Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
Charles DarwinRead
I am actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce [direct] evidence of one species changing into another, but I believe that this view is in the main correct, because so many phenomena can thus be grouped end explained.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Darwin expresses his belief in evolution despite the lack of direct evidence for species changing into one another.
In this quote, Charles Darwin acknowledges his fatigue in defending the theory of evolution due to the absence of direct proof demonstrating one species transforming into another. However, he remains confident in the overall correctness of the evolutionary perspective, as it can satisfactorily explain and organize numerous observed phenomena in nature. This reflects the essence of scientific inquiry, where empirical evidence evolves over time, leading to more comprehensive understanding.
Themes
EvolutionSpeciesEvidenceScienceNatural SelectionPhenomena
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on biological sciences while discussing Darwin's theories.
More from Charles Darwin
All quotes βThe highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
Charles DarwinRead
I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science....It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts.
Charles DarwinRead
We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm--a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven.
Charles DarwinRead
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
Charles DarwinRead
we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps
Charles DarwinRead
Similar quotes
Gravitational waves, because they are so imperturbable - they go through everything - they will tell you the most information you can get about the earliest instants that go on in the universe.
Rainer WeissRead
Carl Sagan spoke fluently between biology and geology and astrophysics and physics. If you move fluently across those boundaries, you realize that science is everywhere; science is not something you can step around or sweep under the rug.
Neil Degrasse TysonRead
We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
So if the worth of the arts were measured by the matter with which they deal, this art-which some call astronomy, others astrology, and many of the ancients the consummation of mathematics-would be by far the most outstanding. This art which is as it were the head of all the liberal arts and the one most worthy of a free man leans upon nearly all the other branches of mathe matics. Arithmetic, geometry, optics, geodesy, mechanics, and whatever others, all offer themselves in its service.
Nicolaus CopernicusRead
I think the really cool and compelling thing about math and physics is that it opens up entry to all these hypotheticals - or at least, it gives you the language to talk about them. But at the same time, if a scenario is completely disconnected from reality, it's not all that interesting.
Randall MunroeRead
I'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty. Revere and respect Gaia. Have trust in Gaia. But not faith.
James LovelockRead