Theodosius Dobzhansky quotes

Theodosius Dobzhansky was a Ukrainian-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist, regarded as one of the founders of modern evolutionary synthesis. His research on fruit flies demonstrated the role of genetics in evolution and underscored the importance of genetic diversity. He greatly influenced evolutionary biology, and he famously stated, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Here are 10 of his quotes:

Man is the only living being who has a developed self-awareness and death-awareness.

Theodosius Dobzhansky

No known human group... simply throw[s] out its dead without any ritual or ceremony. In stark contrast, no animal practices burial of dead individuals of its own species.

Theodosius Dobzhansky

The evolution of life, and the evolutionary origin of mankind, are scientifically established as firmly and completely as any historical event not witnessed by human observers. Any concession to anti-evolutionists, suggesting that there are scientific reasons to doubt the facticity of evolution, would be propagating a plain untruth.

Theodosius Dobzhansky

The living world is not a single array. . . connected by unbroken series of intergrades.

Theodosius Dobzhansky

Scientists often have a naive faith that if only they could discover enough facts about a problem, these facts would somehow arrange themselves in a compelling and true solution.

Theodosius Dobzhansky

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

Theodosius Dobzhansky

The greatest evolutionist of our century.

Theodosius Dobzhansky

Between 1937 and 1941, Dobzhansky went from being able to allow for the possibility of evolutionary mechanisms other than those he favored to a position in which everything that did not fit his definition of evolution was rejected. In the midst of his outpouring of anger at and dismissal of Goldschmidt, Dobzhansky neglected to consider the fact that while Goldschmidt's systemic mutations may not have been observed, neither had the mechanisms of speculation that he, or anyone else, for that matter, had proposed. ...it was and still is the case that, with the exception of Dobzhansky's claim about a new species of fruit fly, the formation of a new species, by any mechanism, has never been observed.

Theodosius Dobzhansky

Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. As pointed out above, the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness.

Theodosius Dobzhansky