Quotes About Darwin

In fact, I think they should be called Lack's finches and not Darwin's. Darwin didn't see the significance of the birds. He thought there was just one species per island. He didn't even try to pull it together - he didn't do a bloody thing with them except collect them.

The claim that Darwin's theories were at the core of eugenics, the racial science at the core of Nazism, are not new. They are not revisionist history made upon the revelations of the Death Camps. These claims precede The Holocaust by several decades. American and British icons of science, namely Darwin's relatives and colleagues, were making this claim before Adolf Hitler was even born, and continued to do so on up through the end of WWII.

Mind you, Darwin fretted about a lot of stuff, especially his health, his kids, and maybe with just cause. On occasion he would write a fit of histrionic despair, such as "I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything

This is a strange conundrum that betrays our difficulties with classifying life, and our adherence to a system that was designed to show the perfection of divine creation, organisms static in time and set in stone as they stand before us. Darwin's great idea ruined that ideal, because he recognized that life passes through time, and changes continually. The only life forms that don't change are dead ones.

the Galtons were Quakers and gunsmiths, which might seem an unlikely combination given that religion's commitment to nonviolence. Francis was born to Samuel Galton and Frances Darwin in 1822

scientific research, one that underwrites every single aspect of the life sciences. "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution

Darwin, with typical prescience, suspected that this might be the case: Man alone is capable of progressive improvement. That he is capable of incomparably greater and more rapid improvement than is any other animal, admits of no dispute; and this is mainly due to his power of speaking and handing down his acquired knowledge.

Creationists (and others unencumbered by facts) cite epigenetics to assert that Darwin was wrong, and that these transgenerational epigenetic studies show Lamarckian evolution. They don't, as the changes are not perpetual and do not change the DNA sequence itself, on which natural selection acts. Even

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge . . . says Darwin in The Descent of Man, his study of the evolution of humans from our hairier ancestors.

By the age of 11, I was no longer going to Sunday Mass, and going on birdwatching walks with my father. So early on, I heard of Charles Darwin. I guess, you know, he was the big hero. And, you know, you understand life as it now exists through evolution.

They knew how to live with nature and get along with nature. They didn't try too hard to be all men and no animal. That's the mistake we made when Darwin showed up. We embraced him and Huxley and Freud, all smiles. And then we discovered that Darwin and our religions didn't mix. Or at least we didn't think they did. We were fools.

La probabilidad de que se forme la vida a partir de la materia inanimada es una en 1040.000... Es lo suficientemente grande como para sepultar a Darwin y toda la teoría de la evolución. No hubo un caldo primigenio, ni en este planeta ni en ningún otro, y si los inicios de la vida no fueron al azar, debieron haber sido el producto de la inteligencia con propósito". Sir Fred Hoyle, profesor de astronomía de la Universidad de Cambridge.

if Darwin were alive today, he would likely revise a significant part of his great works, because the basic logic of evolution has shifted away from capital-n Nature toward two new core drivers: Unnatural selection* Nonrandom mutation*

Regression to the mean was discovered and named late in the nineteenth century by Sir Francis Galton, a half cousin of Charles Darwin and a renowned polymath

demanded to know. "You know she's just using the Kennedy name for publicity. She's just a social climber. At

Who am I nicknamed after?" "I don't know, Darwin, maybe? The dude who figured out evolution." "I bet no one's ever called him a dude before.

It [Darwin's theory of evolution] was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

I'm saying that there were many great naturalists before Darwin's time who were very pious people and who knew more about nature than most of us. These were great naturalists; people I would admire for their knowledge of natural science given the time.

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.

Why has the medical profession not taken advantage of the help available from evolutionary biology, a well-developed branch of science with great potential for providing medical insights? One reason is surely the pervasive neglect of this branch of science at all educational levels. Religious and other sorts of opposition have minimized the impact in general education of Darwin's contributions to our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.

Darwin theorized that mankind (both male and female) evolved alongside each other over millions of years, both reproducing after their own kind before the ability to physically have sex evolved. They did this through "asexuality" ("without sexual desire or activity or lacking any apparent sex or sex organs"). Each of them split in half: "Asexual organisms reproduce by fission (splitting in half).

Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.

Philosophy and the subjects known as 'humanities' are still taught almost as if Darwin had never lived.

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact.