Selection Quotes - Page 8

• Mr. Darwin ... has failed to hold definitely before his mind the principle that the difference of sex, whatever it may consist in, must itself be subject to natural selection and to evolution.

  Antoinette Brown Blackwell

  Sex, Differences, Mind

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• Unfortunately, the optimistic view that "classical civilization" handed down certain fundamental works that managed to include the knowledge contained in the lost writings has proved groundless. In fact, in the face of a general regression in the level of civilization, it's never the best works that will be saved through an automatic process of natural selection.

  Lucio Russo

  Writing, Optimistic, Views

  Lucio Russo, Silvio (translator) Levy (2013). “The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn”, p.8, Springer Science & Business Media

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• I'm an old git now, so I would say this, but television was better when there were less channels. There was more concentration and selection in terms of the output.

  Ross Kemp

  Television, Output, Concentration

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• When I stopped eating meat, I fell in love with East Indian food - there's so much selection, and they use the most beautiful spices.

  Laura Mennell

  Beautiful, Meat, East

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• We are embedded in the great evolutionary story of planet Earth, the spare, elegant process of mutation and selection and bricolage. And this means that we are anything but alone.

  Ursula Goodenough

  Mean, Stories, Earth

  Ursula Goodenough (2000). “The Sacred Depths of Nature”, p.75, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Comic book readers are just as abandoned by the corporate system as the creators, despite the importance supposedly given their hard-earned dollars. The average comics shop can offer only a tiny fraction of an industrywide selection that is itself extremely limited in scope. And even when readers know exactly what they want, the search can be maddeningly futile.

  Scott McCloud

  Book, Average, Dollars

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• The basic formulation, or bare-bones mechanics, of natural selection is a disarmingly simple argument, based on three undeniable facts (overproduction of offspring, variation, and heritability) and one syllogistic inference (natural selection, or the claim that organisms enjoying differential reproductive success will, on average, be those variants that are fortuitously better adapted to changing local environments, and that these variants will then pass their favored traits to offspring by inheritance).

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Simple, Average, Atheism

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• I Must warn you, Iris, that I'm not a believer. And though I'm sure that the revelations of other men must be a source of infinite satisfaction to them, individually, I shouldn't for one second be so presumptuous as to make a choice among the many thousands of recorded revelations of truth, accepting one at the expense of all the others: I might so easily choose wrong and get into eternal trouble. And you must admit that the selection is wide, and dangerous to the amateur.

  Gore Vidal

  Men, Choices, Atheism

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• If I were to give a prize for the single best idea anybody ever had, I'd give it to Darwin for the idea of natural selection - ahead of Newton, ahead of Einstein - because his idea unites the two most disparate features of our universe: the world of purposeless, meaningless matter and motion, particles jostling on the one side, and the world of meaning and purpose, design on the other.

  Daniel Dennett

  Ideas, Two, Giving

  "Big Thinkers on Evolution". NOVA-PBS, www.pbs.org. October 6, 2009.

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• The traditional view of purpose says it comes from on high, from God, from the Creator. Darwin's idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition. Whereas people used to think of meaning coming from on high and being ordained from the top down, now we have Darwin saying, "No, all of this design can happen, all of this purpose can emerge from the bottom up without any direction at all."

  Daniel Dennett

  Thinking, Views, Ideas

  "Big Thinkers on Evolution". "NOVA", www.pbs.org. October 6, 2009.

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• After Darwin, God's role changes from being the designer of all creatures great and small to being the designer of the laws of nature, from which natural selection can unfold, to being perhaps just the chooser of the laws. By the time God's role has been so diminished, he becomes a bit like a constitutional monarch, presiding ceremonially but not having any more work to do. That's a place for God if it makes people comfortable to keep God as the presider over the universe. I suppose that is satisfying for many.

  Daniel Dennett

  Law, People, Roles

  "Big Thinkers on Evolution". NOVA Interview, www.pbs.org. October 6, 2009.

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• You put three facts together - that all organisms produce more offspring that can survive, that there's variation among organisms, and that at least some of that variation is inherited - and the syllogistic inference is natural selection.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Together, Three, Variation

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Natural selection is just three factors - over-production, variation, and inheritance combined to produce adaptation to changing local environments. It's not a principle or progress; it's just a principle of local adaptation. You don't make better creatures in any cosmic sense; you make creatures that are better suited to the changing climates of their local habitats.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Progress, Climate, Principles

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The result of the revolution in Germany has been to establish a democracy in the best sense of the word.  We are steering towards an order of things guaranteeing a process of a natural and reasonable selection in the domain of political leadership, thanks to which that leadership will be entrusted to the most competent, irrespective of their descent, name or fortune.  The memorable words of the great Corsican that every soldier carries a Field Marshal's baton in his knapsack, will find its political complement in Germany.

  Adolf Hitler

  Memorable, Order, Names

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• All behavior involves conscious or unconscious selection of particular actions out of all those which are physically possible to the actor and to those persons over whom he exercises influence and authority.

  Herbert Simon

  Exercise, Actors, Action

  Herbert Alexander Simon (1947). “Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-making Processes in Administrative Organization”

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• While no rigorous proof of an optimal strategy has been achieved, Robbins has proposed the principal of "staying on a winner" and has shown it to be uniformly better than a strategy of random selection.

  Richard Arnold Epstein

  Winner, Strategy, Proof

  "The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic". Book by Richard Arnold Epstein, 1977.

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• There are no wild, seedless watermelons. There's no wild cows... You list all the fruit, and all the vegetables, and ask yourself, is there a wild counterpart to this? If there is, it's not as large, it's not as sweet, it's not as juicy, and it has way more seeds in it. We have systematically genetically modified all the foods, the vegetables and animals that we have eaten ever since we cultivated them. It's called artificial selection.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Sweet, Animal, Vegetables

  "Neil deGrasse Tyson Tells GMO Critics to 'Chill Out'". Interview with Chris Mooney, www.motherjones.com. July 30, 2014.

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• Natural selection is a theory of local adaptation to changing environments. It proposes no perfecting principles, no guarantee of general improvement

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Principles, Guarantees, Changing Environment

  Stephen Jay Gould (1992). “Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History”, p.45, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation forthe existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Eye, Sight

  The Blind Watchmaker ch. 1 (1986) See Paley 3

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• I believe-and human psychologists, particularly psychoanalysts should test this-that present-day civilized man suffers from insufficient discharge of his aggressive drive. It is more than probable that the evil effects of the human aggressive drives, explained by Sigmund Freud as the results of a special death wish, simply derive from the fact that in prehistoric times intra-specific selection bred into man a measure of aggression drive for which in the social order today he finds no adequate outlet.

  Konrad Lorenz

  Believe, Men, Order

  KONRAD LORENZ (1963). “ON AGRESSION”

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• I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.

  Charles Darwin

  Men, Expression, Order

  On the Origin of Species, 5th ed., ch. 3 (1869) See Philander Johnson 1; Herbert Spencer 5; Herbert Spencer 6

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• Natural selection is not gene centrist and nor is biology all about genes; our comprehending minds are a result of our fast evolving culture.

  Daniel Dennett

  Mind, Culture, Biology

  "Daniel Dennett: 'I don't like theory of mind'". Interview with Carole Jahme, www.theguardian.com. March 22, 2013.

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• Are you aware that your spirit needs to be fed? Did you know that your spirit would be delighted to partake in a feast of spiritual food? How about a plate full of prayer? Or maybe a few hours of succulent self-reflection. Perhaps a piping-hot selection of spiritual literature, served by the side of a lake or under a tree, would satisfy your spiritual hunger. Can you imagine feasting for a few hours on spiritually uplifting music? What about some forgiveness à la mode, topped with compassion? You cannot imagine how much your spirit would enjoy it.

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Uplifting, Spiritual, Prayer

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• On the theory of natural selection we can clearly understand the full meaning of that old canon in natural history, “Natura non facit saltum.” This canon, if we look only to the present inhabitants of the world, is not strictly correct, but if we include all those of past times, it must by my theory be strictly true.

  Charles Darwin

  Past, Looks, World

  Charles Darwin (1869). “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”, p.183

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• It is the highest and most legitimate pride of an Englishman to have the letters M.P. written after his name. No selection from the alphabet, no doctorship, no fellowship, be it of ever so learned or royal a society, no knightship,--not though it be of the Garter,--confers so fair an honour.

  Anthony Trollope

  Pride, Names, Letters

  Anthony Trollope (2015). “Can You Forgive Her? (Unabridged): Victorian Classic from the prolific English novelist, known for Chronicles of Barsetshire, The Palliser Novels, The Prime Minister, The Warden, Barchester Towers, Doctor Thorne and Phineas Finn…”, p.339, e-artnow

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