#darwin

Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#causation #cause-and-effect #chance #darwinism #inspirational

Biology has progressed tremendously due to the model that Darwin put forth. But the black boxes Darwin accepted are now being opened, and our view of the world is again being shaken. ↗

— Michael Behe

#again #being #biology #black #boxes

We're trying to run a 21st century society and economy with 19th century Darwinian, competitive, crude ideas. ↗

— Susan George

#21st century #century #competitive #crude #darwinian

But, as we have before been led to remark, most of Mr. Darwin's statements elude, by their vagueness and incompleteness, the test of Natural History facts. ↗

— Richard Owen

#before #darwin #elude #facts #history

Mr. Darwin contributes some striking and ingenious instances of the way in which the principle partially affects the chain, or rather network of life, even to the total obliteration of certain meshes. ↗

— Richard Owen

#certain #chain #contributes #darwin #even

Mr. Darwin refers to the multitude of the individual of every species, which, from one cause or another, perish either before, or soon after attaining maturity. ↗

— Richard Owen

#another #attaining #before #cause #darwin

Finally, from what we now know about the cosmos, to think that all this was created for just one species among the tens of millions of species who live on one planet circling one of a couple of hundred billion stars that are located in one galaxy among hundreds of billions of galaxies, all of which are in one universe among perhaps an infinite number of universes all nestled within a grand cosmic multiverse, is provincially insular and anthropocentrically blinkered. Which is more likely? That the universe was designed just for us, or that we see the universe as having been designed just for us? ↗

— Michael Shermer

#creation #darwinism #galaxies #intelligent-design #multiverse

If theft is advantageous to everyone who succeeds at it, and adultery is a good strategy, at least for males, for increasing presence in the gene pool, why do we feel they are wrong? Shouldn't the only morality that evolution produces be the kind Bill Clinton had - being sorry you got caught? ↗

— Robert J. Sawyer

#darwinism #evolution #infidelity #macro-evolution #macroevolution

The idea that one can go to the fossil record and expect to empirically recover an ancestor-descendant sequence, be it of species, genera, families, or whatever, has been, and continues to be, a pernicious illusion. ↗

— Gareth J. Nelson

#darwin #darwinism #evolution #fossil-record #fossils

How can we find spiritual meaning in a scientific worldview? Spirituality is a way of being in the world, a sense of one’s place in the cosmos, a relationship to that which extends beyond oneself. . . . Does scientific explanation of the world diminish its spiritual beauty? I think not. Science and spirituality are complementary, not conflicting; additive, not detractive. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades. (158-159) ↗

— Michael Shermer

#darwinism #evolution #intelligent-design #science #spirituality