Charles Darwin Quotes

In October, 1838, … I happened to read for amusement Malthus on population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long continuous observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work

Agricultural practice served Darwin as the material basis for the elaboration of his theory of Evolution, which explained the natural causation of the adaptation we see in the structure of the organic world. That was a great advance in the knowledge of living nature.

It at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed.

I'm here as a product of process of evolution, which doesn't make very many exceptions. And which rates life relatively cheaply.

Evolution is one of the two or three most primally fascinating subjects in all the sciences.

I think Darwinism as a theory explaining evolution within species is incredibly brilliant - just unbelievably, incredibly brilliant.

Biology is the science. Evolution is the concept that makes biology unique.

As Darwin himself was at pains to point out, natural selection is all about differential survival within species, not between them.

Is there a better example of natural selection in action than 'Project Runway?'

Biologically the species is the accumulation of the experiments of all its successful individuals since the beginning.

All animals undergo perpetual transformations; which are in part produced by their own exertions... and many of these acquired forms or propensities are transmitted to their posterity.

The elementary particles which form the embryo are each drawn from the corresponding structure in the parent, and conserve a sort of remembrance of their previous form, so that in the offspring they will reflect and reproduce a resemblance to the parents ... We can thus readily explain how new species are formed... by supposing that the elementary particles may not always retain the order which they present in the parents, but may fortuitously produce differences, which, multiplying and accumulating, have resulted in the infinite variety of species which we see at the present time.

I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to show why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct species by descent from some lower from, through the laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction.

Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability

Darwinism is not an established scientific fact. It is a theory of evolution, that's why it's called the theory of evolution.

The reason for natural selection's great success is that it provides a satisfying explanation of how evolution might have occurred: individual organisms vary, and if those variations are inherited, the successful ones will survive and propagate and pass down their desirable traits to succeeding generations.

It was a shock to people of the nineteenth century when they discovered, from observations science had made, that many features of the biological world could be ascribed to the elegant principle of natural selection.

In the game of life, less diversity means fewer options for change. Wild or domesticated, panda or pea, adaptation is the requirement for survival.

First, Darwinian theory tells us how a certain amount of diversity in life forms can develop once we have various types of complex living organisms already in existence.

The first and most important reason for its elimination is the unquestioned fact that evolution is not a science; it is a hypothesis only, a speculation.

Whatever the life form, evolution selects for economy of resources.

Nature favors those organisms which leave the environment in better shape for their progeny to survive.

Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create.

You can't even begin to understand biology, you can't understand life, unless you understand what it's all there for, how it arose - and that means evolution.

Darwin based his theory on generalizations that were strictly empirical. You can go out and see that organisms do vary, that variations are inherited, and that every organism is capable of increasing its numbers in sufficiently favorable circumstances.