Theory Of Evolution Quotes

Our archaeological ancestry lost hair while growing sweat glands to reduce panting in the hot African sun. One outcome evolved the origin of our speech. Another conquered our ability to shut the hell up and listen. Now? Politicians grunting "On the Origin of Speeches" past one another.

Darwin caused controversy, not merely because his ideas contradicted Genesis, but because they fell foul of the way in which Genesis had been read by those influenced by the Enlightenment, for it was the Enlightenment that conceived of the human as almost exclusively rational and intellectual, and set the human at a distance from the animal.

The sense of alienation that inspires wonder, awe and fear in us is enough of a proof that life does not belong to the planet Earth.

I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has.

Malcolm Muggeridge

Darwin's theory was received in Russia with profound sympathy. While in Western Europe it met firmly established old traditions which it had first to overcome, in Russia its appearance coincided with the awakening of our society after the Crimean War and here it immediately received the status of full citizenship and ever since has enjoyed widespread popularity.

Vladimir Onufrievich Kovalevskiĭ

Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles.

James D. Watson

The textbook in question in the infamous Scope's Monkey Trial was partially written by the Harvard educated white supremacist, Charles B. Davenport.

it is high time we stop using the term “theory” while mentioning Evolution. The term “theory” somehow makes some people think of Evolution as an unproven “hypothesis”. Theory of Evolution is an incontrovertible fact of science. It is not a fictitious story like Creationism. It’s a hard reality. It is the bed-rock of Biology. Defying evolution means defying one’s own existence as a human being.

Who gave the decisive deathblow to the argument from design on the basis of biological complexity? Both philosophers and biologists are divided on this point (Oppy 1996; Dawkins 1986; Sober 2008). Some have claimed that the biological design argument did not falter until Darwin provided a proper naturalistic explanation for adaptive complexity; others maintain that David Hume had already shattered the argument to pieces by sheer logical force several decades earlier, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Hume 2007 [1779]). Elliott Sober has been among the philosophers who maintain that, as Hume was not in a position to offer a serious alternative explanation of adaptive complexity, it is hardly surprising that 'intelligent people strongly favored the design hypothesis' (Sober 2000, 36). In his most recent book, however, Sober (2008) carefully develops what he thinks is the most charitable reconstruction of the design argument, and proceeds to show why it is defective for intrinsic reasons (for earlier version of this argument, see Sober 1999, 2002). Sober argues that the design argument can be rejected even without the need to consider alternative explanations for adaptive complexity (Sober 2008, 126): 'To see why the design argument is defective, there is no need to have a view as to whether Darwin’s theory of evolution is true' (Sober 2008, 154).