“Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually, as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.” PeopleThinkingMayMeanFactsAbleSocialTheoryEvolutionAspectScientistPhilosopherCuriousBiologyTheory Of Evolution Author:Jacques Monod
“In the Germany of the l920s, the Weimar Republic, both organismic biology and Gestalt psychology were part of a larger intellectual trend that saw itself as a protest movement against the increasing fragmentation and alienation of human nature. The entire Weimar culture was characterized by an antimechanistic outlook, a "hunger for wholeness". Organismic biology, Gestalt psychology, ecology, and, later on, general systems theory all grew out of this holistic zeitgeist.” HumansCulturePsychologySawsHuman NatureMovementTheoryGrewIntellectualHungerGermanyProtestBiologyRepublicTrendsEcologyWholenessOutlookAlienationHolisticZeitgeistFragmentationGestaltSystems TheoryProtest Movements Author:Fritjof Capra
“Paradoxically, it has turned out that game theory is more readily applied to biology than to the field of economic behavior for which it was originally designed” GamesEconomicFieldsTheoryBehaviorBiology Book:Evolution and the Theory of Games Source: Evolution and the Theory of Games
“We do have tendency, now in biology especially to make up stories, to make theoretical biology a kind of game, in fact we have game theory in biology which is meant to use the theory of games to make predictions or explain things.” KindFactsStoriesUseGamesTheoryTendenciesBiologyPredictionsTheoretical Author:Richard Lewontin
“I think that local school districts - not the federal government - should make the decision about how they teach science, biology, economics. I want my kids to be taught about evolution; I want my kids to be taught about other theories.” ThinkingWantShouldGovernmentKidsSchoolScienceReligionPoliticsChurchDecisionEducationFamilyTeachPolicyTaughtTheoryEvolutionEconomicsConstitutionSeparationLocalsIdeologyBiologyFederal GovernmentChurch And StateSeparation Of Church And StateSchool Districts Author:Bobby Jindal
“The theory that the biosphere was created without evolution, a few thousand years ago, is ruled out by overwhelming scientific evidence. To claim that there are 'alternative (always better) Biblical explanations of the same data', which make creationism a reasonable alternative to our best theories of biology and physics, is appalling intellectual dishonesty.” YearsTheoryEvolutionThousandIntellectualEvidenceYears AgoClaimsPhysicsDataAlternativesExplanationReasonableBiologyOverwhelmingBiblicalThousand YearsDishonestyCreationismBiosphereScientific EvidenceIntellectual Dishonesty Author:David Deutsch
“"Methodological naturalism" and "metaphysical naturalism" are terms that often surface in the continuing battle between evolutionary biology and creationism/intelligent design. The methodological thesis says that scientific theories shouldn't postulate supernatural entities; the metaphysical thesis says that no such entities exist. In this debate, God is the supernatural entity at issue; the question isn't whether science gets to talk about mathematical entities if Platonism is correct.” IfsTermIssuesDesignTheoryBattleIntelligentSurfaceDebateMathematicalBiologyEntityContinuingMetaphysicalNaturalismThesisCreationismIntelligent DesignScientific TheoryEvolutionary Biology Author:Elliott Sober
“The more evolutionary theory gets called an atheistic theory, the greater the risk that it will lose its place in public school biology courses in the United States. If the theory is thought of in this way, one should not be surprised if a judge at some point decides that teaching evolutionary theory violates the Constitutional principle of neutrality with respect to religion.” IfsWayShouldStatesSchoolCoursesLosesUnitedPrinciplesUnited StatesGreaterRiskTeachingJudgingTheoryBiologyPublic SchoolAtheisticNeutrality Author:Elliott Sober
“The big picture, I think, is that common ancestry is evidentially prior to natural selection in Darwin's theory and in contemporary evolutionary biology as well.” ThinkingWellsBigsNaturalCommonTheoryContemporaryBiologySelectionNatural SelectionAncestryBig PictureEvolutionary Biology Author:Elliott Sober
“Darwin's theory of evolution is a framework by which we understand the diversity of life on Earth. But there is no equation sitting there in Darwin's 'Origin of Species' that you apply and say, 'What is this species going to look like in 100 years or 1,000 years?' Biology isn't there yet with that kind of predictive precision.” YearsLooksKindEarthTheoryEvolutionDiversitySittingSpeciesBiologyEquationsFrameworkPrecisionTheory Of EvolutionOrigin Of SpeciesDiversity Of Life Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson