Evolution Quotes - Page 11

• Charles Darwin viewed the fossil record more as an embarrassment than as an aid to his theory.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Records, Fossils, Aids

  4 Copy quote

• Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Air, Apples, Outcomes

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History”, p.254, W. W. Norton & Company

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Speciation does not necessarily promote evolutionary change; rather, speciation 'gathers in' and guards evolutionary change by locking and stabilization for sufficient geological time within a Darwinian individual of the appropriate scale. If a change in a local population does not gain such protection, it becomes-to borrow Dawkins's metaphor at a macroevolutionary scale-a transient duststorm in the desert of time, a passing cloud without borders, integrity, or even the capacity to act as a unit of selection, in the panorama of life's phylogeny.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Life, Integrity, Clouds

  Stephen Jay GOULD, Stephen Jay Gould (2009). “Punctuated Equilibrium”, p.83, Harvard University Press

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-whether through design or stupidity, I do not know-as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Stupidity, Design, Religion

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History”, p.260, W. W. Norton & Company

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• The literal record was not a hopelessly and imperfect fraction of truly insensible gradation within large populations but an accurate reflection of the actual process identified by evolutionists as the chief motor of biological change. The theory of punctuated equilibrium was, in its initial formulation, little more than this insight adumbrated.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Reflection, Population, Records

  6 Copy quote

• I emphatically do not assert the general 'truth' of this philosophy of punctuational change. Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Philosophy, Support, Borders

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History”, p.185, W. W. Norton & Company

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• ... many folks take them seriously because they just 'know' that evolution can never be seen in the immediate here and now. In fact, a precisely opposite situation prevails: biologists have documented a veritable glut of cases for rapid and eminently measurable evolution on timescales of years and decades.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Years, Opposites, Facts

  4 Copy quote

• If evolution almost always occurs by rapid speciation in small, peripheral isolates, then what should the fossil record look like? We are not likely to detect the event of speciation itself. It happens too fast, in too small a group, isolated too far from the ancestral range.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Groups, Events, Looks

  54 Copy quote

• Sigmund Freud often remarked that great revolutions in the history of science have but one common, and ironic, feature: they knock human arrogance off one pedestal after another of our previous conviction about our own self-importance.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Self, Arrogance, Ironic

  4 Copy quote

• Life shows no trend to complexity in the usual sense-only an asymmetrical expansion of diversity around a starting point constrained to be simple.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Life, Simple, Diversity

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History”, p.322, W. W. Norton & Company

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. It in fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil record. It is gradualism that we must reject, not Darwinism.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Yield, Theory Of Evolution, Doe

  Stephen Jay Gould (2002). “The Structure of Evolutionary Theory”, p.990, Harvard University Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have always been involved in spiritual evolution. We are spiritual beings, we have always been spiritual beings and we will always be spiritual beings.

  Gary Zukav

  Spiritual, Wisdom, Soul

  7 Copy quote

• 'Time's noblest offspring is the last.' This line of Bishop Berkeley's expresses the real cause of the belief in progress in the animal creation.

  Charles Lyell

  Real, Science, Animal

  4 Copy quote

• Zweck sein selbst ist jegliches Tier.
  Each animal is an end in itself.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Animal, Ends

  9 Copy quote

• There is not enough evidence, consistent evidence to make it as fact, and I say that because for theory to become a fact, it needs to consistently have the same results after it goes through a series of tests. The tests that they put- that they use to support evolution do not have consistent results. Now too many people are blindly accepting evolution as fact. But when you get down to the hard evidence, it's merely a theory.

  Christine O'Donnell

  Science, Acceptance, People

  "O'Donnell questioned evolution" by Gabriella Schwarz, politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com. September 16, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You know what, evolution is a myth. ... Why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?

  Christine O'Donnell

  Monkeys, Tea Party, Myth

  "Politically Incorrect" with Bill Maher, (ABC), October 15, 1998.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A new species develops if a population which has become geographically isolated from its parental species acquires during this period of isolation characters which promote or guarantee reproductive isolation when the external barriers break down.

  Ernst Mayr

  Character, Science, Population

  Ernst Mayr (1988). “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist”, p.442, Harvard University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A species consists of a group of populations which replace each other geographically or ecologically and of which the neighboring ones integrate or hybridise wherever they are in contact or which are potentially capable of doing so (with one or more of the populations) in those cases where contact is prevented by geographical or ecological barriers.

  Ernst Mayr

  Science, Groups, Population

  13 Copy quote

• All geologic history is full of the beginning and the ends of species-of their first and last days; but it exhibits no genealogies of development.

  Hugh Miller

  Science, History, Development

  Hugh Miller (1857). “The Testimony of the Rocks”, p.220

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• All Modern Men are descended from a Wormlike creature but it shows more on some people.

  Will Cuppy

  Science, Men, People

  Will Cuppy, P. G. Wodehouse (2005). “How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes”, p.18, David R. Godine Publisher

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• An attempt to study the evolution of living organisms without reference to cytology would be as futile as an account of stellar evolution which ignored spectroscopy.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Stars, Science, Would Be

  57 Copy quote

• And no one has the right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps will ever do. But surely ... they would have put it into spirits, or into the Illustrated News, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see what they would each say about it.

  Charles Kingsley

  Baby, Science, Cutting

  4 Copy quote

• Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; ... 'So careful of the type', but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, 'A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go' ... Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law- Tho' Nature red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Dream, Nature, Prayer

  Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Obiit MDCCCXXXIIi (Entire)”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• As evolutionary time is measured, we have only just turned up and have hardly had time to catch breath, still marveling at our thumbs, still learning to use the brand-new gift of language. Being so young, we can be excused all sorts of folly and can permit ourselves the hope that someday, as a species, we will begin to grow up.

  Lewis Thomas

  Growing Up, Learning, Science

  21 Copy quote

• As for the presence of large NGF [nerve growth factor] sources in snake venom and male genital organs, they may be conceived as instances of bizarre evolutionary gene expression.

  Rita Levi-Montalcini

  Science, Expression, Snakes

  "The Saga of the Nerve Growth Factor: Preliminary Studies, Discovery, Further Development".

  24 Copy quote

  Show source