Popular quotes about Evolution! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 68
Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion - a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint - ...and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it - the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution today.
Michael RuseYou 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 JencksWe see not only thought as participating in evolution as an anomaly or as an epiphenomenon; but evolution as so reducible to and identifiable with a progress towards thought that the movement of our souls expresses and measures the very stages of progress of evolution itself. Man discovers that he is nothing else than evolution become conscious of itself.
Pierre Teilhard de ChardinI speak about universal evolution and teleological evolution, because I think the process of evolution reflects the wisdom of nature. I see the need for wisdom to become operative. We need to try to put all of these things together in what I call an evolutionary philosophy of our time.
Jonas SalkEvolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.
Michael RuseSome claim evolution is just a theory. As if it were merely an opinion. The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact. Evolution really happened. Accepting our kinship with all life on Earth is not only solid science. In my view, itโs also a soaring spiritual experience.
Neil deGrasse TysonEven if it were true that evolution, or the teaching of evolution, encouraged immorality that would not imply that the theory of evolution was false.
Richard DawkinsDarwinan evolution is limited to the biological aspect but before that happened the molecules themselves had to evolve to enable this further (biological) evolution.
Jean-Marie LehnWe can move no faster than the evolution of our language, and this is certainly part of what the psychedelics are about: they force the evolution of language.
Terence McKennaI 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 VonnegutI believe in the theory of evolution, but I believe as well in the allegorical truth of creation theory. In other words, I believe that evolution, including the principle of natural selection, is one of the tools used by God to create mankind. Mankind is then a participant in the creation of the universe itself, so that we have a closed loop. I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor are mutually compatible.
Christopher LanganHe always reminded us that every atom in our bodies was once part of a distant star that had exploded. He talked about how evolution moves from simplicity toward complexity, and how human intelligence is the highest known expression of evolution. I remember him telling me that a frog's brain is much more complex than a star. He saw human consciousness as the first neuron of the universe coming to life and awareness. A spark in the darkness, waiting to spread to fire.
Greg IlesConventional sports have undergone an evolution in training methods during the last fifty years. Curiosity and the inherent improvement brought about by competition have driven this evolution to a state of high refinement such that today's athletes have a very specialized approach to training at the elite levels.
Steve HouseYoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one's being, from bodily health to self realization. Yoga means union - the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day to day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions.
B.K.S. IyengarEvolution 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 SmalleyI've written almost 200 songs with Bad Religion. No matter where you look in our history, the focus has been trying to instill some of these disturbing realities about the world, some of the implications of evolution into an artistic format that can be interpreted by people who may never study evolution.
Greg GraffinI feel like my music has become a lot of things. It's hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.
Taylor SwiftOne reason education undoes belief is its teaching of evolution; Darwin's own drift from orthodoxy to agnosticism was symptomatic. Martin Lings is probably right in saying that more cases of loss of religious faith are to be traced to the theory of evolution ... than to anything else.
Huston SmithIt's like in biological evolution: The population will evolve, even though individuals can't. The same thing happens in the corporate world: The population of business units within corporations evolves, even though individual business units can't. That's because the capabilities of business units reside in their processes and their values, and by their very nature, processes and values are inflexible and meant not to change.
Clayton ChristensenNowhere was Darwin able to point to one bona fide case of natural selection having actually generated evolutionary change in nature....Ultimately, the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century.
Michael DentonWhere you can see tribal behavior now is in this business about teaching evolution in a science class and intelligent design. It's the scientists themselves are behaving tribally.
Kurt VonnegutThe pressure was always there, but I feel like it was almost invisible to me. I had too much going on once I got rolling with Evolution and won my first title. They say the cream rises to the top, and I felt like the cream. I rose to the top real quick, and I was surrounded by Triple H, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, these guys who were very well respected in the profession, and they wanted to work with me.
Randy OrtonThe vast majority of beings who incarnate on this planet are at the stage of their evolution where power is the dominant theme. They are learning about power. That is why we live in a world where there are so many wars and so much destruction.
Frederick LenzFifty years from now if an understanding of man's origins, his evolution, his history, his progress is not in the common place of the school books we shall not exist.
Jacob BronowskiThis 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 KellyThe atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should guard against the encroachment of religion in areas where it has no place, and in particular the control of education by religious authority. The attempts to ban the teaching of evolution or other scientific theories -- a feeble echo of medieval church tyranny and hostility to learning, but an echo nonetheless are serious threats to freedom of inquiry and should be vigorously combated.
S. T. JoshiEssential to the theory of evolution is the premise that everything has come into being by itself.
UnknownThis week, Georgia's board of education approved a plan that allows teachers to keep using the word Evolution when teaching biology. Though, as a compromise, dinosaurs are now called Jesus Horses.
Jimmy FallonWe on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.
Carl SaganMetaphysics of Evolution: What is Matter & Life? 'Recent discoveries from Russia confirm that DNA / Genes are resonant structures which are subtly interconnected to their environment. i.e. Genetic material can be manipulated by waves with certain resonant frequencies.'
Alan HaselhurstMy teenage freinds when I was growing up, they have no idea that I attained liberation but I help them. They don't need to know. I can send them energy and light and help them in their evolution.
Frederick LenzThe old must pass away. It has served its purpose in the cycles of evolution and must now make way for a new, more expanded and more fruitful manifestation.
David SpanglerWhy is it so painful to watch a person sink? Because there is something unnatural in it, for nature demands personal progress, evolution, and every backward step means wasted energy.
August StrindbergMan is a megalomaniac among animals-if he sees mountains he will try to imitate them by pyramids, and if he sees some grand process like evolution, and thinks it would be at all possible for him to be in on that game, he would irreverently have to have his whack at that too. That daring megalomania of his-has it not brought him to his present place?
Jacques LoebNothing is more clear than that Christ cannot be explained by any humanistic system. He does not fit into any theory of natural evolution, for in that case the perfect flower of humanity should have appeared at the end of human history and not in the middle of it.
Loraine BoettnerReincarnation is a cyclic process. There are endless levels of creation, different universes. In each one something similar is taking place, the evolution of spirit through matter.
Frederick LenzI do not want to believe in God. Therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation leading to evolution.
George WaldYou have the need and the right to spend part of your life caring for your soul. It is not easy. You have to resist the demands of the work-oriented, often defensive, element in your psyche that measures life only in terms of output - how much you produce - not in terms of the quality of your life experiences. To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution.
Jean Shinoda BolenMy space chums think my unique hookup with humanity could be evolution's awkward attempt to jump-start itself up again. They're thinking just maybe, going crazy could be the evolutionary process trying to hurry up mind expansion. Maybe my mind didn't snap. Maybe it was just trying to stretch itself into a new shape. The cerebral cortex trying to grow a thumb of sorts.
Lily TomlinAs a species, taking all in all, we are still too young, too juvenile, to be trusted. We have spread across the face of the earth in just a few thousand years, no time at all as evolution clocks time, covering all livable parts of the planet, endangering other forms of life, and now threatening ourselves.
Lewis ThomasAnytime that knowledge and a version of the truth are considered to be absolute, fundamentalism is the result, whether the arena is Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any other religious faith, as well as atheism, conservative or liberal political views, even evolution or intelligent design. Anytime our minds are closed and there is no room for dissent, we are on a slippery slope towards stagnation.
Carlton PearsonThe failure of the Reformation to capture France had left for Frenchmen no half-way house between infallibility and infidelity; and while the intellect of Germany and England moved leisurely in the lines of religious evolution, the mind of France leaped from the hot faith which had massacred the Huguenots to the cold hostility with which La Mettrie, Helvetius, Holbach, and Diderot turned upon the religion of the fathers.
Will DurantThe history of totalitarian regimes is reflected in the evolution and perfection of the instruments of terror and more especially the police.
Carl Joachim FriedrichNext to the word 'Nature,' 'the Great Chain of Being' was the sacred phrase of the eighteenth century, playing a part somewhat analogous to that of the blessed word 'evolution' in the late nineteenth.
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy