Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
Charles DarwinRead
It's an awful stretcher to believe that a peacock's tail was thus formed but ... most people just don't get it - I must be a very bad explainer
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the challenges of explanation and understanding complex ideas in science and nature.
Charles Darwin acknowledges the difficulty of conveying his thoughts about the evolution of traits, like the peacock's tail, to others. He expresses frustration at being misunderstood, which underscores the broader challenge of effective communication in scientific discussions, where ideas can be intricate and counterintuitive to general audiences.
In practice
During a science presentation where complex topics are discussed.
Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
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.
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.
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps
I am persuaded that this method [for calculating the volume of a sphere] will be of no little service to mathematics. For I foresee that once it is understood and established, it will be used to discover other theorems which have not yet occurred to me, by other mathematicians, now living or yet unborn.
For since the fabric of the universe is most perfect and the work of a most wise Creator, nothing at all takes place in the universe in which some rule of maximum or minimum does not appear.
Adding CO2 to the air is like throwing another blanket on the bed.
There's no such thing as saying that we'll ever find the ultimate cause of stuff. We can only work to push our understanding one step further.
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it.
When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.
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