Best evolution & design Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“In terms of their basic biochemical design....no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth.”

Earth Term Design Evolution Cells Diverse Primitive Sequence Hints

Author:Michael Denton

“I say the Intelligent Design-evolution debate misses the point. It trivializes God and it trivializes science. The universe is like the hand of God. The world is God's body.”

World Body Hands Universe Missing Design Evolution Intelligent Debate Hands Of God Intelligent Design

Author:Michael Dowd

“In order to survive, all systems must evolve by providing greater and greater access to the currents that flow through them. This applies to all physical, biological and social systems that survive and thrive.... But let’s take that one step forward... the systems just described are ... constantly evolving. This suggests another design principle: ... design for evolution rather than creating a static design optimizing for the present.”

Order Social Steps Principles Greater Design Evolution Creating Flow Currents Access Evolve Thrive Providing Static Steps Forward Social Systems

Author:John Hagel

“Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy.”

People World Want Hands Simple Design Evolution Computer Mercy Knees Software Bows Fists Silicon Software Design Binary Computer Software

Author:Bill Gates

“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.”

“Absolutists frighten me. During all the endless discussions on my blog about evolution, intelligent design, God, and the afterworld, numbering altogether thousands of comments, I have never named my beliefs, although readers have freely informed me that I am an atheist, and agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist - which I am.”

Belief Design Evolution Reader Intelligent Atheist Endless Discussion Humanist Comment Secular Agnostic Blogs Intelligent Design

Author:Roger Ebert

“The grand design of nature perceived broadly in four dimensions, including the forces that move the universe and created man, with special focus on evolution in our own biosphere, is something intrinsically good that it is right to preserve and enhance, and wrong to destroy and degrade.”

Men Moving Universe Force Focus Four Special Design Evolution Including Preserves Dimensions Degrade Biosphere

Author:Roger Wolcott Sperry

“The upward thrust of evolution as part of the design becomes something to preserve and revere.”

Design Evolution Preserves Thrust

Author:Roger Wolcott Sperry

“The advance of genetic engineering makes it quite conceivable that we will begin to design our own evolutionary progress.”

Progress Design Evolution Engineering Genetic Engineering

Book:The beginning and the end

Source: The beginning and the end

“As far as design theorists are concerned, theistic evolution is American evangelicalism's ill-conceived accommodation to Darwinism .”

Design Evolution Concerned Ill Darwinism Theorists Accommodations

Author:William A. Dembski

“Design theorists are no friends of theistic evolution.”

Design Evolution No Friends Theorists

Author:William A. Dembski

“Once evolution gets a good basic design, it tends to throw away the variants and concentrate on the near-infinite diversity within that design.”

Design Evolution Diversity Infinite

Book:Rise of Endymion

Source: Rise of Endymion

“Bird taxonomy is a difficult field because of the severe anatomical constraints imposed by flight. There are only so many ways to design a bird capable, say, of catching insects in mid-air, with the result that birds of similar habitats tend to have very similar anatomies, whatever their ancestry. For example, American vultures look and behave much like Old World vultures, but biologists have come to realize that the former are related to storks, the latter to hawks, and that their resemblances result from their common lifestyle.”

“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.”

“First understand infinity then you will understand God and how evolution is intelligent design.”

Firsts Design Evolution Intelligent Infinity Intelligent Design

Author:E. Lee Spence

“It was an effort to include intelligent design and treat it as science, disparaging evolution along the way. That will not stand.”

Way Effort Design Evolution Treats Intelligent Intelligent Design Disparaging

Author:Barry W. Lynn

“I don't have a background in design, so I think it's always about what I see in the world and what inspires me. So yes, I am designing for myself. I'm going through this whole evolution, which is a process of growing up and going from modeling to styling to designing.”

Thinking World Whole Process Growing Up Growing Design Inspire Evolution Backgrounds Modeling

Author:Erin Wasson

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all species are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

“My colleague Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, erroneously suggested that I support the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. That simply is not true. ... Unlike biological evolution, intelligent design is not a genuine scientific theory and, therefore, has no place in the curriculum of our nation's public school science classes.”

“The new advocates of ID [Intelligent Design] ask that their ideas be judged by scientific, not religious, criteria. OK, let's see how well ID stacks up as a scientific alternative to Darwinism. To gauge how well ID is doing as a platform for scientific research, I logged into the best database of the biological literature. A search for keyword ''evolution'' yielded 24,000 hits in the last decade. A search for ''intelligent design'' yielded not a single piece of research. Evolution by natural selection remains the basis of every successful biological research program.”

“Design bugs are often subtle and occur by evolution with early assumptions being forgotten as new features or uses are added to systems.”

Use Design Evolution Forgotten Features Assumption Subtle Bugs

Author:Fernando J. Corbato

“Intelligent design cannot explain Darwinian evolution. Darwin's whole point is that variation and change are random and without higher purpose. We cannot imagine that God designed this disproof of His own existence.”

Whole Purpose Existence Imagine Design Evolution Higher Intelligent Imagine That Variation Intelligent Design Higher Purpose

Author:James K. Galbraith

“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

“Evolution as described by Charles Darwin is an scientific theory, abundantly reconfirmed, explaining physical phenomena by physical causes. Intelligent Design is a faith-based initiative in rhetorical argument. Should we teach I.D. in America's public schools? Yes, let's do - not as science, but alongside other spiritual beliefs, such as Islam, Zoroastrianism and the Hindu Idea that Earth rests on Chukwa, the giant turtle.”

“Dawkins asserts that final causes and design don't really exist. Unguided evolution explains it all. Francis Crick thought the same thing but was afraid people would be misled by what they actually saw. So he issued this warning: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." What? A warning to ignore the obvious? Absolutely. Because if we don't ignore the obvious, we might be tempted to follow common sense and attribute the "appearance" of design to actual design.”

People Ifs Mind Might Would Be Causes Common Saws Design Evolution Finals Obvious Appearance Common Sense Warning Attributes Tempted Biologist Misled

Author:Frank Turek

“Nature doesn't see things through the prism of good or bad. It rewards efficiency. That is the simplicity of evolution, matching design to environment.”

Environment Design Evolution Rewards Simplicity Efficiency Matching Prisms

Author:Blake Crouch

“Where you can see tribal behavior now is in this business about teaching evolution in a science class and intelligent design. It's the scientists themselves are behaving tribally.”

Class Teaching Design Evolution Behavior Scientist Intelligent Intelligent Design Science Class

Author:Kurt Vonnegut

“They say, you know, about evolution, it surely happened because their fossil record shows that. Look, my body and your body are miracles of design. Scientists are pretending they have the answer as how we got this way when natural selection couldn't possibly have produced such machines.”

Knows Way Looks Shows Body Natural Answers Records Happened Design Evolution Machines Scientist Miracle Your Body Pretending Selection Fossils Natural Selection

Author:Kurt Vonnegut

“While language can surely be used for communication (as can much else), communication probably has no special role in its design or evolution.”

Used Language Roles Special Design Communication Evolution

Author:Noam Chomsky

“My documentaries have always been very much constructed in the spirit of dominant cinema. From the time I started making non-fiction, I was mainly interested in designing and creating documentaries like fiction, so it was a natural evolution to try and embark on doing a dramatic narrative.”

Trying Spirit Natural Fiction Design Evolution Creating Narrative Cinema Dramatic Dominant Documentaries Non Fiction

Author:Brett Morgen

“Your brain has a music room, and evolution would not have gone to the trouble of designing that if it didn't have some benefits. So, that suggests to me that we and our ancestors have had music as a central part of our experience for eons. And we're just beginning to understand how that might be. I think that's fascinating.”

Thinking Brain Trouble Design Evolution Ancestor

Author:Renee Fleming

“My fear represented the failure of the human system. It is a sad truth of our creation: Something is amiss in our design, there are loose ends of our psychology that are simply not wrapped up. My fears were the dirty secrets of evolution. They were not provided for, and I was forced to construct elaborate temples to house them.”

Humans Ends House Secret Psychology Design Creation Evolution Dirty Temples Constructs Sad Truth Loose Ends Dirty Secrets

Book:The pleasure of my company

Source: The pleasure of my company

“As many critics of religion have pointed out, the notion of a creator poses an immediate problem of an infinite regress. If God created the universe, what created God? To say that God, by definition, is uncreated simply begs the question. Any being capable of creating a complex world promises to be very complex himself. As the biologist Richard Dawkins has observed repeatedly, the only natural process we know of that could produce a being capable of designing things is evolution.”

Ifs Knows World Problem Universe Process Natural Design Produce Evolution Promise Creating Capable Infinite Complexes Critics Notion Definitions Creator Biologist

Author:Sam Harris

“Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-whether through design or stupidity, I do not know-as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.”

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

“Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life-yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammarabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.”

“Evolution advances, not by a priori design, but by the selection of what works best out of whatever choices offer. We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.”

Science Choices Design Products Evolution Offers Editing Selection Authorship

Author:George Wald

“Few scientists acquainted with the chemistry of biological systems at the molecular level can avoid being inspired. Evolution has produced chemical compounds exquisitely organized to accomplish the most complicated and delicate of tasks. Many organic chemists viewing crystal structures of enzyme systems or nucleic acids and knowing the marvels of specificity of the immune systems must dream of designing and synthesizing simpler organic compounds that imitate working features of these naturally occurring compounds.”

“Nature gropes and blunders and performs the crudest acts. There is no steady advance upward. There is no design.”

Science Nature Design Evolution Errors Steady Blunders

Author:Oliver Sacks

“Most scientists who are religious look for God in what science does understand and has explained. So the way in which my view is different from the creationists or intelligent design proponents is that I find knowledge a compelling reason to believe in God. They find ignorance a compelling reason to believe in God.”

Way Believe Looks Doe Different Reason Religious Views Design Ignorance Evolution Scientist Intelligent Believe In God Compelling Intelligent Design Compelling Reason

Author:Kenneth R. Miller

“Workers must root out the idea that by keeping the results of their labors to themselves a fortune will be assured to them. Patent fees are so much wasted money. The flying machine of the future will not be born fully fledged and capable of a flight for 1,000 miles or so. Like everything else it must be evolved gradually. The first difficulty is to get a thing that will fly at all. When this is made, a full description should be published as an aid to others. Excellence of design and workmanship will always defy competition.”

“In evolution, as in all areas of science, our knowledge is incomplete. But the entire success of the scientific enterprise has depended on an insistence that these gaps be filled by natural explanations, logically derived from confirmable evidence. Because "intelligent design" theories are based on supernatural explanations, they can have nothing to do with science.”

Natural Design Theory Evolution Evidence Areas Intelligent Filled Explanation Enterprise Gaps Incomplete Insistence Intelligent Design

Author:Bruce Alberts

“The concept of God is generated by a brain designed by evolution to find design in nature (a very recursive idea).”

Ideas Religion Brain Atheism Design Evolution Concepts Design In Nature

Author:Michael Shermer

“But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice.”

Source: Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution

“By understanding evolution as the expression of universal intelligence, now becoming conscious of itself within us, and as us, we overcome the dichotomy between current evolutionists who see no design in evolution, and creationists who often propose and anthropomorphic God as creator.”

Understanding Design Expression Evolution Becoming Conscious Overcoming Universal Currents Creator Propose Dichotomy

Book:Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential

Source: Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential

“Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us... the atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words.”

Ideas Lying Strong Design Evolution Intelligent Proof Benevolent Atheistic Nonsensical

Author:Lord Kelvin

“The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualist accounts of evolution.”

Has Beens Problem Imagination Cases Stage Design Evolution Majors Evidence Accounts Absence Transition Constructs Inability Fossils Persistent Creationism Nagging Paleontology

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in numbers, has been rather carefully thought out...The seemingly miraculous concurrence of these numerical values must remain the most compelling evidence for cosmic design.”

Has Beens Hard Values Universe Numbers Design Evolution Evidence Structure Impression Sensitive Cosmic Compelling Minors Miraculous Alterations Concurrence

Author:Paul Davies

“Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology. Intelligent design is not a scientific concept.”

Religion Atheism Modern Design Evolution Concepts Intelligent Biology Cornerstones Intelligent Design

Author:John Marburger

“Natural selection is not the only process that changes organisms over time. But is the only process that seemingly designs organisms over time.”

Process Natural Design Evolution Organisms Selection Natural Selection

Book:How the Mind Works

Source: How the Mind Works

“As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency-or, rather, Agency-must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?”

Source: The symbiotic universe: life and mind in the cosmos

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Evolution Quotes