Selection Quotes - Page 11

Up to and including the moment of exposure, the photographer is working in an undeniably subjective way. By his choice of technical approach, by the selection of the subject matterand by his decision as to the exact cinematic instant of exposure, he is blending the variables of interpretation into an emotional whole.

W. Eugene Smith

Emotional, Choices, Decision

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Natural selection is not evolution.

Ronald Fisher

Evolution, Natural, Natural Selection

"The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection". Book by Ronald Fisher, 1930.

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You know, Darwin said through natural selection things go gradually, and he was talking about pigeon's evolution or horses evolving, getting faster. But in fact if you look at evolution on a bigger scale, cosmic evolution and you look at culture evolution you see it jumps, it goes through phase changes, and that's very exciting.

Charles Jencks

Horse, Talking, Culture

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One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands.

Francis Galton

Law, Land, Civilization

"Hereditary Talent and Character". MacMillan's Magazine, 12, 1865.

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If America is a melting pot, then to me India is a thali--a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.

Shashi Tharoor

America, Together, Different

Shashi Tharoor (2007). “The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone: Reflections on India, the Emerging 21st-century Power”, p.62, Penguin Books India

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That natural selection can produce changes within a type is disputed by no one, not even the staunchest creationist. But that it can transform one species into another — that, in fact, has never been observed.

Robert J. Sawyer

Facts, Natural, Type

Robert J. Sawyer (2009). “Calculating God”, p.102, Macmillan

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Vending Machine: "This product has no known nutritional value and may cause irritability or wakefulness in some individuals. Please enjoy your selection and your day." Eve: "Up yours.

Nora Roberts

Machines, May, Causes

J. D. Robb, Nora Roberts (2011). “J.D. Robb THE IN DEATH COLLECTION”, p.505, Penguin

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Natural Selection never made it come to pass, as a habit of nature, that an unsupported stone should move downwards rather than upwards. It applies to no part of inorganic nature, and is very limited even in the phenomena of organic life.

Chauncey Wright

Life, Moving, Stones

Chauncey Wright (2003). “Philosphical Discussions”, p.108, A&C Black

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The [peppered-moth] experiments show the effects of predation on the survival of the dark and of the normal forms of the Peppered Moth in a clean environment and in one polluted by smoke. The experiments beautifully demonstrate natural selection--or survival of the fittest--in action, but they do not show evolution in progress, for however the population may alter in their content of light, intermediate or dark forms, all the moths remain from beginning to end Biston Betularia.

L. Harrison Matthews

Dark, Light, Survival

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Ultimately, of course, you must decide for yourself whether the subjective psychological effects created by your evolved cognitive biases reflect an objective reality, perhaps as evidence that God designed your mind to be so receptive to Him. Or, just maybe, you will come to acknowledge that, like the rest of us, you are a hopeless pawn in one of natural selection's most successful hoaxes ever-and smile at the sheer ingenuity involved in pulling it off, at the very thought of such mindless cleverness. One can still enjoy the illusion of God, after all, without believing Him to be real.

Jesse Bering

Real, Believe, Successful

Jesse Bering (2013). “The God Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny and the Meaning of Life”, p.16, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

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I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.

Charles Darwin

Thinking, Competition, Suffering

Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.3831, Delphi Classics

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The singing of hymns and the rendition of selections from the great sacred oratorios by ward choirs all enhance the spirit of worship.

Gordon B. Hinckley

Music, Church Choir, Hymns

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As Stephen Jay Gould pointed out in Time, in no other Western country is the teaching of Evolution regarded as controversial. Throughout the world, one way or another, most Christian denominations have managed to reconcile belief in God with belief in the mechanisms of natural selection. A French or German or Scandinavian politician who called for students to entertain as a reasonable deduction from existing evidence the proposition that Earth is at most 10,000 years old would be bundled off to a mental hospital.

Katha Pollitt

Christian, Country, Teaching

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To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

Charles Darwin

Distance, Believe, Eye

"The Collapse of Evolution". Book by Scott Huse, p. 73, 1996.

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I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It’s greed, plain and simple. When my characters join the circus, I’m joining the circus. Although I’m happily married, I spent a great deal of time mentally living with incompatible husbands.

Anne Tyler

Husband, Writing, Character

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In spite of my own reservations about Bing's ability to convert Google users, I have to admit that the search engine does offer a genuine alternative to Google-style browsing, a more coherently organized selection of links, and a more advertiser-friendly environment through which to sell space and links.

Douglas Rushkoff

Space, Google, Style

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Of course, there is no reconciliation between the theory of evolution by natural selection and the traditional religious view of the origin of the human mind.

E. O. Wilson

Religious, Views, Theory Of Evolution

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My own field of paleontology has strongly challenged the Darwinian premise that life's major transformations can be explained by adding up, through the immensity of geological time, the successive tiny changes produced generation after generation by natural selection.

Stephen Jay Gould

Generations, Paleontology, Fields

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The beauty of Goodreads is that you know you’re sowing in a field where everyone, by definition and self-selection, loves to read.

Guy Kawasaki

Self, Sowing, Definitions

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Natural selection must be replaced by eugenical artificial selection. This idea constitutes the sound core of eugenics, the applied science of human betterment.

Theodosius Dobzhansky

Ideas, Eugenics, Sound

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The very comprehensibility of the world points to an intelligence behind the world. Indeed, science would be impossible if our intelligence were not adapted to the intelligibility of the world. The match between our intelligence and the intelligibility of the world is no accident. Nor can it properly be attributed to natural selection, which places a premium on survival and reproduction and has no stake in truth or conscious thought. Indeed, meat-puppet robots are just fine as the output of a Darwinian evolutionary process.

William A. Dembski

Serendipity, Survival, Meat

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With highly civilised nations continued progress depends in a subordinate degree on natural selection; for such nations do not supplant and exterminate one another as do savage tribes.

Charles Darwin

Progress, Degrees, Savages

Charles Darwin (2016). “The Descent of Man (Diversion Classics)”, p.199, Diversion Books

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If... deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray - by the subtle signs of self-knowledge - the deception being practiced.' Thus, 'the conventional view that natural selection favors nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naive view of mental evolution.

Robert Trivers

Strong, Communication, Animal

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I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.

Charles Darwin

Struggle, Fighting, Ideas

Charles Darwin (2016). “Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: the Evolution”, p.209, VM eBooks

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You cannot love everyone; it is ridiculous to think you can. If you love everyone and everything you lose your natural powers of selection and wind up being a pretty poor judge of character and quality. If anything is used too freely it loses its true meaning. Therefore, the Satanist believes you should love strongly and completely those who deserve your love, but never turn the other cheek to your enemy!

Anton Szandor LaVey

Believe, Character, Thinking

"The Satanic Bible". Book by Anton Szandor LaVey, 1969.

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