, commits an outrage against man's biological nature.”

“Moving forward will not be for the faint of heart. But if the next century witnesses failure, let it be because our science is not yet up to the job, not because we don't have the courage to make less random the sometimes most unfair courses of human evolution.”

“Even though their arguments did not invoke religion, I think we all know what's behind these arguments. They're trying to protect religious beliefs from contradiction by science. They used to do it by prohibiting teachers from teaching evolution at all; then they wanted to teach intelligent design as an alternative theory; now they want the supposed "weaknesses" in evolution pointed out. But it's all the same program - it's all an attempt to let religious ideas determine what is taught in science courses.”

“In the complex course of its evolution, life exhibits a remarkable contrast to the tendency expressed in the Second Law to Thermodynamics. Where the Second Law expressed an irreversible progression toward increased entropy and disorder, life evolves continually higher levels of order. The still more remarkable fact is that this evolutionary drive to greater and greater order also is irreversible. Evolution does not go backward.”

“It is amazing that 2001: A Space Odyssey has not aged at all, except for a few minor technical gadgets. The main reason is, of course, the philosophical or spiritual element in this story. We know as little today about the secrets of Creation and evolution as we knew before, and it is not likely that we'll ever know much more. We'll have to be satisfied, as Kubrick was, respectfully admiring the potential for evolution within the mystery of the universe's creation.”

“There might have been a hundred or a thousand life-bearing planets, had the course of evolution of the universe been a little different, or there might have been none at all. They would probably add, that, as life and man have been produced, that shows that their production was possible; and therefore, if not now then at some other time, if not here then in some other planet of some other sun, we should be sure to have come into existence; or if not precisely the same as we are, then something a little better or a little worse.”

“A somewhat casual observer from outer space might well deduce that the course of evolution in this planet had produced a species of large four-wheeled bugs with detachable brains; peculiar animals which rested when they sent their brains away from them but performed in rather predictable manner when their brains were recalled.”

“Stanford may be the best university in the world, but you can get all the way through here without knowing where your food came from, without being able to say where we came from, without being able to give a coherent description of why the climate is changing and why we should be concerned about it. So I started teaching a course in human evolution and the environment that's open to all Stanford students, no prerequisites.”

“Since the white man says he came from the evolution of animals, well, maybe the black man didn't. The white man has made so many errors in the handling of people that maybe he did come from a gorilla or a fish and crawl up on the sand and then into the trees. Of course, evolution doesn't take God into consideration. I don't think people learned to do all the things they do through evolution.”

“Then, of course, through the umbilical link we all tumble backwards down the spiralling DNA staircase to one common ancestor in Africa, and before that some bunch of curious monkeys. Down and down we go unto the sea, unto the dust, the single cellular dust. What impulse drove one cell to become two? What yearning pulled the fish on to the land? What caused apes to walk upright? Some invisible magnetic pull. Is there a difference between attraction and intention? Where is evolution taking us?”

“It's very rare that you get to play a character over the course of so many films. Bella meant a lot to me and she will always be such a formative event in my career. I grew up with her and she and I have been on this great journey together. I also see many parallels between her evolution and my own because I lived through so many things along the way while playing Bella and having this connection to so many people involved in making the films over the years. It would be impossible for me to separate my world from Bella's.”

“Of course, the UK is a significant economy that makes up a quarter of American exports to the EU, more than 50 percent of our exports in certain sectors and over 25 percent of the government procurement opportunities we have in Europe. Brexit reduces the size of the TTIP deal for the United States, and there will need to be an adjustment of expectations accordingly, but Brexit underscores the value of reaching an agreement at this critical moment in the evolution of Europe.”

“The belief that the animals exist because God created them - and that he created them so we can better meet our needs - is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-human primates and other animals millions of years before there were any human beings at all.”

“All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant.”

“And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women - except, of course - those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape 'kit 'n' stuff. But for everybody else, it's a win-win. Unless you're a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years - whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know - actually, I take it back. The whole thing's a disaster.”

“....You should keep dental floss on you at all times; when your eyesight goes, quit driving; don't keep too many secrets, eventually they'll eat away at you. But the most valuable lesson he taught me was this: Every day we get older, and some of us get wiser, but there's no end to our evolution. We are all a mess of contradictions; some of our traits work for us, some against us. And this is what I figured out on my own: Over the course of a lifetime, people change, but not as much as you'd think. Nobody really grows up.”

“The downside, of course, is that over time religions become encrusted with precepts and ideas that are the antithesis of soul, as each faith tries to protect its doctrines and institution instead of nurturing the evolution of consciousness. If one is not careful to distinguish the genuine insights of a religion from its irrelevant accretions, one can go through life following an inappropriate moral compass.”

“Primates stand at a turning point in the course of evolution. Primates are to the biologist what viruses are to the biochemist. They can be analysed and partly understood according to the rules of a simpler discipline, but they also present another level of complexity: viruses are living chemicals, and primates are animals who love and hate and think.”

“The neutral zone of selective advantage in the neighbourhood of zero is thus so narrow that changes in the environment, and in the genetic constitution of species, must cause this zone to be crossed and perhaps recrossed relatively rapidly in the course of evolutionary change, so that many possible gene substitutions may have a fluctuating history of advance and regression before the final balance of selective advantage is determined.”

“As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best - what we call goodness or virtue - involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless selfassertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect , but shall help his fellows. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process.”

“The University of Cambridge, in accordance with that law of its evolution, by which, while maintaining the strictest continuity between the successive phases of its history, it adapts itself with more or less promptness to the requirements of the times, has lately instituted a course of Experimental Physics.”

“Opponents say natural selection is not a theory supported by observation or experiment; that it is not based on fact; and that it cannot be proved. Well, no, you cannot prove the theory to people who won't believe in it any more than you can prove that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. However, we know the battle happened then, just as we know the course of evolution on earth unambiguously shows that Darwin was right.”

“After having produced aquatic animals of all ranks and having caused extensive variations in them by the different environments provided by the waters, nature led them little by little to the habit of living in the air, first by the water's edge and afterwards on all the dry parts of the globe. These animals have in course of time been profoundly altered by such novel conditions; which so greatly influenced their habits and organs that the regular gradation which they should have exhibited in complexity of organisation is often scarcely recognisable.”

“Groups do not have experiences except insofar as all their members do. And there are no experiences... that all the members of a scientific community must share in the course of a [scientific] revolution. Revolutions should be described not in terms of group experience but in terms of the varied experiences of individual group members. Indeed, that variety itself turns out to play an essential role in the evolution of scientific knowledge.”