Charles Darwin Quotes
What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!
Darwin, Charles. More Letters of Charles Darwin. Edited by Francis Darwin and A. C. Seward, vol. 1, John Murray, 1903, p. 94.
He was commenting on the seemingly brilliant designs of organisms that evolution has brought about, so sophisticated, that planners could hardly have conceived of them. His point is that those organisms are the great successes which the failures have become extinct and the moderate successes have constantly gotten better.
The Pope went on to state that Evolution was consistent with Roman Catholic doctrine, changing a position that had been taken by the Catholic Church and many fundamental protestant denominations. A few actually still reject evolution even after all the evidence and proof of the basic Darwinian theses. There is nothing in evolution that per se denies the existence of God or even that God created the universe and the mechanism of evolution. That is why the Catholic Church and so many Protestant Churches, Judaism, Buddhists, and so many other religions have no theological problem with evolution. Those religious groups who have difficulty with evolution are those fundamentalists (Protestants, Jewish and Muslims) who believe in the literal truth of Holy Scripture. They also assume that God designed each particular plant or animal species. Other religions hold that it was God who created the mechanism of evolution and that is how all the species developed and are developing today. Some religious evolutionists believe that evolution is God’s mechanism for perfecting man.
Laymen look at nature fondly and personify “Mother Nature” as kindly and beneficent. However, scientists have a more dispassionate view of nature and see it as a combination of forces that would kill most life-forms unless there is a combination of behavior and evolution to resist the normal forces of nature. While man has been responsible for the termination of a number of species, well over 99 percent of all the animal species that have ever lived are extinct today and that has been all “natural”. Schrodinger explains that nature is not a positive force, and in reality is the opposite—every species has to overcome nature and what is natural in order to survive.
Charles Robert Darwin FRS FRGS FLS FZS was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution.[I] His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.
