Best evolution & organisms Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“A living organism must be studied from two distinct aspects. One of these is the causal-analytic aspect which is so fruitfully applicable to ontogeny. The other is the historical descriptive aspect which is unravelling lines of phylogeny with ever-increasing precision. Each of these aspects may make suggestions concerning the possible significance of events seen under the other, but does not explain or translate them into simpler terms.”

May Doe Two Science Term Lines Events Evolution Aspect Historical Significance Translate Organisms Suggestions Precision Analytics Living Organisms

Author:Gavin de Beer

“Nothing can better express the feelings of the scientist towards the great unity of the laws of nature than in Immanuel Kant's words: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing awe: the stars above me and the moral law within me."... Would he, who did not yet know of the evolution of the world of organisms, be shocked that we consider the moral law within us not as something given, a priori, but as something which has arisen by natural evolution, just like the laws of the heavens?”

Knows World Mind Two Feelings Law Given Heaven Stars Natural Moral Evolution Scientist Unity Two Things Awe Organisms Shocked Laws Of Nature Moral Law

Author:Konrad Lorenz

“In my opinion, neither organisms nor organizations evolve slowly and surely into something better, but drift until some small change occurs which has immediate and overwhelming significance. The special role of the human being is not to wait for these favorable accidents but deliberately to introduce the small change that will have great significance.”

Humans Waiting Human Beings Opinion Roles Special Evolution Organization Accidents Evolve Significance Overwhelming Introducing Organisms Something Better Small Changes

Author:Edwin Land

“I am of course getting angry if biologists try to use the general concept 'chance' in order to explain phenomena which are so typical for living organisms as, for instance, those appearing in the biological evolution.”

Ifs Trying Use Order Courses Chance Evolution Concepts Angry Instance Organisms Typical Appearing Biologist Living Organisms Biological Evolution

Author:Wolfgang Paul

“I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time a rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution , where the wave of life bursts into individual, sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment... only to vanish forever.”

Moments Light Seems Individual Forever Evolution Wave Complicated Delicate Flash Organisms Fringe Gleam Sparkling Biological Evolution Wave Of Life

Book:The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Source: The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

“Appealing to his [Einstein's] way of expressing himself in theological terms, I said: If God had wanted to put everything into the universe from the beginning, He would have created a universe without change, without organisms and evolution, and without man and man's experience of change. But he seems to have thought that a live universe with events unexpected even by Himself would be more interesting than a dead one.”

Ifs Men Way Said Seems Would Be Wanted Universe Term Interesting Events Evolution Unexpected Organisms Theological

Book:Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography

Source: Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography

“The issue, as correctly emphasized by Carl Sagan, is the probability of the evolution of high intelligence and an electronic civilization on an inhabited world. Once we have life (and almost surely it will be very different from life on Earth), what is the probability of its developing a lineage with high intelligence? On Earth, among millions of lineages of organisms and perhaps 50 billion speciation events, only one led to high intelligence; this makes me believe in its utter improbability.”

World Believe Different Earth Millions Issues Events Evolution Civilization Billions Astronomy Developing Organisms Probability Lineage Improbability Sagan Speciation

Author:Ernst Mayr

“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

“In a sense, evolution adheres to the classic twelve-step program: it takes things one day at a time. It does not strive for perfection; it does not strive at all. There is no progress, no plans, no scala natura, or scale of nature, that ranks organisms from lowly to superior, primitive to advanced.”

Doe Steps Progress Plans Evolution One Day Program Perfection Strive Scales Superiors Classic Twelve Primitive Organisms One Day At A Time

Author:Natalie

“It has become evident that the primary lesson of the study of evolution is that all evolution is coevolution: every organism is evolving in tandem with the organisms around it.”

Literature Study Evolution Lessons Primaries Evolve Organisms Evident Tandem

Author:Kevin Kelly

“The daily grinding of evolution, as accelerated by technology, churns out more and more complex organisms, with higher rates of energy use, and with increasing specialization. Minds are the ideal way to express complexity, energy density, increasing specialization, expanding diversity -- all in one system. Mindedness is what evolution produces. Mindedness is what technology wants, too.”

Way Want Mind Use Energy Technology Produce Evolution Higher Diversity Ideals Complexes Rate Complexity Organisms Expanding Density Specialization Energy Use

Author:Kevin Kelly

“But in fact, when you try to model that on a computer you find that because of the very structure of matter and of the chemical bonds that are the basis of every organism, evolution is not random at all. It will tend to follow certain paths.”

Trying Matter Facts Certain Path Evolution Walking Computer Models Bases Structure Chemicals Organisms

Author:Kevin Kelly

“Group selection and individual selection are just two of the selection processes that have played important roles in evolution. There also is selection within individual organisms (intragenomic conflict), and selection among multi-species communities (an idea that now is getting attention in work on the human microbiome). All four of these levels of selection find a place in multi-level selection theory.”

Humans Two Important Ideas Individual Process Community Levels Attention Roles Four Groups Theory Evolution Conflict Species Organisms Selection

Author:Elliott Sober

“Traditional folk music is about survival of the fittest song just like evolution is about survival of the fittest organism and generally the more times a song has been passed down the generations the more brilliant and concise it becomes as every link in that chain can add something good or remove something unnecessary.”

Has Beens Song Generations Evolution Survival Music Is Add Folks Brilliant Traditional Chains Remove More Time Links Unnecessary Organisms Folk Music Survival Of The Fittest Concise

Author:John Spiers

“I have always had this basic biological question in terms of evolution, if the drive to evolution is to like survive. An organism that survives well, there is really no need for consciousness in there.”

Ifs Needs Wells Term Consciousness Evolution Organisms

Author:Jerry Garcia

“All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.”

“An attempt to study the evolution of living organisms without reference to cytology would be as futile as an account of stellar evolution which ignored spectroscopy.”

Would Be Science Stars Study Evolution Accounts Organisms Ignored Living Organisms Stellar Spectroscopy

Author:John B. S. Haldane

“Biology is a science of three dimensions. The first is the study of each species across all levels of biological organization, molecule to cell to organism to population to ecosystem. The second dimension is the diversity of all species in the biosphere. The third dimension is the history of each species in turn, comprising both its genetic evolution and the environmental change that drove the evolution. Biology, by growing in all three dimensions, is progressing toward unification and will continue to do so.”

“It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.”

Science Process Imagine Conditions Depends Evolution Perfection Constant Errors Tendencies Imagine That Organisms Adaptation Modification Remodeling

Book:Evolution and Ethics

Source: Evolution and Ethics

“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

“The chemical differences among various species and genera of animals and plants are certainly as significant for the history of their origins as the differences in form. If we could define clearly the differences in molecular constitution and functions of different kinds of organisms, there would be possible a more illuminating and deeper understanding of question of the evolutionary reactions of organisms than could ever be expected from morphological considerations.”

“The great age of the earth will appear greater to man when he understands the origin of living organisms and the reasons for the gradual development and improvement of their organization. This antiquity will appear even greater when he realizes the length of time and the particular conditions which were necessary to bring all the living species into existence. This is particularly true since man is the latest result and present climax of this development, the ultimate limit of which, if it is ever reached, cannot be known.”

“We do not draw conclusions with our eyes, but with our reasoning powers, and if the whole of the rest of living nature proclaims with one accord from all sides the evolution of the world of organisms, we cannot assume that the process stopped short of Man. But it follows also that the factors which brought about the development of Man from his Simian ancestry must be the same as those which have brought about the whole of evolution.”

Ifs Men World Whole Eye Science Process Sides Nature Development Evolution Draws Assuming Factors Conclusion Reasoning Organisms Accord Ancestry

Author:August Weismann

“Darwin was one of our finest specimens. He did superbly what human beings are designed to do: manipulate social information to personal advantage. The information in question was the prevailing account of how human beings, and all organisms, came to exist; Darwin reshaped it in a way that radically raised his social status. When he died in 1882, his greatness was acclaimed in newspapers around the world, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey, not far from the body of Isaac Newton. Alpha-male territory.”

Source: The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

“Seen in retrospect, evolution as a whole doubtless had a general direction, from simple to complex, from dependence on to relative independence of the environment, to greater and greater autonomy of individuals, greater and greater development of sense organs and nervous systems conveying and processing information about the state of the organism's surroundings, and finally greater and greater consciousness. You can call this direction progress or by some other name.”

“Think of it : zillions and zillions of organisms running around, each under the hypnotic spell of a single truth, all these truths identical, and all logically incompatible with one another : 'My hereditary material is the most important material on earth; its survival justifies your frustration, pain, even death'. And you are one of those organisms, living your life in the thrall of a logical absurdity.”

Thinking Important Running Earth Pain Materials Evolution Survival Frustration Justify Logical Spells Organisms Live Your Life Absurdity Identical Hereditary Hypnotic

Book:The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

Source: The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

“Neo-Darwinian language and conceptual structure itself ensures scientific failure: Major questions posed by zoologists cannot be answered from inside the neo-Darwinian straitjacket. Such questions include, for example, 'How do new structures arise in evolution?' 'Why, given so much environmental change, is stasis so prevalent in evolution as seen in the fossil record?' 'How did one group of organisms or set of macromolecules evolve from another?' The importance of these questions is not at issue; it is just that neo-Darwinians, restricted by their resuppositions, cannot answer them.”

Source: Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis and Evolution

“One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are-as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.”

Believe I Believe Results Impossible Generations Evolution Tasks Contemplating Organisms Spontaneous Magnitude Living Organisms God And Science Creation And Evolution

Author:George Wald

“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

“Where it is in his own interest, every organism may reasonably be expected to aid his fellows. Where he has no alternative, he submits to the yoke of communal servitude. Yet given a full chance to act in his own interest, nothing but expediency will restrain him from brutalizing, from maiming, from murdering his brother, his mate, his parent, or his child. Scratch an 'altruist' and watch a 'hypocrite' bleed.”

May Children Given Parent Interest Chance Watches Brother Evolution Fellows Expected Aids Alternatives Mates Submit Organisms Scratches Hypocrite Servitude Yoke Expediency

Author:Michael Ghiselin

“The world is too complicated in all parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone. I am convinced that the existence of life with all its order in each of its organisms is simply too well put together. Each part of a living thing depends on all its other parts to function. How does each part know? How is each part specified at conception? The more one learns of biochemistry the more unbelievable it becomes unless there is some type of organizing principle-an architect.”

“Our task now is to resynthesize biology; put the organism back into its environment; connect it again to its evolutionary past; and let us feel that complex flow that is organism, evolution, and environment united. The time has come for biology to enter the nonlinear world.”

World Feels Past United Environment Evolution Flow Tasks Complexes Biology Organisms Nonlinear

Author:Carl Woese

“It has taken four billion years of evolution to generate this kind of organism with this kind of brain, and yet we wake up in the morning and feel bored.”

Feels Years Kind Brain Morning Taken Four Evolution Wake Up Billions Bored Organisms

Author:Stephen Batchelor

“The Harvard Law of Animal Behavior holds that under controlled experimental conditions of temperature, time, lighting, feeding, and training, the organism will behave as it damn well pleases.”

Wells Law Animal Conditions Evolution Please Behavior Training Damn Behave Controlled Organisms Feeding Temperature Harvard Lighting Animal Behavior

Author:Joel Garreau

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Evolution Quotes