Best evolution & evidence Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Jonathan Wells has done us all - the scientific community, educators, and the wider public - a great service. In Icons of Evolution he has brilliantly exposed the exaggerated claims and deceptions that have persisted in standard textbook discussions of biological origins for many decades, in spite of contrary evidence. these claims have been so often repeated that they seem unassailable - that is, until one reads Wells's book.”

Wells Has Beens Book Done Seems Community Evolution Standards Evidence Claims Decades Contrary Deception Discussion Spite Exposed Icons Educator Textbooks Exaggerated Great Service

Author:Dean H. Kenyon

“If there's a God, and we have all this evidence that there's evolution, but He created the world only 6,000 years ago - what is the best and most logical explanation to reconcile those two things? I came up with - He came up with it, of course - that all things are fakeable.”

Ifs World Years Two Courses Evolution Evidence Years Ago All Things Explanation Two Things Logical Reconcile

Author:David Javerbaum

“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as a trade secret of Paleontology. Evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.”

Form Secret Records Tree Evolution Evidence Trade Extremes Data Branches Reasonable Persist Fossils Textbooks Inference Rarity Paleontology Creation Science Creation And Evolution

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“Evolution is a large political controversy as to what should be taught in the schools. But there is no scientific controversy that we evolved when we talk about evidence from fossils and DNA.”

Should School Political Taught Evolution Evidence Dna Fossils Controversy

Author:Carl Zimmer

“Evolution is far more than a belief or an educated guess about how people came to be as they are. It is, in fact, the product of converging evidence from many, many different fields of science. Many, many thousands of studies that, in fact, have provided a theory, an organizing principal in fact, that describes how humans came to be.”

People Humans Different Facts Belief Study Fields Products Theory Evolution Evidence Educated Principal

Author:Alan I. Leshner

“We don't need fossils - the case for evolution is watertight without them; so it is paradoxical to use gaps in the fossil record as though they were evidence against evolution”

Needs Use Cases Records Evolution Evidence Gaps Fossils Paradoxical

Book:The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Source: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

“Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.”

Ifs Common Study Doubt Records Evolution Evidence Proof Strongest Ancestor Dna Fossils Living Things Descent Lingering Dna Evidence

Author:Francis Collins

“It is naïve to suppose that the acceptance of evolution theory depends upon the evidence of a number of so-called "proofs"; it depends rather upon the fact that the evolutionary theory permeates and supports every branch of biological science, much as the notion of the roundness of the earth underlies all geodesy and all cosmological theories on which the shape of the earth has a bearing. Thus antievolutionism is of the same stature as flat-earthism.”

Facts Earth Numbers Support Atheism Acceptance Theory Depends Evolution Shapes Evidence Notion Proof Branches Flats Stature Biological Science

Author:Peter Medawar

“As Stephen Jay Gould pointed out in Time, in no other Western country is the teaching of Evolution regarded as controversial. Throughout the world, one way or another, most Christian denominations have managed to reconcile belief in God with belief in the mechanisms of natural selection. A French or German or Scandinavian politician who called for students to entertain as a reasonable deduction from existing evidence the proposition that Earth is at most 10,000 years old would be bundled off to a mental hospital.”

“The evidence for evolution is so compelling that the only way to save the creation theory is to assume that God deliberately planted enormous quantities of evidence to make it look as if evolution had happened.”

Ifs Way Looks Happened Creation Theory Evolution Evidence Assuming Enormous Quantity Compelling Enormous Quantities

Author:Richard Dawkins

“No one has ever found an organism that is known not to have parents, or a parent. This is the strongest evidence on behalf of evolution.”

Found Parent Known Evolution Evidence Strongest Organisms Behalf

Author:Tom Bethell

“When you deal with something like compassion for physical pain, which we know is very, very old in evolution - we can find evidence for it in nonhuman species - the brain processes it at a faster speed. Compassion for mental pain took many seconds longer.”

Knows Pain Process Deals Brain Compassion Evolution Evidence Species Speed Faster Seconds Physical Pain Mental Pain

Author:Antonio Damasio

“People sometimes try to score debating points by saying, Evolution is only a theory. That is correct, but it's important to understand what that means. It is also only a theory that the world goes round the Sun - it's just a theory for which there is an immense amount of evidence. There are many scientific theories that are in doubt. Even within evolution, there is some room for controversy. But that we are cousins of apes and jackals and starfish, let's say, that is a fact in the ordinary sense of the word.”

“I have a standing offer of $250,000 to anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution. My $250,000 offer demonstrates that the hypothesis of evolution is nothing more than a religious belief.”

Giving Belief Religious Evolution Offers Evidence Standing Scary Proof Hypothesis Religious Belief Empirical Evidence

Author:Kent Hovind

“The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table, ... the collection is so tantalizingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmented and inconclusive, that more can be said about what is missing than about what is present. ...but ever since Darwin's work inspired the notion that fossils linking modern man and extinct ancestor would provide the most convincing proof of human evolution, preconceptions have led evidence by the nose in the study of fossil man.”

“The business of proving evolution has reached a stage when it is futile for biologists to work merely to discover more and more evidence of evolution. Those who choose to believe that God created every biological species separately in the state we observe them, but made them in a way calculated to lead us to the conclusion that they are the products of an evolutionary development are obviously not open to argument. All that can be said is that their belief is an implicit blasphemy, for it imputes to God an appalling deviousness.”

Way Believe Made Said States Belief Stage Products Development Evolution Prove Evidence Argument Species Conclusion Blasphemy Biologist Implicit Deviousness

Author:Theodosius Dobzhansky

“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.”

“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.”

People Ifs Want Mind Believe Matter States Would Be Evolution Evidence Claims Available Absence Silly Overwhelming State Of Mind Superfluous Silly People

Author:Richard Dawkins

“The evidence for evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy, but of course from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences.”

Courses Evolution Evidence Branches Biology Anatomy Geology Paleontology Molecular Biology

Author:Daniel Dennett

“Of course, the other thing about evolution is that anything can be said because very little can be disproved. Experimental evidence is minimal.”

Littles Said Courses Evolution Evidence

Author:Bryan Appleyard

“Creationists and Holocaust deniers are both very similar - both are denying what is a perfectly manifest fact. In the case of Holocaust deniers it's more recent history, but in both cases the evidence - in favour of the Holocaust and evolution - is simply overwhelming. That doesn't mean they are morally or politically equivalent. But they are equivalent in denying history.”

Mean Facts Cases Evolution Evidence Manifest Overwhelming Holocaust Favour Holocaust Deniers

Author:Richard Dawkins

“Evolution is a theory, and it's a theory that you can test. We've tested evolution in many ways. You can't present good evidence that says evolution is not a fact.”

Way Facts Theory Evolution Evidence Tests Tested

Author:Bill Nye

“You’re pretty sharp, Clive. Do you believe in God?” Clive smiled. “I don’t know, should I?” Actually, approaching the matter from a purely logical perspective, yes. All the evidence points to the existence of a creator. The single greatest body of evidence is the dismal failure of man’s desperate attempts to come up with a reasonable alternative, beginning with evolution. I’ve always looked at the universe and seen a creator as plainly as most people who look at the ocean see water.”

“If all the evidence in the universe turned in favour of creationism, I would be the first to admit it, and I would immediately change my mind. As things stand, however, all available evidence (and there is a vast amount of it) favours evolution.”

Ifs Mind Firsts Would Be Universe Evolution Amount Evidence Available Favour Creationism

Book:The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

“This last chapter .. may have given the impression that somehow man is the ultimate triumph of evolution, that all these millions of years of development have had no purpose other than to put him on earth. There is no scientific evidence whatever to support such a view and no reason to suppose that our stay here will be any more permanent than that of the dinosaur.”

“There is not enough evidence, consistent evidence to make it as fact, and I say that because for theory to become a fact, it needs to consistently have the same results after it goes through a series of tests. The tests that they put- that they use to support evolution do not have consistent results. Now too many people are blindly accepting evolution as fact. But when you get down to the hard evidence, it's merely a theory.”

People Needs Hard Enough Facts Use Science Results Accepting Support Acceptance Theory Evolution Evidence Tests Series Consistent Consistently

Author:Christine O'Donnell

“It is certainly true in the United States that there is an uneasiness about certain aspects of science, particularly evolution, because it conflicts, in some people's minds, with their sense of how we all came to be. But you know, if you are a believer in God, it's hard to imagine that God would somehow put this incontrovertible evidence in front of us about our relationship to other living organisms and expect us to disbelieve it. I mean, that doesn't make sense at all.”

“No evidence is powerful enough to force acceptance of a conclusion that is emotionally distasteful.”

Enough Science Force Powerful Acceptance Evolution Evidence Conclusion Distasteful

Author:Theodosius Dobzhansky

“The tragedy of young-earth creationism is that it takes a relatively recent and extreme view of Genesis, applies to it an unjustified scientific gloss, and then asks sincere and well-meaning seekers to swallow this whole, despite the massive discordance with decades of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines. Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason?”

“Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can only be doubted by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or plain bigotry.”

Earth Process Gone Emotional Evolution Evidence Ignorant Block Bigotry Doubted Owing Creationism Creation And Evolution

Author:Theodosius Dobzhansky

“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

“You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in evolution. The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in evolution.”

Believe Wells Persons Religion Strong Atheism Evolution Evidence Educated Sane Well Educated Educated Person

Author:Richard Dawkins

“[Creationists have] lost in the courts of law; they've long ago lost in the halls of science; and they continue to lose with every new piece of evidence in support of evolution. Taking offense is all they've got left.”

Long Law Religion Lost Left Loses Support Pieces Atheism Evolution Evidence Court Halls Long Ago Offense

Author:Richard Dawkins

“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

“The fundamentalists deny that evolution has taken place; they deny that the earth and the universe as a whole are more than a few thousand years old, and so on. There is ample scientific evidence that the fundamentalists are wrong in these matters, and that their notions of cosmogony have about as much basis in fact as the Tooth Fairy has.”

Years Matter Whole Facts Earth Universe Taken Evolution Thousand Evidence Bases Notion Deny Teeth Fairy Thousand Years Tooth Fairy Scientific Evidence

Book:Asimov on science: a 30-year retrospective

Source: Asimov on science: a 30-year retrospective

“Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism, confirmed by the work of population genetics, and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record.”

Source: One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought

“It is emphatically the case that life could not arise spontaneously in a primeval soup of any kind.... Furthermore, no geological evidence indicates an organic soup ever existed on this planet. We may therefore with fairness call this scenario the myth of the pre-biotic soup.”

Kind May Cases Planets Evolution Evidence Myth Arise Fairness Soup Scenarios Primeval

Author:Fred Hoyle

“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

“Communistic evolution, according to the Senate committee that examined it, is responsible for 135 million deaths in peacetime. There's no religion that has a tiny fraction of that many deaths on its conscience. There are scientists who will admit that there's not one iota of scientific evidence to support it.”

Religion Millions Support Atheism Evolution Conscience Evidence Scientist Responsible Tiny Senate Committees Fractions Scientific Evidence

Author:D. James Kennedy

“The biogeographic evidence for evolution is now so powerful that I have never seen a creationist book, article, or lecture that has tried to refute it. Creationists simply pretend that the evidence doesn't exist.”

Book Religion Powerful Atheism Evolution Evidence Articles Lectures Creationist

Book:Why Evolution Is True

Source: Why Evolution Is True

“Only a tiny fraction of corpses fossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water.”

Ifs Stills Hands Would Be Religion Strong Water Theory Source Evolution Lucky Evidence Tiny Predictions Distribution Fossils Corpses Genetics Fractions

Book:The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

“There is the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form. This theory can be called the 'general theory of evolution,' and the evidence which supports this is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis.”

World Form Strong Support Theory Source Evolution Evidence Hypothesis Theory Of Evolution

Author:Gerald A. Kerkut

“We have reached a situation where a theory has been accepted as fact by some, and possible contrary evidence is shunted aside. [This is] mythology rather than science.”

Has Beens Facts Situation Theory Evolution Evidence Contrary Accepted Mythology

Book:Origins: a skeptic's guide to the creation of life on earth

Source: Origins: a skeptic's guide to the creation of life on earth

“There is something outrageous about such a huge body of evidence being put together, then being confirmed in all kinds of other scientific disciplines, particularly genetics, and having other people just sort of deny it for reasons that have nothing to do with truth.”

People Kind Reason Body Together Huge Evolution Discipline Evidence Deny All Kinds Outrageous Genetics

Author:Matthew Chapman

“What we should be teaching are the problems and holes and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution. And what we need to do is to present those fairly from a scientific point of view. And we should lay out areas in which the evidence supports evolution and the areas in the evidence that does not.”

Thinking Needs Should Doe Problem Views Support Teaching Theory Evolution Evidence Areas Lays Point Of View Holes Theory Of Evolution

Author:Rick Santorum

“It is my conviction that if any professional biologist will take adequate time to examine carefully the assumptions upon which the macro-evolution doctrine rests, and the observational and laboratory evidence that bears on the problem of origins, he/she will conclude that there are substantial reasons for doubting the truth of this doctrine. Moreover, I believe that a scientifically sound creationist view of origins is not only possible, but it is to be preferred over the evolutionary one.”

Ifs Believe Reason Problem I Believe Sound Views Doubt Bears Evolution Evidence Conviction Doctrine Assumption Adequate Laboratory Biologist Macro Creationist

Author:Dean H. Kenyon

“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

Evolution Quotes

Related topics

Evolution Quotes