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Evolution Quotes

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Evolution Quotes

“Darwin was a biological evolutionist, because he was first a uniformitarian geologist. Biology is pre-eminent to-day among the natural sciences, because its younger sister, Geology, gave it the means.”

Firsts Mean Science Natural Evolution Biology Geology Natural Science Geologist Younger Sister

Author:Charles Lapworth

“Physio-philosophy has to show how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the Material took its origin; and, therefore, how something derived its existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods of the world's development from nothing; how the elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method by self-evolution into higher and manifold forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and in Man attained self-consciousness.”

“The Epicureans, according to whom animals had no creation, doe suppose that by mutation of one into another, they were first made; for they are the substantial part of the world; like as Anaxagoras and Euripides affirme in these tearmes: nothing dieth, but in changing as they doe one for another they show sundry formes.”

World Firsts Doe Made Shows Science Change Animal Creation Evolution Mutation Epicurean

Author:Plutarch

“The first objection to Darwinism is that it is only a guess and was never anything more. It is called a "hypothesis," but the word "hypothesis," though euphonious, dignified and high-sounding, is merely a scientific synonym for the old-fashioned word "guess." If Darwin had advanced his views as a guess they would not have survived for a year, but they have floated for half a century, buoyed up by the inflated word "hypothesis." When it is understood that "hypothesis" means "guess," people will inspect it more carefully before accepting it.”

“The puritanical potentialities of science have never been forecast. If it evolves a body of organized rites, and is established as a religion, hierarchically organized, things more than anything else will be done in the name of 'decency.' The coarse fumes of tobacco and liquors, the consequent tainting of the breath and staining of white fingers and teeth, which is so offensive to many women, will be the first things attended to.”

Ifs Firsts Done Body Science Religion Names White Evolution Breaths Fingers Teeth Evolve Organized Offensive Decency Tobacco Liquor Rite Coarse Forecasts

Author:Wyndham Lewis

“You know, all is development. The principle is perpetually going on. First, there was nothing, then there was something; then-I forget the next-I think there were shells, then fishes; then we came-let me see-did we come next? Never mind that; we came at last. And at the next change there will be something very superior to us-something with wings. Ah! That's it: we were fishes, and I believe we shall be crows.”

Thinking Knows Mind Firsts Believe Lasts Science Next I Believe Forget Principles Development Evolution Let Me Wings Fishes Superiors Shells Crow

Book:Tancred: Or, The New Crusade

Source: Tancred: Or, The New Crusade

“Our own existence once presented the greatest of all mysteries, but ... it is a mystery no longer because it is solved. Darwin and Wallace solved it ... I was surprised that so many people seemed not only unaware of the elegant and beautiful solution to this deepest of problems but, incredibly, in many cases actually unaware that there was a problem in the first place!”

People Firsts Problem Beautiful Science Existence Cases Mystery Evolution Solutions Elegant

Book:The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

Source: The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

“When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.”

Firsts Long Seems Views Atheism Special Creation Evolution Bed Species Positive Atheism Descendants Origin Of Species

Book:On the Origin of the Species and The Voyage of the Beagle

Source: On the Origin of the Species and The Voyage of the Beagle

“Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history; he discovered the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of idealogy [sic], that mankind must first of all eat and drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, religion, art etc.”

Firsts Humans Art Facts Law Simple Mankind Human Nature Evolution Drink Pursue Etc Clothings Shelter Human History Concealed Science Religion

Author:Friedrich Engels

“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.”

“For in disease the most voluntary or most special movements, faculties, etc., suffer first and most, that is in an order the exact opposite of evolution. Therefore I call this the principle of Dissolution.”

Firsts Science Suffering Order Brain Principles Special Movement Evolution Disease Opposites Etc Faculty Dissolution Nomenclature

Book:Selected Writings of John Hughlings Jackson: On Epilepsy and epileptiform convulsions

Source: Selected Writings of John Hughlings Jackson: On Epilepsy and epileptiform convulsions

“The decisive step in evolution, the first step toward macroevolution, the step from one species to another, requires another evolutionary method than that of sheer accumulation of micromutations.”

Firsts Science Steps Evolution Method Species First Steps Sheer Accumulation

Author:Richard Goldschmidt

“The distinguishing of the strata, or layers, in the embryonic membrane was a turning-point in the study of the history of evolution, and placed later researches in their proper light. A division of the (disc-shaped) embryo into an animal and a plastic part first takes place. In the lower part (the plastic or vegetative layer) are a serous and a vascular layer, each of peculiar organization. In the upper part also (the animal or serous germ-layer) two layers are clearly distinguishable, a flesh-layer and a skin-layer. (1828)”

Firsts Two Light Animal Study Evolution Research Skins Organization Flesh Division Peculiar Layers Plastic Germs Turning Points Embryos Discs Membranes

Author:Karl Ernst von Baer

“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.”

“We are at a crossroads in human history. Never before has there been a moment so simultaneously perilous and promising. We are the first species to have taken evolution into our own hands.”

Firsts Humans Moments Hands Sin Taken Evolution Species Human History Crossroads

Book:Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science

Source: Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science

“From first to last it is a dish of rank materialism cleverly cooked up ... . And why is this done? For no other reason, I am sure, except to make us independent of a Creator.”

Firsts Reason Done Lasts Evolution Independent Creator Materialism Dishes

Author:Adam Sedgwick

“If all the animals and man had been evolved in this ascendant manner, then there had been no first parents, no Eden, and no Fall. And if there had been no fall, then the entire historical fabric of Christianity, the story of the first sin and the reason for an atonement ... collapsed like a house of cards.”

Ifs Men Firsts Reason Stories Fall House Parent Sin Animal Christianity Evolution Historical Cards Fabric Eden Atonement House Of Cards

Book:H. G. WELLS Ultimate Collection: 120+ Science Fiction Classics, Novels & Stories; Including Scientific, Political and Historical Works: The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, Modern Utopia, A Short History of the World, What Is Coming, The Story of the Last Trump…

Source: H. G. WELLS Ultimate Collection: 120+ Science Fiction Classics, Novels & Stories; Including Scientific, Political and Historical Works: The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, Modern Utopia, A Short History of the World, What Is Coming, The Story of the Last Trump…

“Evolution lies at the heart of biology. It is seamlessly and continuously linked to health research to better understand such conditions as AIDS or bird flu or Parkinson's or cancer or heart disease. Every biomedical experiment, every tiny advance, every major breakthrough ultimately connects to the principles first postulated by Darwin.”

“What is striking is these things [patterns in nature, e.g. fish stripes] do look like something that has been crafted. We are conditioned to think that a pattern needs a patterner and so at first glance it seems incredible to us that nature is able to do this, without any sort of blueprint, without any sort of plan. These patterns organise themselves, that is the amazing thing.”

Thinking Needs Firsts Looks Has Beens Seems Able Plans Evolution Incredibles Patterns Fishes Glances Like Something Amazing Things Blueprints Stripes

Author:Philip Ball

“Each person decides in early childhood how he will live and how he will die... His trivial behavior may be decided by reason, but his important decisions have already been made: what kind of person he will marry, how many children he will have, what kind of bed he will die in... It is incredible to think, at first, that man's fate, all his nobility and all his degradation, is decided by a child no more than six years old, and usually three... (but) it is very easy to believe by looking at what is happening in the world today, and what happened yesterday, and seeing what will happen tomorrow.”

“All the ills from which America suffers can be traced back to the teaching of evolution. It would be better to destroy every other book ever written, and save just the first three verses of Genesis.”

Firsts Book Would Be America Suffering Three Written Teaching Evolution Scary Verses Genesis

Author:William Jennings Bryan

“The facts of paleontology seem to support creation and the flood rather than evolution. For instance, all the major groups of invertebrates appear "suddenly" in the first fossil ferrous strata (Cambrian) of the earth with their distinct specializations indicating that they were all created almost at the same time.”

Firsts Facts Seems Earth Support Groups Creation Evolution Majors Instance Flood Fossils Specialization Paleontology Invertebrates

Author:Enoch