Lynn Margulis Quotes

All I claimed was that when a drastic change occurs, it occurs in a relatively small and isolated population.

Indeed, I was unable to find any evidence whatsoever of the occurrence of a drastic evolutionary acceleration and genetic reconstruction in widespread, populous species.

I know there is a difference between adaption and evolution.

Evolution is a tinkerer.

The theory of founder effects does not explain how novel features like plumage traits arise.

We find all kinds of species that have taken up a second chromosome or a third one from somewhere, adding thousands of new traits in a second to that species. So, people who think of evolution as just one gene changing at a time have missed much of biology.

That natural selection can produce changes within a type is disputed by no one, not even the staunchest creationist. But that it can transform one species into another — that, in fact, has never been observed.

I think nobody would claim that random genetic drift is capable of producing adaptation, that is to say the illusion of design. Random genetic drift can't produce wings that are good at flying, or eyes that are good at seeing, or legs that are good at running. But random genetic drift probably is very important in driving evolution at the molecular genetic level.

There are good reasons why natural selection has become widely accepted as an explanation of evolutionary development. When applied to mammals and other large animals, it fits perfectly. But we cannot assume that all evolutionary steps arise from selection, particularly when looking at smaller animals.

Jumping genes are fundamental because they're agents of change. Everybody knows that organisms evolve. What makes them evolve is that their genes are dynamic and in motion. A familiar example is the stripe-y corn - called Indian corn - that you buy in the fall.

As a consequence, geneticists described evolution simply as a change in gene frequencies in populations, totally ignoring the fact that evolution consists of the two simultaneous but quite separate phenomena of adaptation and diversification.

The concept of evolution postulates that living organisms have common roots, and in turn, the existence of common features is powerful support for the concept of evolution.

With evolution, things are always changing, so I sort of think: Should we all be growing three heads?

Darwin's theory of evolution is a framework by which we understand the diversity of life on Earth. But there is no equation sitting there in Darwin's 'Origin of Species' that you apply and say, 'What is this species going to look like in 100 years or 1,000 years?' Biology isn't there yet with that kind of predictive precision.

The stupendous time spans of the evolutionary past are now part of common culture (though maybe not in the United States Bible Belt, nor in parts of the Islamic world). Most people are at ease with the idea that our present biosphere is the outcome of four billion years of Darwinian evolution.

The process of speciation is completed with the cessation of genetic exchange.

Organisms by their design are not made to adapt too far.

At a minimum, in explaining evolutionary pathways through time, the constraints imposed by history rise to equal prominence with the immediate advantages of adaptation.

Essential to the theory of evolution is the premise that everything has come into being by itself.

Evolution - evolutionary change - does not happen quickly.

Where do we say that a cell became a blade of grass, which became a starfish, which became a cat, which became a donkey, which became a human being? There's a real lack of evidence from change from actual species to a different type of species.

The proof of evolution lies in those adaptations that arise from improbable foundations.

All scientists agree that evolution has occurred - that all life comes from a common ancestry, that there has been extinction, and that new taxa, new biological groups, have arisen. The question is, is natural selection enough to explain evolution? Is it the driver of evolution?

I did not claim that speciation occurs only in founder populations.

The major novelty of my theory was its claim that the most rapid evolutionary change does not occur in widespread, populous species, as claimed by Most geneticists, but in small founder populations.