Theory Of Evolution Quotes - Page 4

• Of course the theory of evolution would be vacuous if it offered a glib explanation for every inexplicable act.

  Steven Pinker

  Atheism, Would Be, Vacuous

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• The theory of evolution by natural selection is an ecological theory-founded on ecological observation by perhaps the greatest of all ecologists. It has been adopted by and brought up by the science of genetics, and ecologists, being modest people, are apt to forget their distinguished parenthood.

  John L. Harper

  Science, People, Parenthood

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• Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory it supported by no facts at all.

  Herbert Spencer

  Wisdom, Facts, Forget

  Herbert Spencer (1858). “Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative”, p.389

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• I am a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect, and I believe it should be presented in schools alongside the theories of evolution.

  Rick Perry

  Believe, School, Intelligent

  "2010 The Vote: K-12 Education". San Angelo Times, September 11, 2010.

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• Some claim evolution is just a theory. As if it were merely an opinion. The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact. Evolution really happened. Accepting our kinship with all life on Earth is not only solid science. In my view, it’s also a soaring spiritual experience.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Spiritual, Views, Cosmos

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• In the theory of evolution there is no talk of God and no Bibles are used. They're not looking for higher powers, extraterrestrials, or anything else that could be found in the science fiction section, because they are not dealing with fiction.

  Henry Rollins

  Fiction, Used, Found

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• New knowledge has led to the recognition in the theory of evolution of more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.

  Pope John Paul II

  Discovery, Religion, Atheism

  "Popeular Science" by Phil Plait, www.slate.com. October 29, 2014.

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• Morphological information has provided the greatest single source of data in the formulation and development of the theory of evolution and that even now, when the preponderance of work is experimental, the basis for interpretation in many areas of study remains the form and relationships of structures.

  Everett C. Olson

  Science, Data, Development

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• A complete theory of evolution must acknowledge a balance between "external" forces of environment imposing selection for local adaptation and "internal" forces representing constraints of inheritance and development. Vavilov placed too much emphasis on internal constraints and downgraded the power of selection. But Western Darwinians have erred equally in practically ignoring (while acknowledging in theory) the limits placed on selection by structure and development what Vavilov and the older biologists would have called "laws of form.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Law, Balance, Inheritance

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History”, p.144, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually, as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

  Jacques Monod

  Mean, Thinking, People

  "Evolution". Book edited by Mark Ridley, p. 389, 1997.

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• Creationists reject Darwin's theory of evolution on the grounds that it is "just a theory". This is a valid criticism: evolution is indeed merely "a theory", albeit one with ten billion times more credence than the theory of creationism - although, to be fair, the theory of creationism is more than just a theory. It's also a fairy story. And children love fairy stories, which is presumably why so many creationists are keen to have their whimsical gibberish taught in schools.

  Charlie Brooker

  Children, School, Fairy Stories

  "When it comes to psychics, my stance is hardcore: they must die alone in windowless cells" by Charlie Brooker, www.theguardian.com. December 3, 2006.

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• Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of all life wherever it may turn up in the universe.

  John Maynard Smith

  May, Facts, Natural

  John Maynard Smith (1993). “The Theory of Evolution”, p.15, Cambridge University Press

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• Essential to the theory of evolution is the premise that everything has come into being by itself.

  Unknown

  Aquariums, Essentials, Premises

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• Aristotle especially, both by speculation and observation... reached something like the modern idea of a succession of higher organizations from lower, and made the fruitful suggestion of "a perfecting principle" in Nature. With the coming in of Christian theology this tendency toward a yet truer theory of evolution was mainly stopped, but the old crude view remained.

  Andrew Dickson White

  Christian, Views, Organization

  Andrew Dickson White (2012). “A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom: From Creation to the Victory of Scientific and Literary Methods”, p.52, Transaction Publishers

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• I have always been slightly suspicious of the theory of evolution because of its ability to account for any property of living beings (the long neck of the giraffe, for example). I have therefore tried to see whether biological discoveries over the last thirty years or so fit in with Darwin's theory. I do not think that they do. To my mind, the theory does not stand up at all.

  Henry Lipson

  Thinking, Discovery, Years

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• I think it's a theory... the theory of evolution and I don't accept it as a theory.

  Ron Paul

  Thinking, Accepting, Evolution

  "Ron Paul: I don't accept the theory of evolution", www.cbsnews.com. August 29, 2011.

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• Some people would claim that things like love, joy and beauty belong to a different category from science and can't be described in scientific terms, but I think they can now be explained by the theory of evolution.

  Stephen Hawking

  Thinking, Like Love, People

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• Darwin's theory of evolution is the last of the great nineteenth-century mystery religions. And as we speak it is now following Freudians and Marxism into the Nether regions, and I'm quite sure that Freud, Marx and Darwin are commiserating one with the other in the dark dungeon where discarded gods gather.

  David Berlinski

  Dark, Lasts, Dungeons

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• 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, Doe, Records

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

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