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Theory of evolution   /θˈɪri əv ˌɛvəlˈuʃən/   Listen
Theory of evolution

noun
1.
(biology) a scientific theory of the origin of species of plants and animals.  Synonyms: evolutionism, theory of organic evolution.






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"Theory of evolution" Quotes from Famous Books



... may be said about the scientific theory of evolution. That is essentially an effort of the intellect, focusing the attention on details, processes and stages of development in living things and arriving no nearer to a solution of the unexplainable than ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... for science portrayed in my final essay was doubtless the result of the statements the textbooks were then making of what was called the theory of evolution, the acceptance of which even thirty years after the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species" had about it a touch of intellectual adventure. We knew, for instance, that our science teacher had accepted this theory, but we had a strong suspicion that the teacher of Butler's "Analogy" had ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... all things important that with this development of Mind there should also develop that of Buddhi, or Loving Kindness, the essential element in the Universal Brotherhood of Man; a thing largely overlooked in the modern theory of Evolution, and ignored, or set at naught by Romanism by its dogmas, anathemas, and persecutions. Instead of the brotherhood of man, she has exhibited the cruelty and rapacity of devils. (Establishment ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck

... other. But Emil Lucka, in his remarkable new book, The Three Stages of Love (which was recently published in Berlin, and has already created a sensation in literary circles abroad), leads us on to speculative heights from which we may look back upon the whole theory of evolution not as a bar but as a bridge. "My book is intended as a monograph of the emotional life of the human race," he says in the preface, and "I am prepared to meet with rejection rather than with approval." There has been ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... prostrate before the Unknown, yet she herself was an enthusiastic delver into scientific hypothesis and the teachings of Darwin, Spencer, Haeckel had satisfied her intellect if they had failed to content her soul. The theory of evolution as applied to life on her own little planet appealed strongly to her because it accounted plausibly for the presence of man on earth. The process through which we had passed could be understood by every intelligence. The blazing satellite, violently detached from the parent sun starting on its ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... dazzled his contemporaries, and continues to dazzle posterity, is his universality. He appears to us as one of the most receptive, one of the most encyclopaedic intellects of modern times. A scientist and a biologist, a pioneer of the theory of evolution, a physicist and originator of a new theory of colour, a man of affairs, a man of the world and a courtier, a philosopher, a lyrical poet, a tragic, comic, satiric, epic, and didactic poet, a novelist and an historian, he has attempted every form of literature, he has touched upon every chord ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... mistake of taking advantage of the uncompleted and unproved state of the theory at the time, to attack the theory itself, instead of keeping to the safer ground, namely, that whatever might ultimately be the conclusion of evolutionists, it was quite certain that no theory of evolution that at all coincided with the known facts, offered any ground for argument against the existence of an Intelligent Lawgiver and First Cause of all; nor did it tend in the slightest to show that no such thing ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell

... the Frog The Development of the Fowl The Development of the Rabbit The Theory of Evolution Questions ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... the view that the material of the condensing solar system consisted of separate particles or masses, we had no longer the fluid pressure which was an essential part of Laplace's theory. Faye, in his theory of evolution from meteorites, had to throw over his fundamental idea of the nebular hypothesis, and formulated instead a different succession of events of which the outer planets were formed last, a theory which had difficulties of its own. Professor George Darwin had recently ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various

... this same thing the cause of the confidence of men in positive critical-experimental science, and of the devout attitude of the crowd towards that which it preaches? At first it seems strange, that the theory of evolution can in any manner justify people in their evil ways; and it seems as though the scientific theory of evolution has to deal only with facts, and that it does nothing else ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... justice to Froebel and his teacher, it must be remembered that the theory of evolution was not as yet formed, and that those who dimly sought after some explanation of the uniformity of the vertebrate plan, which they observed, were but all too likely to ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel

... Agassiz, Pictet, and Sedgwick, as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection. For the development by this means of a group of forms, all of which are descended from some one progenitor, must have been an extremely slow process; and the progenitors must have lived long before ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... animals, which are the real Sponges. In other groups the structure is of lime; in others, again, of flinty material. Now, the Sponges, as we have them to-day, are so varied, and start from so low a level, that no other group of animals "illustrates so strikingly the theory of evolution," as Professor Minchin says. We begin with colonies in which the individuals are (as in Proterospongia) irregularly distributed in their jelly-like common bed, each animal lashing the water, as stalked Flagellates do, and bringing the food to it. Such a colony would ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... for the pot, 'I don't like the way Hector's going at all! He scarcely ever speaks now, and he's so queer when he does talk. He wanders in his sleep a lot, and last night he kept on all night talking the most abject nonsense about proving to the world that Darwin was right in his theory of evolution. It's some yarn these infernal Bushmen have told him, I suppose. I wish something would crop up to divert his thoughts in ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell

... called the cow bunting, is the only member of the avian household that spirits its eggs into the nests of other birds. The theory of evolution can do little toward accounting for the anomaly, and even if it should venture upon some suggestions it would still be just as difficult to explain the cause of the evolution in this special group, while all other avian groups follow the law ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... hand, there are facts which point clearly to the existence of some law other than that of evolution, and probably of a deeper and more far-reaching character. Upon no theory of evolution can we find a satisfactory explanation for the constant introduction throughout geological time of new forms of life, which do not appear to have been preceded by pre-existent allied types; The Graptolites and Trilobites have no known predecessors, and leave no known successors. The ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... explanation I have given of the facts adduced in this essay, I would again respectfully urge that they must grapple with the whole of the facts, not one or two of them only. It will be admitted that, on the theory of evolution and natural selection, a wide range of facts with regard to colour in nature have been co-ordinated and explained. Until at least an equally wide range of facts can be shown to be in harmony with any other theory, we can hardly be expected ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... 1771) xv. 99 (Newton). Also (Beuchot's ed.) xv. 351 (Essai sur les Moeurs) and passim. The date usually set by Voltaire's modern followers is that of the publication of the Origin of Species; although no error is more opposed than this one to the great theory of evolution.] And similar expressions are frequent in his writings. The sectaries, from that day to this, have never been wanting in the most glowing enthusiasm. In this respect they generally surpass the Catholics; in fanaticism (or the quality of being cocksure) the Protestants. They hold toleration ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... case of morality and religion. Because science, by its theory of evolution, appears to be in a fair way of explaining the genesis of these things by natural causes, theists are taking alarm; it is felt by them that if morality can be fully explained by utility, and religion by superstition, the reality of ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes



Words linked to "Theory of evolution" :   Darwinism, scientific theory, Lamarckism, theory of punctuated equilibrium, biology, punctuated equilibrium, biological science



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