Post your favorite Charles Darwin quote for DARWIN DAY 2010!

[goodboy]

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life."

<>

[Christa]

1. K & R and playing along

“We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”

[goodboy]

7. One of my absolute favorites as well. I almost posted this one instead! (nt)

[joeybee12]

2. "Republicans are proof I was wrong about evolution, because

chimps are smarter than they are. Back to the drawing board."

[arthritisR_US]

3. "If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions,

great is our sin."

[immoderate]

10. That's my favorite too.

--imm

[arthritisR_US]

16. sure is fitting given the times we are presently in. n/t

[immoderate]

35. I just designed the program for our Darwin Day in Broward...

So I went googling for quotes. When that one came up I said, "Darwin said that?

What a smart guy. :)

http://www.darwindaybroward.com/index.html

--imm

[arthritisR_US]

38. Yes he was :-) BTW....

very neat web site, thanks for the link :-)

[-wulf-]

4. Change

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

[HeresyLives]

5. That's my favorite, too.

One the world needs to heed.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

6. My favorite Darwin quote has to be

"Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal."

Go vegan for Darwin Day!

[-wulf-]

8. We are certainly

on an equal standing so far as animals are concerned, in the way that we all are in equal competition for resources. This is why we, as like most animals, kill and eat other animals as we see fit.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

9. There are supermarkets full of healty alternatives to animal products

Animals don't have that luxury. Try evolution on Darwin day.

[-wulf-]

12. don't have the luxury of what

not being eaten? Not cultivating their own food?

And from where does this idea come that not eating animals means that one doesn't also eat fruits and vegetables?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. Yes, but their aren't tasty alternatives.

Go red in tooth and claw!

"Try evolution on Darwin day."

Try learning about evolution on Darwin day. That's what it's for.

[-wulf-]

14. according to Darwin

if the "animals" can't adapt to our eating them, then it is only and natural and just that they perish.

Fortunately, we've saved them this burden by domesticating the tastiest amongst them, thereby ensuring constant supply and survival of these less intelligent though more edible creatures.

[LanternWaste]

23. Yet unlike the animal species...

"This is why we, as like most animals, kill and eat other animals as we see fit."

Yet unlike the animal species, we, with both premeditated forethought and conscious intent, and without instinct to drive it, also kill for fun and entertainment, for profit, for sport, and for recreation-- not as an aberration, but as a "life-style."

[-wulf-]

37. so...

I have more in common with my Cat that I previously suspected?


I have pointy teeth, therefore, we must have evolved to this point by eating lots of meat.

[LanternWaste]

40. I don't know if you have more in common...

I don't know if you have more in common with your cat or not, nor if you attempted to make a valid point... :shrug:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. "Rectum? Damn near killed him."

[BurtWorm]

15. Two: '...it is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.'

“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference”


PS: Make it three. This really is my very favorite quote of Darwin's, the others being two I picked from a cite loaded with gems. This is from the end of The Origin of Species:


"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. 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 one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

[BeFree]

21. Succinctly rewritten:

The elite species rule.
__________________

Which really, is bS. The least species actually rule this planet. Elite species depend of the least species. Without them we'd be dead, but they will outlive us.

[BurtWorm]

24. That's not how I read the quote.

Not as you succinctly rewrote it. I read it more as you summarized why your revision of it was bS, as you say. It's all interdependent. "Endless forms most beautiful" are constantly being evolved in all niches. In many other places in his writings, it's clear that Darwin did not have a hierarchical view of species. Quite the contrary.

[BeFree]

27. If you say so

But this "Endless forms most beautiful" are nothing more than in the eye of the beholder. Beholders being us humans. But I guess a whale feeding off the plankton may behold that least of specie to be beautiful?

But does the plankton depend on the whale? I doubt it, but am open to arguments.

[BurtWorm]

31. In some sense, yes, the plankton depends on the whale.

It's ridiculous to think otherwise, that some species, by being less morally valued by humans are somehow morally superior to all others. You suffer from reverse elitism, it seems to me. Darwin's view (and mine, and most biologist's, I believe) is that morality has nothing to do with any of it. Darwin worked with barnacles and worms, as well as pigeons. He was found those homely forms most beautiful as well.

[BeFree]

32. Morality?

I did not interject that here, did I?

Life has nothing to do with morals, but if you remember, Darwin was a highly moral man. So this "beauty" stuff is his and it is his morality not mine. It is anthropomorphizing and I don't like it. Take that Darwin!!

[BurtWorm]

34. I have no problem with Darwin's idea of beauty.

I find it truly odd that anyone would. Especially this kind of beauty that I think Darwin was speaking of, which has nothing to do with the kind that gets judged at pageants or that's used to sell merchandise. I think he is talking about something that I doubt you have to be a human to appreciate, which is just awe in the presence of or attraction to nature as we see it.

Thanks for pissing on my Darwin quote, by the way. I really appreciate it.

[goodboy]

25. Thanks for the emphasis on the last sentence. (nt)

[kpete]

17. It took me 2 years to read

The Voyage Of The Beagle,

I could almost see and hear his astonishment and awe at what he was seeing, collecting, processing.

What an amazing mind and contribution to humankind.

peace, kp

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life."
Charles Darwin

[goodboy]

26. Thankfully he had a command of the English language, and his

awe was not lost for us.

Thanks for posting Kpete!

[Brother Buzz]

18. "Mr Wickham, take good care of Harriet and the boys, Tom and Dick." - 1841

Dick died in the 1880's
Tom died in 1949
Harriet died in 2006

[LeftishBrit]

19. An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much

wiser than most men'.

(And not just brandy, but many foods and drinks that we like but that don't like us!)

'False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.'

[conscious evolution]

20. "Hey yall! Watch this!"

Oh.You meant things C Darwin himself said,not Darwin Award winners.

[goodboy]

29. ahaha...Imma jump this here 4 wheeler over yon campfar... (nt)

[LanternWaste]

22. A man who has no assured and ever-present...

"A man who has no assured and ever-present belief in the existence of a personal God, or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones." Charles Darwin, The Morality of Evolution, Autobiography, Norton, p. 94, 1958

[LanternWaste]

28. Self-delete

self-delete

[Skidmore]

30. With hands defiantly on hips,

"I not a baby! I a big boy!"

our Darwin, age 2.5 yrs, named for the great man, and currently researching the world for his own treatise.

[mitchum]

33. "Oh, grow up!"

[Toasterlad]

36. "Religion Is a Bunch of Shit!"

[Kurovski]

39. "Sarah Palin is a goddam myth."

That's right, He talks to me the way God talked to that asshole George Bush.

[buzzard]

41. The one in my signature line.n/t