It necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, and of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among many other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition - or the hope - that on this score our position is ever likely to be revised. There is no scientific concept, in any of the sciences, more destructive of anthropocentrism than this one.
Jacques MonodTags: science biology hope fact chance facts observation evidence innovation hypothesis anthropocentrism tests biosphere central-concept
The source of man is in man,and when a man dies,millions of men die in him.
Michael Bassey JohnsonTags: knowledge biology facts know-thyself the-genes what-forms-human
Might one not say that in the chance combination of nature's production, since only those endowed with certain relations of suitability could survive, it is no cause for wonder that this suitability is found in all species that exist today? Chance, one might say, produced an innumerable multitude of individuals; a small number turned out to be constructed in such fashion that the parts of the animal could satisfy its needs; in another, infinitely greater number, there was neither suitability nor order: all of the later have perished; animals without a mouth could not live, others lacking organs for reproduction could not perpetuate themselves: the only ones to have remained are those in which were found order and suitability; and these species, which we see today, are only the smallest part of what blind fate produced.
Pierre-Louis Moreau de MaupertuisTags: science life existence purpose biology nature wonder chance evolution survival innovation natural-selection survival-of-the-fittest blind incredible struggle-for-life
Nature's stern discipline enjoins mutual help at least as often as warfare. The fittest may also be the gentlest.
Theodosius DobzhanskyTags: science biology evolution survival natural-selection genes survival-of-the-fittest altruism gentleness human-evolution
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.
Theodosius DobzhanskyTags: science biology evolution sense evidence natural-selection
In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.
Charles DarwinTags: science biology history light psychology evolution research charles-darwin darwin natural-selection capacity important foundation mental-power origin human-evolution gradation origin-of-man
Chloroplasts bear chlorophyll; they give the green world its color, and they carry out the business of photosynthesis. Around the inside perimeter of each gigantic cell trailed a continuous loop of these bright green dots. They spun . . . they pulsed, pressed, and thronged . . . they shone, they swarmed in ever-shifting files around and around the edge of the cell; they wandered, they charged, they milled, raced . . . they flowed and trooped greenly . . . All the green in the planted world consists of these whole, rounded chloroplasts . . . If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is one hundred thirty-six atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in an exact and complex relationship around a central ring. At the ring’s center is a single atom of magnesium. Now: If you remove the atom of magnesium and in its place put an atom of iron, you get a molecule of hemoglobin. The iron atom combines with all the other atoms to make red blood, the streaming red dots in the goldfish’s tail.
Annie DillardTags: science plant biology nature fact chemistry animal know biochemistry lifeblood page-127-8
I know that certain minds would regard as audacious the idea of relating the laws which preside over the play of our organs to those laws which govern inanimate bodies; but, although novel, this truth is none the less incontestable. To hold that the phenomena of life are entirely distinct from the general phenomena of nature is to commit a grave error, it is to oppose the continued progress of science.
François MagendieTags: life truth error progress biology determinism freedom nature materialism laws idea minds phenomena audacious physiology lack-of-free-will organs
Information and complexity go hand in hand.
Lee SpetnerTags: biology biochemistry biological-complexity random-evolution
It is not always the magnitude of the differences observed between species that must determine specific distinctions, but the constant preservation of those differences in reproduction.
Jean-Baptiste LamarckTags: science biology evolution natural-selection reproduction species
« first previous
Page 16 of 19.
next last »
Data privacy
Imprint
Contact
Diese Website verwendet Cookies, um Ihnen die bestmögliche Funktionalität bieten zu können.