Quotes:
“[I suppose the reason] we all jumped at the Origin [Origin of Species] was because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.”
- Sir Julian Huxley
Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.
- Arthur Keith
The account of the origin of life that I shall give is necessarily speculative; by definition, nobody was around to see what happened. The Selfish Gene (1989) p.14
- Richard Dawkins
It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that). “Put Your Money on Evolution” The New York Times (April 9, 1989) section VII p.35- Richard Dawkins
Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose. The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.1 (emphasis mine)
- Richard Dawkins
My argument will be that Darwinism is the only known theory that is in principle capable of explaining certain aspects of life. If I am right it means that, even if there were no actual evidence in favour of Darwinian theory (there is, of course) we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.
- Richard Dawkins
So powerful is the illusion of design, it took humanity until the mid-19th century to realise that it is an illusion. New Scientist September 17 2005 p.33
- Richard Dawkins
This sketch is most imperfect; but in so short a space I cannot make it better. Your imagination must fill up many wide blanks. Without some reflexion it will appear all rubbish; perhaps it will appear so after reflexion. Letter to Asa Gray September 5, 1857
- Charles Darwin
Nature may almost be said to have guarded against the frequent discovery of her transitional or linking forms. Origin of Species (1859) p.292
- Charles Darwin
He who rejects this view of the imperfection of the geological record, will rightly reject the whole theory. For he may ask in vain where are the numberless transitional links which must formerly have connected the closely allied or representative species found in the successive stages of the same great formation?” The Origin of Species (1859) p.342
- Charles Darwin
As Ernst Mayr, one of the founders of the modern synthetic theory of evolution, pointed out in his Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942) Darwin never really did discuss the origin of species in his The Origin of Species. Time Frames (1985) p.33
As a paleontologist, I readily concede that my long dead fossils, lacking any traces of their soft anatomies or behaviors, are totally mute on the subject of reproduction and transmission of genetic information. And this is, I acknowledge, a major limitation to our data. Reinventing Darwin (1995) p.2
The intervals of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent. In Search of Deep Time (2001) p. 23
Haeckel’s genius, with all its different facts, came out first when he wrote his theoretical magnum opus under the influence of the Origin of Species, which started him on his career as Darwin’s greatest apostle on the continent. Portraits From Memory (1956) p.33 (Recall that Haeckel was arrested and tried by his own college for fraud regarding his embryo drawings which he admitted)
Before Darwin, we thought that a benevolent God had created us. Ever Since Darwin (1979) p.267The present teaching in schools permits the following absurdity: at 10 a.m. the pupils attend a lesson in the catechism, at which the creation of the world is presented to them in accordance with the teachings of the Bible; and at 11 a.m. they attend a lesson in natural science, at which they are taught the theory of evolution. Yet the two doctrines are in complete contradiction. As a child, I suffered from this contradiction, and ran my head against a wall. Often I complained to one or another of my teachers against what I had been taught an hour before -- and I remember I drove them to despair. Hitler's Secret Conversations October 24, 1941
- Adolf Hitler (Killed millions of Jews in an attempt to "push forward' evolution because he thought his race was superior above all - he was extremely influenced by Darwin's book)
The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that 'a tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein'. "Hoyle on Evolution" Nature November 12, 1981 p.105