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Evolution Quotes

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Evolution Quotes

“Iconography becomes even more revealing when processes or concepts, rather than objects, must be depicted for the constraint of a definite "thing" cedes directly to the imagination. How can we draw "evolution" or "social organization," not to mention the more mundane "digestion" or "self-interest," without portraying more of a mental structure than a physical reality? If we wish to trace the history of ideas, iconography becomes a candid camera trained upon the scholar's mind.”

Source: Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history

“You can be a thorough-going Neo-Darwinian without imagination, metaphysics, poetry, conscience, or decency. For 'Natural Selection' has no moral significance: it deals with that part of evolution which has no purpose, no intelligence, and might more appropriately be called accidental selection, or better still, Unnatural Selection, since nothing is more unnatural than an accident. If it could be proved that the whole universe had been produced by such Selection, only fools and rascals could bear to live.”

“The evolution theory is purely the product of the imagination.”

Imagination Products Theory Evolution

Author:John Ambrose Fleming

“Places come to exist in our imaginations because of stories, and so do we. When we reach for a "sense of place," we posit an intimate relationship to a set of stories connected to a particular location, such as Hong Kong or the Grand Canyon or the bed where we were born, thinking of histories and the evolution of personalities in a local context. Having "a sense of self" means possessing a set of stories about who we are and with whom and why.”

Source: The Nature of Generosity

“What's popularly known as the evolution of consciousness, in other words that the expansion of cognitive repertoire that occurs in human beings, which has always been a great puzzle to evolutionary theory, I believe, occurred in the presence of a kind of catalyst for the human imagination.”

Believe Humans Kind I Believe Imagination Human Beings Consciousness Known Theory Evolution Expansion Puzzles Catalyst Cognitive Human Imagination

Author:Terence McKenna

“The reason we don't often confront the larger question of whether or not war is survivable is because of a failure of imagination. We honestly cannot imagine having reached a state in our own evolution in which we do not fight.”

War States Reason Fighting Imagination Imagine Evolution Honestly

Author:Marianne Williamson

“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.”

Life Inspirational Poetry Religion Fear Imagination Religious Evolution My Friends Greed Evolve Fraud Hype Organized Religion Voter Fraud

Author:Edgar Allan Poe

“One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”

Feels Understanding Imagination Doubt Stupid Ignorance Evolution Filled Painful Stupidity Certainty Our Time Indecision Painful Things

Book:The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell

Source: The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell

“I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.”

Source: Einstein on Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms

“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.”

“The Primal Plant is going be the strangest creature in the world, which Nature herself must envy me. With this model and the key to it, it will be possible to go on for ever inventing plants and know that their existence is logical; that is to say, if they do not actually exist, they could, for they are not the shadowy phantoms of a vain imagination, but possess an inner necessity and truth. The same law will be applicable to all other living organisms.”

Ifs Knows World Law Science Imagination Existence Keys Goes On Evolution Creatures Models Plant Envy Vain Logical Organisms Inventing Primal Phantoms Living Organisms Envy Me

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“But nature - that is, biological evolution - has not fitted man to any specific environment. On the contrary, ... he has a rather crude survival kit; and yet -this is the paradox of the human condition - one that fits him to all environments. Among the multitude of animals which scamper, fly, burrow and swim around us, man is the only one who is not locked into his environment. His imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness, make it possible for him not to accept the environment but to change it.”

“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

“The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than the woman. Whether deep thought, reason, or imagination or merely the use of the senses and hands.....We may also infer.....The average mental power in man must be above that of woman.”

Men May Two Reason Use Hands Sex Imagination Evolution Higher Intellectual Average Senses Chiefs Distinction Deep Thought Eminence Mental Power

Author:Charles Darwin

“Echoing the criticism made of his father's habilis skulls, he added that Lucy's skull was so incomplete that most of it was 'imagination made of plaster of Paris', thus making it impossible to draw any firm conclusion about what species she belonged to.”

Made Father Imagination Impossible Evolution Draws Criticism Species Conclusion Firm Paris Incomplete Skulls Lucy Plasters

Author:Richard Leakey

“I shall discuss the broad patterns of hominoid evolution, an exercise made enjoyable by the need to integrate diverse kinds of information, and use that as a vehicle to speculate about hominoid origins, an event for which there is no recognized fossil record. Hence, an opportunity to exercise some imagination.”

Needs Kind Made Use Opportunity Imagination Records Events Information Evolution Exercise Patterns Broads Vehicle Diverse Fossils Enjoyable Integrating

Author:David Pilbeam