Design in nature is but a concatenation of accidents, culled by natural selection until the result is so beautiful or effective as to seem a miracle of purpose.
Michael PollanTags: natural-selection design-in-nature
...and specimens like this confirmed there had been some kind of divine rule in the universe because no natural selection process was up to the task of creating something like him. This was some god’s, somewhere’s, handiwork.
Nicole WilliamsTags: humor humour evolution creation natural-selection intelligent-design
The facts of variability, of the struggle for existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species problem lay through them, until Darwin and Wallace dispelled the darkness.
Thomas Henry HuxleyTags: science struggle evolution adaptation charles-darwin natural-selection variability alfred-russell-wallace
I'm an Atheist. I don't believe in God, Gods, Godlets or any sort of higher power beyond the universe itself, which seems quite high and powerful enough to me. I don't believe in life after death, channeled chat rooms with the dead, reincarnation, telekinesis or any miracles but the miracle of life and consciousness, which again strike me as miracles in nearly obscene abundance. I believe that the universe abides by the laws of physics, some of which are known, others of which will surely be discovered, but even if they aren't, that will simply be a result, as my colleague George Johnson put it, of our brains having evolved for life on this one little planet and thus being inevitably limited. I'm convinced that the world as we see it was shaped by the again genuinely miraculous, let's even say transcendent, hand of evolution through natural selection.
Natalie AngierTags: science death atheism universe magic atheist evolution natural-selection
It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nature.
Charles DarwinTags: science biology evolution illusion natural-selection harsh struggle-for-life
A deep understanding of Darwinism teaches us to be wary of the easy assumption that design is the only alternative to chance
Richard DawkinsTags: science natural-selection
[E]very major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.
Edward O. WilsonTags: struggle evolution tolerance natural-selection
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
« first previous
Page 3 of 4.
next last »
Data privacy
Imprint
Contact
Diese Website verwendet Cookies, um Ihnen die bestmögliche Funktionalität bieten zu können.