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Evolution Quotes

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Evolution Quotes

“The paradox in the evolution of French painting from Courbet to Cezanne is how it was brought to the verge of abstraction in and by its very effort to transcribe visual appearance with ever greater fidelity.”

Effort Greater Painting Evolution Appearance Visuals Paradox Abstraction Fidelity Verge Cezanne

Author:Clement Greenberg

“Fifteen hundred years is ample time in which to lose mutual comprehension. Iceland was colonized by the Norwegians at the end of the ninth century AD. Today's Icelanders, with considerable effort, can understand people from the Scandinavian peninsula, but the Scandinavians hardly understand the Icelanders. A thousand years is the minimum time span for a language to change so much that it becomes incomprehensible.”

“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

“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.”

“As we blossom or awaken, we begin to notice there is a force in the world that seems to be operating and leading us into a certain destiny. And it's very much a kind of detective effort on our own part to figure out what these things mean. The synchronicity is essentially a meaningful coincidence that brings us information at just the right time. While leading us forward, it also feels very inspiring and destined in a way. It feels like we're on a path of unfolding in our own personal evolution.”

“Evolution has primarily been an attack on religion by militant atheists who wrap themselves in the mantle of science in an effort to refute all religious claims concerning a creator - an effort that has also often attempted to suppress all scientific criticisms of Darwin's work.”

Religious Effort Evolution Criticism Claims Atheist Creator Wraps Militant

Book:For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery

Source: For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery

“There is an anaesthetic of familiarity, a sedative of ordinariness which dulls the senses and hides the wonder of existence. For those of us not gifted in poetry, it is at least worth while from time to time making an effort to shake off the anaesthetic. What is the best way of countering the sluggish habitutation brought about by our gradual crawl from babyhood? We can't actually fly to another planet. But we can recapture that sense of having just tumbled out to life on a new world by looking at our own world in unfamiliar ways.”

World Way Effort Existence Wonder Planets Evolution Senses Best Way Shakes New World Gifted Familiarity Unfamiliar Sluggish Ordinariness Babyhood

Author:Richard Dawkins

“The real question is, Did God use evolution as His plan? If it could be shown that man, instead of being made in the image of God, is a development of beasts we would have to accept it, regardless of its effort, for truth is truth and must prevail. But when there is no proof we have a right to consider the effect of the acceptance of an unsupported hypothesis.”

Ifs Men Made Real Use Science Effort Accepting Plans Effects Acceptance Development Evolution Truth Is Proof Beast Hypothesis God Image Real Questions

Author:William Jennings Bryan

“Man has risen, not fallen. He can choose to develop his capacities as the highest animal and to try to rise still farther, or he can choose otherwise. The choice is his responsibility, and his alone. There is no automatism that will carry him upward without choice or effort and there is no trend solely in the right direction. Evolution has no purpose; man must supply this for himself. The means to gaining right ends involve both organic evolution and human evolution, but human choice as to what are the right ends must be based on human evolution.”

Source: The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of Its Significance for Man

“If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.”

Ifs Should Years May Doe Individual Wish Effort Race Cases Stage Evolution Higher Stronger Superiors Mates Inferiors

Author:Adolf Hitler

“After chiding the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort, could not be proved to take place today had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past.”

Long Today Past Found Effort Taken Position Evolution Miracle Myth Mythology Assumption Theologian Reliance Origin Of Life Primeval

Book:The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature

Source: The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature

“Humankind's constant effort to fix its shortcomings is what drives human history.”

Humans Effort Evolution Constant Humankind Human History Shortcomings

Book:Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human

Source: Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human