Popular quotes about Evolution! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 50
You know, Darwin said through natural selection things go gradually, and he was talking about pigeon's evolution or horses evolving, getting faster. But in fact if you look at evolution on a bigger scale, cosmic evolution and you look at culture evolution you see it jumps, it goes through phase changes, and that's very exciting.
Charles JencksAs the haves and have-nots split further and further apart, destabilization ultimately leads to revolution, not evolution. If we're playing the evolution vs. revolution game, we are closer to revolution than we are to evolution in my concept.
Ram DassIn the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual.
Douglas J. FutuymaI do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That's why we've got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.
Kurt VonnegutThe requirements for our evolution have changed. Survival is no longer sufficient. Our evolution now requires us to develop spiritually-to become emotionally aware and make responsible choices. It requires us to align ourselves with the values of the soul-harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for life.
Gary ZukavThe evolution of the cosmos invokes in me a sense of mystery; the increase in biodiversity invokes the response of humility; and an understanding of the evolution of death offers me helpful ways to think about my own death.
Ursula GoodenoughWe are the climactic generation of human cultural evolution, and in the microcosm of our lives the macrocosm of the evolution of the human race is playing itself out.
William Irwin ThompsonEvolution has just been dealt its death blow. After reading Origins of Life with my background in chemistry and physics, it is clear that biological evolution could not have occurred.
Richard SmalleyFor every human illness, somewhere in the world there exists a plant which is the cure. I believe that there is a healing potential locked inside plants which is integral with their evolution, just as it is part of human evolution to learn to tap this wonderful gift of Nature.
Rudolf SteinerIn the evolution of knowledge-mistaken and unnecessary beliefs are forced out and supplanted by truer and more necessary knowledge. So too in the evolution of feelings, which takes place by means of art. Lower feelings-less kind and less needed for the good of humanity-are forced out and replaced by kinder feelings which better serve us individually and collectively. This is the purpose of art.
Leo TolstoyAt one point I intended to write precursor and sequel novels, about the establishment of the Web and its next evolution, but I am very unlikely to now; they would take place in a different universe.
John M. FordThis is actually a very important principle that science is learning about large systems like evolution and that futurists are learning about anticipating human society: just because a future scenario is plausible doesn't mean we can get there from here.
Kevin KellyProtecting our future on this planet depends on the conscious evolution of our species.
Leonardo DiCaprioIn contrast to creation, Darwinism does not have a single piece of evidence demonstrating the theory of evolution. Its proponents don't have any fossil evidence, of the kind which they should be able to put forward.
Harun YahyaThe first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.
Albert SchweitzerHigher states of awareness is a by product of mental development and conscious evolution.
Bryan KestPeople have a hard time accepting free-market economics for the same reason they have a hard time accepting evolution: it is counterintuitive. Life looks intelligently designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that there must be an intelligent designer--a God. Similarly, the economy looks designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that we need a designer--a government. In fact, emergence and complexity theory explains how the principles of self-organization and emergence cause complex systems to arise from simple systems without a top-down designer.
Michael ShermerWe don't have a revolution, and we don't have the time for evolution, where does it come from? It must come from some kind of shared experience that everybody agrees with.
Howard RheingoldWilliam Henry Flower the Anglican too praised evolution as a cleansing solvent, dissolving the dross which had 'encrusted' Christianity 'in the days of ignorance and superstition'.
Adrian DesmondBy the time of the Singularity, there won't be a distinction between humans and technology. This is not because humans will have become what we think of as machines today, but rather machines will have progressed to be like humans and beyond. Technology will be the metaphorical opposable thumb that enables our next step in evolution.
Ray KurzweilThe likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is 1 to a number with 40,000 noughts after it (1040,000).... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.
Fred HoyleA spiritual partnership is a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth. Nothing like this archetype has existed before because nothing like this was required before in the human experience. And spiritual partnerships can be created in a biological family, they can be created among friends, they can be created in the workplace, they can be created anywhere that two or more individuals are committed to their own spiritual evolution and are striving to relate to each other as equals.
Gary ZukavIt should soon be possible dramatically to increase the intelligence and life span of a few individuals. They and their offspring could become a master race. Evolution pays no regard to social justice. It was not fair on the Neanderthals they were replaced by modern humans.
Stephen HawkingMammals are sentient beings that want to live and are afraid to die. Evolution vouchsafed us all with an instinct to survive, reproduce and flourish.
Michael ShermerNo human mind may measure the blessings conferred by the game of base ball on the soldiers of the Civil War. It had its earliest evolution when soldiers, North and South, were striving to forget their foes by cultivating, through this grand game, fraternal friendships with comrades in arms.
Albert Goodwill SpaldingThis is a living planet. Look around. Mars, Venus, Jupiter. Look beyond our solar system. Where else is there a place that works, that is just right for the likes of us? It has not happened just instantly. It is vulnerable to our actions. But it's the result of four and a half billion years of evolution, of change over time. And it changes every day, all the time. It would be in our interest to try to maintain a certain level of stability that has enabled us to prosper, to not wreck the very systems that give us life.
Sylvia EarleI'm saying that we should trust our intuition. I believe that the principles of universal evolution are revealed to us through intuition. And I think that if we combine our intuition and our reason, we can respond in an evolutionary sound way to our problems.
Jonas SalkNew Rule: Stop asking Miss USA contestants if they believe in evolution. Itโs not their field. Itโs like asking Stephen Hawking if he believes in hair scrunchies. Hereโs what they know about: spray tans, fake boobs and baton twirling. Hereโs what they donโt know about: everything else. If I cared about the uninformed opinions of some ditsy beauty queen, Iโd join the Tea Party.
Bill MaherThe talent for self-justification is surely the finest flower of human evolution, the greatest achievement of the human brain. When it comes to justifying actions, every human being acquires the intelligence of an Einstein, the imagination of a Shakespeare, and the subtlety of a Jesuit.
Michael FoleyThere are a lot of guys out there with skills who have not contributed to the evolution of the instrument. It's about more than that...it's an emotive language, an aesthetic. Skill is an aspect, but it's what you do with that skill, or say with that skill, that matters.
Vinnie ColaiutaMesarovic and Pestel are critical of the Forrester-Meadows world view, which is that of a homogeneous system with a fully predetermined evolution in time once the initial conditions are specified.
Donella MeadowsI think that's what makes life interesting - the evolution of getting older, and it's kinda fascinating to me, the whole process.
Alexis BledelI do believe in this evolution of consciousness as the only thing which we can embark on, or in fact, willy-nilly, are embarked on; and along with that will go the spiritual discoveries and, I feel, the inexhaustible wonder that one feels, that opens more and more the more you know. It's simply that this increasing knowledge constantly enlarges your kingdom and the capacity for admiring and loving the universe.
Conrad AikenPlasticity is an intrinsic property of the human brain and represents evolution's invention to enable the nervous system to escape the restrictions of its own genome and thus adapt to environmental pressures, physiologic changes, and experiences.
Philippa PerryEvolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.
Arthur KeithThe point of Jesus' existence wasn't to lessen or diminish our appreciation of each other, but to expand our appreciation of each other by reminding us what lies within all of us, because Jesus was an example of the pinnacle of human evolution.
Marianne WilliamsonCreationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life-yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammarabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.
Michael ShermerThe evolution of a highly destined society must be moral; it must run in the grooves of the celestial wheels.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe two-party system has served America very well. We always have political movements one way or another but the evolution of a lasting third party probably will not happen.
Dan QuayleEach of these [bacterial] species are masterpieces of evolution. Each has persisted for thousands to millions of years. Each is exquisitely adapted to the environment in which it lives, interlocked with other species to form ecosystems upon which our own lives depend in ways we have not begun even to imagine.
E. O. WilsonIt gives evolutionary biologists great status if they champion competition and the economists have to consult them. The economists have to consult the evolutionary biologists, because they are the ones who invented the idea of competition. It comes from the field of evolution.
Greg Graffin