Natural Selection Quotes - Page 10

• In the meantime, the educated public continues to believe that Darwin has provided all the relevant answers by the magic formula of random mutations plus natural selection -quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant and natural selection tautology.

  Arthur Koestler

  Believe, Knowledge, Magic

  "Janus: A Summing Up". Book by Arthur Koestler, p. 184-5, 1983.

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• One may well find oneself beginning to doubt whether all this could conceivably be the product of an enormous lottery presided over by natural selection, blindly picking the rare winners from among numbers drawn at utter random...nevertheless although the miracle of life stands "explained" it does not strike us as any less miraculous. As Francois Mauriac wrote, What this professor says is far more incredible than what we poor Christians believe.

  Jacques Monod

  Christian, Believe, Numbers

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• When environments change, they usually do so pretty rapidly, at rates with which adaptation by natural selection would be hard put to keep up. When such change occurs, the quality of your adaptation to your old habitat is irrelevant, and any competitive advantage you might have had may be eliminated at a stroke.

  Ian Tattersall

  Quality, Would Be, Habitat

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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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• We live in a cultural milieu ... The idea that culture is our ecological niche is still applicable. The impact and force of natural selection on the human physique are conditioned by the dimensions of culture.

  C. Loring Brace

  Impact, Ideas, Culture

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• Nowhere was Darwin able to point to one bona fide case of natural selection having actually generated evolutionary change in nature....Ultimately, the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century.

  Michael Denton

  Theory Of Evolution, Able, Natural

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• Natural selection is not the wind which propels the vessel, but the rudder which, by friction, now on this side and now on that, shapes the course.

  Asa Gray

  Wind, Shapes, Sides

  Asa Gray (1877). “Darwinia: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism”

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• Each of you possesses the most powerful, dangerous and subversive trait that natural selection has ever devised. It's a piece of neural audio technology for rewiring other people's minds. I'm talking about your language.

  Mark Pagel

  Powerful, Technology, Talking

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• Sympathy will have been increased through natural selection

  Charles Darwin

  Natural, Has Beens, Selection

  Charles Darwin (1875). “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex”, p.107

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• Is there a better example of natural selection in action than 'Project Runway?'

  Jamais Cascio

  Example, Action, Natural

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• Every cell is a triumph of natural selection, and we’re made of trillions of cells. Within us, is a little universe.

  Carl Sagan

  Cells, Triumph, Littles

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• Design in nature is but a concatenation of accidents, culled by natural selection until the result is so beautiful or effective as to seem a miracle of purpose.

  Michael Pollan

  Beautiful, Design, Miracle

  Michael Pollan (2001). “The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World”, p.18, Random House

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• The positive evidence for Darwinism is confined to small-scale evolutionary changes like insects developing insecticide resistance....Evidence like that for insecticide resistance confirms the Darwinian selection mechanism for small-scale changes, but hardly warrants the grand extrapolation that Darwinists want. It is a huge leap going from insects developing insecticide resistance via the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection and random variation to the very emergence of insects in the first place by that same mechanism.

  William A. Dembski

  Want, Resistance, Firsts

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• Blindness to suffering is an inherent consequence of natural selection. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.

  Richard Dawkins

  Suffering, Atheism, Kind

  Richard Dawkins (2004). “A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love”, p.9, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God. [It] contradicts the revealed relations of creation to its Creator.

  Samuel Wilberforce

  Scary, Principles, Creation

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• Creationists argue that natural selection is only a negative process, and therefore cannot create anything. Chopra argues that skepticism is only a negative process, and therefore does not lead to knowledge. Both are wrong for the same reasons. They ignore the generation of diversity and new ideas upon which natural selection and skepticism acts. Weeding out the unfit is critical to both - natural selection allows evolution to proceed, and skepticism allows science to advance.

  Steven Novella

  Weed, Ideas, Diversity

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