I have called this principle, by which, each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
- Charles R. Darwin, The Origin of Species (ch. III)
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To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the…
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into…
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
- Charles R. Darwin,
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Celebrate Darwin Day
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Read Darwin for yourself.
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe[s,] to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.
- Charles R. Darwin,
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I have also been reading his and Captain Fitzroy's daily entries from their respective Beagle journeys at Charles Darwins' Beagle Diary.
I like it because it is written as a blog and each entry corresponds to its calendar day from the original diaries. Not much happening today, February 1, 1833, apparently.
In this comment I shall will try various HTML tags....
I've been thinking of using Darwin month to get people to circulate less well known but no less brilliant Darwin quotes. I mean, we've all heard the ubiquitous "entangled bank" quote but how many of us remember this: "I believe from what I have seen Humboldts glorious descriptions are & will for ever be unparalleled: but even he with his dark blue skies & the rare union of poetry with science which he so strongly displays when writing on tropical scenery, with all this falls far short of the truth. The delight one experiences in such times bewilders the mind ... The mind is a chaos of delight, out of which a world of future & more quiet pleasure will arise. I am at present fit only to read Humboldt; he like another Sun illumines everything I behold."
Oh, I WILL use that quote! Thank you.