“Throughout his last half-dozen books, for example, Arthur Koestler has been conducting a campaign against his own misunderstanding of Darwinism. He hopes to find some ordering force, constraining evolution to certain directions and overriding the influence of natural selection. [...] Darwinism is not the theory of capricious change that Koestler imagines. Random variation may be the raw material of change, but natural selection builds good design by rejecting most variants while accepting and accumulating the few that improve adaptation to local environments.” MayHas BeensBookLastsCertainForceNaturalHalfAcceptingEnvironmentImagineInfluenceExampleDesignMaterialsTheoryEvolutionCampaignsLocalsDozenSelectionMisunderstandingAdaptationVariationNatural SelectionArthurRejectingRaw MaterialsConductingDarwinismGood DesignCapricious Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“It has therefore been justly observed that however honestly the coin of a country may conform to its standard, money made of gold and silver is still liable to fluctuations in value, not only to accidental, and temporary, but to permanent and natural variations, in the same manner as other commodities.” MayMadeStillsCountryValuesNaturalStandardsGoldHonestlyPermanentSilverTemporaryCommodityConformCoinsVariationLiableFluctuationGold And Silver Book:The Works of David Ricardo ... Source: The Works of David Ricardo ...
“I have been moving around all my life. Going to different schools, living in different houses, shedding old roles, assuming new ones. This way of life is as natural to me as staying in one place is for other people. I do variations on the theme. I return to places where I used to be. I find my old personas. I try them on. If they still fit, I wear them out to a party or a show. If they begin to restrict my movements, I take them off. I am a human being, capable of mimicking anything I see or remember or can imagine.” PeopleIfsWayTryingHumansHas BeensStillsDifferentShowsSchoolRememberMovingLife IsUsedHouseNaturalHuman BeingsPartyRolesImagineMovementIdentityReturnFitCapableAssumingUsed To BeThemeStayingVariationPersonaMimicking Book:Falling Through Space Source: Falling Through Space
“The basic formulation, or bare-bones mechanics, of natural selection is a disarmingly simple argument, based on three undeniable facts (overproduction of offspring, variation, and heritability) and one syllogistic inference (natural selection, or the claim that organisms enjoying differential reproductive success will, on average, be those variants that are fortuitously better adapted to changing local environments, and that these variants will then pass their favored traits to offspring by inheritance).” FactsThreeEnjoyNaturalSimpleEnvironmentAtheismArgumentClaimsAverageBonesLocalsTraitsOrganismsMechanicSelectionInheritanceVariationAdaptedNatural SelectionOffspringInference Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“You put three facts together - that all organisms produce more offspring that can survive, that there's variation among organisms, and that at least some of that variation is inherited - and the syllogistic inference is natural selection.” FactsTogetherThreeNaturalProduceOrganismsSelectionVariationNatural SelectionOffspringInference Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“Natural selection is just three factors - over-production, variation, and inheritance combined to produce adaptation to changing local environments. It's not a principle or progress; it's just a principle of local adaptation. You don't make better creatures in any cosmic sense; you make creatures that are better suited to the changing climates of their local habitats.” ThreeNaturalPrinciplesEnvironmentProgressProduceCreaturesClimateProductionsLocalsFactorsCosmicSelectionAdaptationInheritanceVariationNatural SelectionHabitat Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.” IfsMenSometimesUsedOrderTermNaturalPrinciplesExpressionSurvivalMarkRelationAccurateSelectionVariationConvenientNatural SelectionSurvival Of The Fittest Author:Charles Darwin