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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Charles Darwin

  Atheism, Lasts, Rate

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Theodosius Dobzhansky

  Health, Science, Light

  101 Copy quote

• ...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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Daniel Dennett

  Ideas, People, Tradition

  13 Copy quote

• 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)

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  76 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am quite sure that our views on evolution would be very different had biologists studied genetics and natural selection before and not after most of them were convinced that evolution had occurred.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Science, Views, Would Be

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  72 Copy quote

• The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.

  Charles Darwin

  Inspirational, Atheist, Insightful

  Charles Darwin (2010). “The Works of Charles Darwin, Volume 29: “Erasmus Darwin” by Ernest Krause, with a Preliminary Notice by Charles Darwin; “The Autobiography of Charles Darwin” Edited by Nora Barlow; and Consolidated Index”, p.124, NYU Press

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  22 Copy quote

  Show source