It-was a tiny mollusc that caused Walter, grandfather of the greatest biologist of the twentieth century, to forge a brief link with the greatest biologist of the nineteenth: Charles Darwin. . . . . . We know this because later that day he wrote hesitantly to Darwin to report what he had found.
|
There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties.... The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention and curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes a well-developed condition, in the lower animals.
|
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.
|
Imagine a world without Darwin. Imagine a world in which Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace had not transformed our understanding of living things. What... would become baffling and puzzling..., in urgent need of explanation? The answer is: practically everything about living things....
|
Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
|
An American Monkey after getting drunk on Brandy would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.
|
Throughout History, Empires have persecuted the great agitators; Noah, Socrates, Jesus, Columbus, Voltaire, Charles Darwin, Gandhi, the US Founding Fathers, Martin Luther King, Jr. et. al.
|
If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
|
The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens, lambs, &c., when playing together, like our own children. Even insects play together, as has been described by that excellent observer, P. Huber, who saw ants chasing and pretending to bite each other, like so many puppies.
|
I'd give Charles Darwin videotapes of 'Geraldo,' 'Beavis and Butt-head' and 'The McLaughlin Group.' I would be interested in seeing if he still believes in evolution.
|
I love foolsÆ experiments. I am always making them
|
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
|
The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an improved theory, is it then a science or faith? by
|
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
|
We must, however, acknowledge as it seems to me, that a man with all his noble qualities...still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
|
Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them
|
It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science
|
As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities
|
The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an improved theory, is it then a science or faith?
|
It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.
|
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowlege: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
|
Doing what little one can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue
|
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
|
Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence.
|
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, -- a mere heart of stone.
|
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge
|
'Animals whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equals.'
|
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
|
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, -- a mere heart of stone
|
A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.
|