EVOLUTION QUOTES III

quotations about evolution

Evolution is described by John Fiske as "God's way of doing things." Theology also may be described as an attempt to explain God's way of doing things. Thus, to a certain extent the science of evolution and the science of theology have the same ultimate end. Both attempt to furnish an orderly, rational, and self-consistent account of phenomena. The supposed inconsistency between science and religion is really an inconsistency between two sciences. The theologian and the scientist have given different, and to some extent inconsistent, accounts of God's way of doing things. It is important for us to know which account is correct. It is even religiously desirable that we should know, since our understanding of God's influence upon the human soul affects that influence.

LYMAN ABBOTT

The Theology of an Evolutionist


And then there are fossils. Whenever anybody tries to tell me that they believe the Earth was created in seven days, I reach for a fossil and go "Fossil!" And if they keep talking, I throw it just over their head.

LEWIS BLACK

Red, White, and Screwed

Tags: Lewis Black


One touch of Darwin makes the whole world kin.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Back to Methuselah


Man has lost the basic skill of the ape, the ability to scratch its back. Which gave it extraordinary independence, and the liberty to associate for reasons other than the need for mutual back-scratching.

JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Cool Memories


As you evolve, you will make a lot of people uncomfortable. Evolve anyway.

ANONYMOUS


Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.

BARBARA EHRENREICH

The Worst Years of Our Lives


Human beings are so destructive. I sometimes think we're a kind of plague, that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that I sometimes think, maybe that's our function. Maybe every few eons, some animal comes along that kills off the rest of the world, clears the decks, and lets evolution proceed to its next phase.

MICHAEL CRICHTON

The Lost World


Out of the dusk a shadow,
Then a spark;
Out of the cloud a silence,
Then a lark;
Out of the heart a rapture,
Then a pain;
Out of the dead, cold ashes,
Life again.

JOHN BANISTER TABB

Evolution


The evolutionary vision is agnostic in regard to systems in the universe of greater complexity than those of which human beings have clear knowledge. It recognizes aesthetic, moral, and religious ideas and experiences as a species, in this case of mental structures or of images, which clearly interacts with other species in the world's great ecosystem.

KENNETH BOULDING

Ecodynamics: A New Theory of Societal Evolution


Now, science cannot completely exclude the possibility of supernatural explanation. It is possible - though very unlikely - that our whole world is controlled by elves.

JERRY A. COYNE

Why Evolution Is True


It is singular that the theory which--of all those advanced since Newton established the law of gravitation--has given to thoughtful minds the grandest conceptions of Nature and the laws of Nature, should have been, of all theories perhaps ever suggested by man, the most thoroughly misunderstood. There can be no doubt that many who recognize the real significance of the theory of natural development, who know that its influence is by no means limited to biological evolution, but has been felt in the far wider--the infinitely wide--field of cosmical evolution, have been pained by the thought that with the widening of the domain of development, the belief in a power working in and through all things seems to be set on one side in the name of universal evolution.

RICHARD ANTHONY PROCTOR

Mysteries of Time and Space


Evolution is a tinkerer.

FRANCOIS JACOB

"Evolution and Tinkering"


It is curious how there seems to be an instinctive digust in Man for his nearest ancestors and relations. If only Darwin could conscientiously have traced man back to the Elephant or the Lion or the Antelope, how much ridicule and prejudice would have been spared to the doctrine of Evolution.

HAVELOCK ELLIS

Impressions and Comments


Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.

RICHARD DAWKINS

The Greatest Show on Earth


As a historical science, evolution is confirmed by the fact that so many independent lines of evidence converge to its single conclusion. Independent sets of data from geology, paleontology, botany, zoology, herpetology, entomology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, genetics and population genetics, and many other sciences each point to the conclusion that life evolved. This is a convergence of evidence. Creationists can demand "just one fossil transitional form" that shows evolution. But evolution is not proved through a single fossil. It is proved through a convergence of fossils, along with a convergence of genetic comparisons between species, and a convergence of anatomical and physiological comparisons between species, and many other lines of inquiry. For creationists to disprove evolution, they need to unravel all these independent lines of evidence, as well as construct a rival theory that can explain them better than the theory of evolution. They have yet to do so.

MICHAEL SHERMER

Why Darwin Matters


All life is evolving, for evolution is God's law; and man grows slowly and steadily along with the rest.

C. W. LEADBEATER

The Science of the Sacraments


One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.

CHARLES DARWIN

On the Origin of the Species


Evolution is a change from an indefinite, incoherent, homogeneity to a definite, coherent, heterogeneity, through continuous differentiations and integrations.

HERBERT SPENCER

First Principles


I see nothing in the theory of evolution inconsistent with an Almighty Creator and Protector.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

letter to David Brown, Apr. 4, 1874


If it is true that we have sprung from the ape, there are occasions when my own spring appears not to have been very far.

CORNELIA OTIS SKINNER

The Ape in Me