#confessions

In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. For evolutionary biology is a historical science, laden with history's inevitable imponderables. We evolutionary biologists cannot generate a Cretaceous Park to observe exactly what killed the dinosaurs; and, unlike "harder" scientists, we usually cannot resolve issues with a simple experiment, such as adding tube A to tube B and noting the color of the mixture. ↗

— Jerry A. Coyne

#confessions-of-the-darwinists #conjecture #darwin #darwinism #darwinist-confessions

Genetics might be adequate for explaining microevolution, but microevolutionary changes in gene frequency were not seen as able to turn a reptile into a mammal or to convert a fish into an amphibian. Microevolution looks at adaptations that concern the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest... The origin of species — Darwin’s problem — remains unsolved. ↗

— Scott F. Gilbert

#confessions-of-the-darwinists #darwin #darwinism #darwinist-confessions #evolution

Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened. ↗

— Amy Bloom

#memory #nostalgia #nostalgia

Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing. ↗

— Hannah Arendt

#best #collective #confessions #crime #discovery