Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
Charles DarwinRead
This preservation of favourable variations and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection and would be left a fluctuating element.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Natural selection emphasizes that beneficial traits are preserved while harmful traits are eliminated in evolution.
This quote by Charles Darwin explains the mechanism of natural selection, where traits that confer a survival advantage are retained and passed on to future generations, while detrimental traits are eliminated. This process leads to the evolution of species, as variations that are neither beneficial nor harmful remain unchanged. It highlights how nature selectively favors specific characteristics, which is central to the theory of evolution.
Themes
Natural SelectionEvolutionAdaptationSurvivalFitness
In practice
Example use cases
In a biology class discussing the principles of evolution.
More from Charles Darwin
All quotes →The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
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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.
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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
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Similar quotes
Let me lay my cards on the table. If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone ever had, I'd give it to Darwin, ahead of even Newton or Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law. It is not just a wonderful idea. It is a dangerous idea.
Daniel DennettRead
The total quantity of all the forces capable of work in the whole universe remains eternal and unchanged throughout all their changes. All change in nature amounts to this, that force can change its form and locality, without its quantity being changed. The universe possesses, once for all, a store of force which is not altered by any change of phenomena, can neither be increased nor diminished, and which maintains any change which takes place on it.
Hermann Von HelmholtzRead
When the basic status of a theory is clear, and all that needs to be cleared are details, you can collaborate. But if the main structure of a hypothesis isn't established, and you want to change the paradigm - like it was the case in the 1960s - it's better to work alone.
Peter HiggsRead
We think that life develops spontaneously on Earth, so it must be possible for life to develop on suitable planets elsewhere in the universe. But we don't know the probability that a planet develops life.
Stephen HawkingRead
In my Nobel lecture, I suggested we had until the year 2000 to tame the population monster, and then food shortages would take us under. Now I believe we have a little longer.
Norman BorlaugRead
Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.
George SantayanaRead