Origin Of Species Quotes - Page 3

• But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

  Charles Darwin

  Lying, Believe, Theory Of Evolution

  Charles Darwin (2012). “On the Origin of the Species and The Voyage of the Beagle”, p.162, Graphic Arts Books

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• When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science.

  Charles Darwin

  Eye, Voice, People

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• The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.

  Charles Darwin

  Expression, Survival, Sometimes

  On the Origin of Species, 5th ed., ch. 3 (1869) See Philander Johnson 1; Herbert Spencer 5; Herbert Spencer 6

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• Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult--at least I have found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind.

  Charles Darwin

  Struggle, Mind, Bears

  Charles Darwin, James T. Costa (2009). “The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species”, p.62, Harvard University Press

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• As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.

  Charles Darwin

  Perfection, Progress, Natural

  Charles Darwin (1875). “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life”, p.428

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• I read the 'Old Testament' all the way through when I was about 13 and was horrified. A few months afterwards I read 'The Origin Of Species', hallucinating very mildly because I was in bed with flu at the time. Despite that, or because of that, it all made perfect sense.

  Terry Pratchett

  Perfect, Bed, Flu

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• When the views entertained in this volume on the origin of species, or when analogous views are generally admitted, we can dimly forsee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history.

  Charles Darwin

  Views, Revolution, Natural

  Charles Darwin (2007). “On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection Or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life”, p.303, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species, was published in 1859. It is perhaps the most influential book that has ever been published, because it was read by scientist and non- scientist alike, and it aroused violent controversy. Religious people disliked it because it appeared to dispense with God; scientists liked it because it seemed to solve the most important problem in the universe-the existence of living matter. In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit in with it.

  Henry Lipson

  Religious, Book, People

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• I see no good reason why the views given this volume [The Origin of Species] should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, 'as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.'

  Charles Darwin

  Religious, Science, Men

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• Let's find and remedy all our weaknesses before our enemies get a chance to say a word. That is what Charles Darwin did. ...When Darwin completed the manuscript of his immortal book "The Origin Of Species" he realized that the publication of his revolutionary concept of creation would rock the intellectual and religious worlds. So he became his own critic and spent another 15 years checking his data, challenging his reasoning, and criticizing his conclusions.

  Dale Carnegie

  Religious, Book, Rocks

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• The fundamental problem in the origin of species is not the origin of differences in appearance, since these arise at the level of the geographical race, but the origin of genetic segregation. The test of species-formation is whether, when two forms meet, they interbreed and merge, or whether they keep distinct.

  David Lack

  Science, Race, Two

  David Lack (1947). “Darwin's Finches”, p.129, CUP Archive

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• Agassiz, when I saw him last, had read but a part of Origin of Species. He says it is POOR-VERY POOR!!. The fact is, he is very much annoyed by it.

  Asa Gray

  Annoyed, Lasts, Saws

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• Atheism has been on the rise for years now, and the Bible of the atheists is The Origin of Species.

  Kirk Cameron

  Atheist, Years, Atheism

  "Kirk Cameron Stands Behind Controversial Darwin Statements". Interview with Oliver Jones, people.com. September 24, 2009.

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• When students of other sciences ask us what is now currently believed about the origin of species, we have no clear answer to give. Faith has given way to agnosticism. Meanwhile, though our faith in evolution stands unshaken we have no acceptable account of the origin of species.

  William Bateson

  Giving, Answers, Way

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• The theory of natural selection is the centerpiece of The Origin of Species and of evolutionary theory. It is this theory that accounts for the adaptations of organisms, those innumerable features that so wonderfully equip them for survival and reproduction; it is this theory that accounts for the divergence of species from common ancestors and thus for the endless diversity of life. Natural selection is a simple concept, but it is perhaps the most important idea in biology.

  Douglas J. Futuyma

  Simple, Ideas, Diversity

  Douglas J. Futuyma (2009). “Evolution”, Sinauer Associates Incorporated

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• This general tendency to eliminate, by means of unverifiable speculations, the limits of the categories nature presents to us is the inheritance of biology from The Origin of Species. To establish the continuity required by theory, historical arguments are invoked, even though historical evidence is lacking. Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypothesis based on hypothesis, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion.

  W. R. Thompson

  Mean, Confusion, Historical

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• Every philosophical thinker hails it [The Origin of Species] as a veritable Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism.

  Thomas Huxley

  Philosophical, Gun, Philosopher

  "Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews".

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• If it is true that an influx of doubt and uncertainty actually marks periods of healthy growth in a science, then evolutionary biology is flourishing today as it seldom has flourished in the past. For biologists collectively are less agreed upon the details of evolutionary mechanics than they were a scant decade ago. Superficially, it seems as if we know less about evolution than we did in 1959, the centennial year of Darwin's on the Origin of Species.

  Niles Eldredge

  Past, Years, Healthy

  Niles Eldredge (2014). “Time Frames: The Evolution of Punctuated Equilibria”, p.14, Princeton University Press

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• His subject is the "Origin of Species," & not the origin of Organization; & it seems a needless mischief to have opened the latter speculation at all.

  Harriet Martineau

  Organization, Latter, Mischief

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• Darwin abolished special creations, contributed the Origin of Species and hitched all life together in one unbroken procession of Siamese Twins, the whole evolved by natural and orderly processes from one microscopic parent germ.

  Mark Twain

  Life, Science, Parent

  Mark Twain (2003). “Tales of Wonder”, p.223, U of Nebraska Press

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• It will be possible, through the detailed determination of amino-acid sequences of hemoglobin molecules and of other molecules too, to obtain much information about the course of the evolutionary process, and to illuminate the question of the origin of species.

  Linus Pauling

  Determination, Science, Illumination

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• To suggest social action for the public good to the city London is like discussing The Origin of Species to a Bishop sixty years ago.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Years, Cities, Bishops

  John Maynard Keynes, Royal Economic Society (Great Britain) (1972). “The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: Essays in persuasion”

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• I love to read, and so I've been reading everything I can, not intensely, but I love to read so I read "Origin of Species" by Darwin and I can't make head or tail of E=MC squared by Einstein, but I try to baffle my way through that.

  Anthony Hopkins

  Reading, Heads Or Tails, Trying

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this [Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species'] and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well.

  Douglas Adams

  Long, Doe, Monkeys

  Douglas Adams (2005). “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time”, p.133, Del Rey

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• In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Knowledge, Science, Acceptance

  Alfred Russel Wallace (2016). “Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection: A Series of Essays”, p.42, Library of Alexandria

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