Quotes About Darwin

Geologists, however, had found no such myriad of transitional forms leading to the Cambrian fauna. Instead, the stratigraphic column seemed to document the abrupt appearance of the earliest animals. Agassiz thought the evidence of abrupt appearance, and the absence of ancestral forms in the Precambrian, refuted Darwin's theory.

Indeed, Walcott's discovery turned Darwin's anticipated bottom-up—or small changes first, big changes later—pattern on its head.

The question that Darwin's early critics posed was this: How could he reconcile his theory of gradual evolution with a fossil record so discontinuous that it had given rise to the names of the major distinct periods of geological time, particularly when the first animal forms seemed to spring into existence during the Cambrian as if from nowhere?

The functional design of organisms and their features would…seem to argue for the existence of a designer. It was Darwin's greatest accomplishment [however] to show that the directive organization of living beings can be explained as the result of a natural process, natural selection, without any need to resort to a Creator or other external agent."20

Darwin's Origin explained many classes of biological evidence with just two central organizing ideas. The twin pillars of his theory were the ideas of universal common ancestry and natural selection.

Darwin read Lyell's magnum opus, The Principles of Geology, on the voyage of the Beagle and employed its principles of reasoning in On the Origin of Species. The subtitle of Lyell's Principles

As Darwin described it, the ability of natural selection to produce significant biological change depends upon the presence of three distinct elements: (1) randomly arising variations, (2) the heritability of those variations, and (3) a competition for survival, resulting in differences in reproductive success among competing organisms.

In On the Origin of Species, Darwin openly acknowledged important weaknesses in his theory and professed his own doubts about key aspects of it. Yet today's public defenders of a Darwin-only science curriculum apparently do not want these, or any other scientific doubts about contemporary Darwinian theory, reported to students.

Despite the scope of his synthesis, there was one set of facts that troubled Darwin—something he conceded his theory couldn't adequately explain, at least at present. Darwin was puzzled by a pattern in the fossil record that seemed to document the geologically sudden appearance of animal life in a remote period of geologic history, a period that at first was commonly called the Silurian, but later came to be known as the Cambrian.

Agassiz concluded that the fossil record, particularly the record of the explosion of Cambrian animal life, posed an insuperable difficulty for Darwin's theory

Darwin had two genuinely deep insights that are paradigm altering: 1) that the root of the plant is in fact its brain; and 2) that the plant is using sensitive, and intelligent, analysis of it surroundings to navigate through the soil.

Karl Marx, himself a denizen of one of the most congested of all London districts, was equally impressed by the dismal conditions of the new proletariat. he sent Darwin a copy of 'Das Kapital' (which was found unread after his death).

I first became aware of Charles Darwin and evolution while still a schoolboy growing up in Chicago. My father and I had a passion for bird-watching, and when the snow or the rain kept me indoors, I read his bird books and learned about evolution.

In Victorian times, one of the more serious reasons for opposing Darwin was the fear that his theories would lead to the law of the jungle, the abandonment of ethical constraints in society.

In Victorian times, one of the more serious reasons for opposing Darwin was the fear that his theories would lead to the law of the jungle, the abandonment of ethical constraints in society. In nearly all of these cases, however, it is not so much science as its application (often by nonscientists) that has been under judgment.

Indeed, the proposition that humans have mental characteristics wholly absent in animals confounds the theory of evolution, which, although disputed by some religious extremists, is generally accepted by most educated people throughout the world. Charles Darwin made quite clear that there are no uniquely human characteristics when he wrote that "the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, is certainly one of degree and not one of kind.

Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel? To my juvenile eyes, Darwin was proved true every day. It doesn't take much to make us flip back into monkeys again.

My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.

Sometimes I think that Darwin made a mistake and that in fact man is descended from the pig, because eight out of every ten members of the human race are swine, and as crooked as a hog's tail.

Darwin was a dreamer, I can assure you. No evolution or anything of the sort. For every one who can reason, I have to battle with nine orangutans.--Don Anacleto

Anyway, where Cabestany really made his money was in catechisms and a series of cheap sentimental novels starring a provincial heroine called Violeta LaFleur. Those sold like candy in kiosks. My guess, or anybody's, is that he published Carax's novels because it tickled his fancy, or just to contradict Darwin.

Simios es lo que llegan a las aulas. Darwin era un soñador, se lo aseguro. Ni evolución ni niño muerto. Por cada uno que razona, tengo que lidiar con nueve orangutanes. Nos limitamos a asentir

The facts of variability, of the struggle for existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species problem lay through them, until Darwin and Wallace dispelled the darkness.

That which struck the present writer most forcibly on his first perusal of the 'Origin of Species' was the conviction that Teleology, as commonly understood, had received its deathblow at Mr. Darwin 's hands. For the teleological argument runs thus: an organ or organism (A) is precisely fitted to perform a function or purpose (B); therefore it was specially constructed to perform that function.