Clifford D. Simak Quotes

Just as it had taken centuries to determine the true nature of the universe, so also the search for the beginning of human life proceeded well into the 20th century.

You see, every creature alive on the earth today represents an unbroken line of life that stretches back to the first primitive organism to appear on this planet; and that is about three billion years.

As you know, the fossil record includes not only the ancestors of crocodiles and whales, but also the ancestors of human beings. And this, of course, is why evolution remains controversial.

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

Probably all organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.

Darwin begins by assuming life upon the earth; the Bible reveals the source of life and chronicles its creation.

People are still very uncomfortable with the idea that humans are not specially created species. I believe we are a fantastic species. But we are not created specially. That's very hard for people to accept in their day-to-day routine.

It's not going to fill in the potholes. It's not going to put a roof over people's heads. What it does is it helps to address really fundamental questions of who we are, where we came from, by which I mean we can learn how life came about.

Evolution isn't true, because if we evolved from monkeys, how can they still be here?

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

Whether conservative or liberal, fundamentalist or agnostic, the more students learn of biology, the more they accept evolution.

When I went to high school in Australia, I was exposed to textbooks that outlined evolutionary ideas - such as ape-like creatures turning into people. I recognized the conflict between evolutionary ideas and a literal reading of the book of Genesis.

I encourage people who don't believe in evolution to look for horses in Jurassic Solenhofen limestone.

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?

And, you know, the fact is, if you believe in evolution, we all have a common ancestor, and we all have a common ancestry with the plant in the lobby. This is what evolution tells us. And, it's true. It's kind of unbelievable.

No single discovery from any of these fields denotes proof of evolution, but together they reveal that life evolved in a certain sequence by a particular process.

I want some fact-based evidence about where we came from. Things we consider mysterious need not be attributed to a deity.

The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.

The theory of evolution is totally inadequate to explain the origin and manifestation of the inorganic world.

By the age of 11, I was no longer going to Sunday Mass, and going on birdwatching walks with my father. So early on, I heard of Charles Darwin. I guess, you know, he was the big hero. And, you know, you understand life as it now exists through evolution.

If you go far enough back, your genome connects you with bacteria, butterflies, and barracuda - the great chain of being linked together through DNA.

Fresh knowledge leads to recognition of the theory of evolution as more than just a hypothesis.

I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.

You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in evolution. The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in evolution.

Every creature that lives climbs up its own genealogical tree before it reaches its mature condition. All animals living, or that ever have lived, are united together by blood relationship of varying nearness or remoteness, and every animal now in existence has a pedigree stretching back, not merely for ten or a hundred generations, but through all geologic time since life first commenced on the earth.