Natural Selection Quotes - Page 2

• The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Lying, Essence, Raw Materials

  Stephen Jay Gould (1992). “Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History”, p.44, W. W. Norton & Company

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• This survival of the fittest which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection", or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.

  Herbert Spencer

  Life, Struggle, Race

  The Principles of Biology pt. 3, ch. 12 (1865) See Darwin 7; Philander Johnson 1; Herbert Spencer 6

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• A republic cannot succeed, till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.

  Charles Darwin

  Men, Justice, Principles

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.156, Delphi Classics

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• Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress.

  Charles Darwin

  Believe, Men, Long

  Charles Darwin (2003). “On the Origin of Species”, p.433, Broadview Press

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• As some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility.

  Charles Darwin

  Light, Special, Doe

  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.144

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• Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

  Theodosius Dobzhansky

  Health, Science, Light

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• I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can.

  Charles Darwin

  Dog, Believe, Science

  The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II C. Darwin to Asa Gray May 22nd [1860] (p. 105)

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• Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last it was complete.

  Charles Darwin

  Atheism, Lasts, Rate

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• Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Long, Doe

  Charles Darwin (2010). “Natural Selection”, p.202, Bibliolis Books

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• What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern?

  Charles Darwin

  Horse, Men, Hands

  Charles Darwin (1872). “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life”, p.441

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• We are moving from unconscious evolution through natural selection to conscious evolution by choice.

  Barbara Marx Hubbard

  Moving, Choices, Evolution

  FaceBook post by Barbara Marx Hubbard from Aug 04, 2016

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• ...I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.— Let each man hope & believe what he can.—

  Charles Darwin

  Dog, Believe, Knowledge

  Charles Darwin, Frederick Burkhardt (1993). “The Correspondence of Charles Darwin:”, p.224, Cambridge University Press

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• As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.

  Charles Darwin

  Men, Race, Civilization

  Charles Darwin (2016). “The Descent of Man: the Evolution”, p.114, VM eBooks

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• We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

  Charles Darwin

  Inspirational, Nature, Science

  'The Descent of Man' (1871) closing words

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• The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This fact affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being.

  Charles Darwin

  Past, Justice, Mind

  Charles Darwin, Michael T. Ghiselin (2010). “The Descent of Man”, p.442, Courier Corporation

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• I think it can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work in Natural Selection, which selects exclusively for the good of each organic being.

  Charles Darwin

  Thinking, Natural, Selection

  Charles Darwin, Thomas F. Glick, David Kohn (1996). “On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection”, p.154, Hackett Publishing

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• Darwin's idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition.

  Daniel Dennett

  Ideas, People, Tradition

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• From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows.

  Charles Darwin

  Nature, War, Animal

  On the Origin of Species ch. 14 (1859)

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• With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

  Charles Darwin

  Animal, Men, Theory Of Evolution

  "The Descent of Man". Book by Charles Darwin, February 24, 1871.

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• The Christians who engaged in infamous persecutions and shameful inquisitions were not evil men but misguided men. The churchmen who felt they had an edict from God to withstand the progress of science, whether in the form of a Copernican revolution or a Darwinian theory of natural selection, were not mischievous men but misinformed men. And so Christ's words from the cross are written in sharp-edged terms across some of the most inexpressible tragedies of history: 'They know not what they do'.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Christian, Science, Men

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• Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.

  Charles Darwin

  Humility, Animal, Slave

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.16, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• It is essential for genetic material to be able to make exact copies of itself; otherwise growth would produce disorder, life could not originate, and favourable forms would not be perpetuated by natural selection.

  Maurice Wilkins

  Life, Science, Growth

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• There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

  Charles Darwin

  Beautiful, Simple, Cycling

  On the Origin of Species ch. 14 (1859)

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• I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.

  Charles Darwin

  God, Garden, Thinking

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• As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.

  Charles Darwin

  Life, Men, Judging

  The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Religion (p. 277)

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