“The traditional view of purpose says it comes from on high, from God, from the Creator. Darwin's idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition. Whereas people used to think of meaning coming from on high and being ordained from the top down, now we have Darwin saying, "No, all of this design can happen, all of this purpose can emerge from the bottom up without any direction at all."” PeopleThinkingIdeasHappensUsedPurposeNaturalViewsDesignTraditionBottomCreatorTraditionalUncomfortableReverseSelectionSaying NoNatural SelectionThink Of MeTop Down Author:Daniel Dennett
“I am a taxonomist, I work in the descriptive, narrative sciences of natural history. Unfortunately there is this status ordering from physics, the queen of the sciences up on top, down through a bunch of squishy subjects, ending up with sociology and psychology on the bottom. Palaeontologists are not much above that in their conventional ordering.” NaturalPsychologySubjectsBottomPhysicsBunchNarrativeQueensConventionalSociologyNatural HistoryTop Down Author:Richard Lewontin
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all species are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” IfsWorldShouldYearsRunningPurposeSufferingUniverseEvilNaturalAnimalAliveMinutesDyingDesignEvolutionAmountDiseasePropertySpeciesBottomSentencesIndifferenceContemplationDecentTake MeThirstNatural WorldStarvationParasitesGod Delusion Author:Richard Dawkins
“Nature works with five polymers. Only five polymers. In the natural world, life builds from the bottom up, and it builds in resilience and multiple uses.” WorldUseNaturalFiveBottomResilienceMultipleNatural WorldWorld LifePolymers Author:Janine Benyus