Zitate von Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Geburtstag: 12. Februar 1809
Todesdatum: 19. April 1882
Andere Namen:Charles Robert Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin [tʃɑrlz 'dɑː.wɪn] war ein britischer Naturforscher. Er gilt wegen seiner wesentlichen Beiträge zur Evolutionstheorie als einer der bedeutendsten Naturwissenschaftler.
Die Ende 1831 begonnene und fast fünf Jahre andauernde Reise mit der HMS Beagle, die den jungen Darwin einmal um die Welt führte, war zugleich Schlüsselerlebnis und Grundlage für sein späteres Werk. Der breiten Öffentlichkeit wurde Darwin erstmals durch seinen 1839 herausgegebenen Reisebericht bekannt. Mit seiner Theorie über die Entstehung der Korallenriffe und weiteren geologischen Schriften erlangte er in wissenschaftlichen Kreisen die Anerkennung als Geologe. Seine Untersuchungen an den Rankenfußkrebsen verschafften ihm Mitte der 1850er Jahre zusätzlich einen angesehenen Ruf als Zoologe und Taxonom.
Bereits 1838 entwarf Darwin seine Theorie der Anpassung an den Lebensraum durch Variation und natürliche Selektion und erklärte so die phylogenetische Entwicklung aller Organismen und ihre Aufspaltung in verschiedene Arten. Über 20 Jahre lang trug er Belege für diese Theorie zusammen. 1842 und 1844 verfasste Darwin kurze Abrisse seiner Theorie, die er jedoch nicht veröffentlichte. Ab 1856 arbeitete er an einem umfangreichen Manuskript mit dem Titel Natural Selection. Durch einen Brief von Alfred Russel Wallace, der dessen Ternate-Manuskript mit ähnlichen Gedanken zur Evolution enthielt, kam es im Sommer 1858 schließlich zu einer Veröffentlichung der Theorien über die Evolution durch die beiden Männer. Ein Jahr später folgte Darwins Hauptwerk On the Origin of Species , das als streng naturwissenschaftliche Erklärung für die Diversität des Lebens die Grundlage der modernen Evolutionsbiologie bildet und einen entscheidenden Wendepunkt in der Geschichte der modernen Biologie darstellt.
1871 diskutierte Darwin in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex mit der sexuellen Selektion einen zweiten Selektionsmechanismus und nutzte seine Theorie, um die Abstammung des Menschen zu erklären. In seinem letzten Lebensjahrzehnt untersuchte Darwin Kletterpflanzen, Orchideen und fleischfressende Pflanzen und leistete wichtige Beiträge zur Botanik. Sein offizielles botanisches Autorenkürzel lautet „Darwin“.
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„Alle Natur befindet sich im Krieg miteinander oder mit der äusseren Natur.“
— Charles Darwin
Vortrag 1. Juli 1858 vor der Linnean Society, verweisend auf eine ähnliche Aussage des Schweizer Botanikers Augustin-Pyrame de Candolle (Essai élémentaire de géographie botanique, 1820. S. 26)). Zitiert von Andreas Weber in: Biokapital. Die Versöhnung von Ökonomie, Natur und Menschlichkeit, Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3827007925, S. 58 und in DIE ZEIT, 09.10.2008
„Ohne Spekulation gibt es keine neue Beobachtung.“
— Charles Darwin
Brief an Alfred Russel Wallace, 22. Dezember 1857
„Ich bin überzeugt, dass die natürliche Auswahl das wichtigste, wenn auch nicht das ausschliessliche Mittel zur Abänderung der Lebensformen gewesen ist.“
— Charles Darwin
Die Entstehung der Arten durch natürliche Zuchtwahl, Einleitung
„Endlich bin ich überzeugt, dass die natürliche Zuchtwahl das wichtigste, wenn auch nicht das ausschliessliche Mittel zur Abänderung der Lebensformen gewesen ist.“
— Charles Darwin
Über die Entstehung der Arten durch natürliche Zuchtwahl oder die Erhaltung der begünstigten Rassen im Kampfe um's Dasein, 9. Auflage, Stuttgart 1899, Einleitung S. 24, zenon.org http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009160698
oft verkürzt: "Die natürliche Auswahl ist das wichtigste, aber nicht das einzige Mittel der Veränderung." - etwa als Motto von Kapitel 8 in: Stephanie Linnhe, Herz aus Grün und Silber, Ullstein Burchverlage GmbH, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-95818-015-1
Original engl.: "I am convinced that natural selection has been the most important, but not the exclusive, means of modification."
„Ich habe nicht die geringste Angst vor dem Sterben.“
— Charles Darwin
Letzte Worte, 19. April 1882
„If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.“
— Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82
„A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.“
— Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin
volume I, chapter VI: "The Voyage", page 266 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=284&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image; letter to sister Susan Elizabeth Darwin (4 August 1836)
„Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.“
— Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
Context: It has often and confidently been asserted, that man's origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
volume I, "Introduction", page 3 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=16&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image
„When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled (emphasis, again, not Darwin's).“
— Charles Darwin
Context: Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled (emphasis, again, not Darwin's).
chapter XV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 428 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=456&itemID=F391&viewtype=image, in the sixth (1872) edition
„He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory. For he may ask in vain where are the numberless transitional links which must formerly have connected the closely allied or representative species, found in the several stages of the same great formation.“
— Charles Darwin
Context: p>I have attempted to show that the geological record is extremely imperfect; that only a small portion of the globe has been geologically explored with care; that only certain classes of organic beings have been largely preserved in a fossil state; that the number both of specimens and of species, preserved in our museums, is absolutely as nothing compared with the incalculable number of generations which must have passed away even during a single formation; that, owing to subsidence being necessary for the accumulation of fossiliferous deposits thick enough to resist future degradation, enormous intervals of time have elapsed between the successive formations; that there has probably been more extinction during the periods of subsidence, and more variation during the periods of elevation, and during the latter the record will have been least perfectly kept; that each single formation has not been continuously deposited; that the duration of each formation is, perhaps, short compared with the average duration of specific forms; that migration has played an important part in the first appearance of new forms in any one area and formation; that widely ranging species are those which have varied most, and have oftenest given rise to new species; and that varieties have at first often been local (emphasis not Darwin's). All these causes taken conjointly, must have tended to make the geological record extremely imperfect, and will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory. For he may ask in vain where are the numberless transitional links which must formerly have connected the closely allied or representative species, found in the several stages of the same great formation. He may disbelieve in the enormous intervals of time which have elapsed between our consecutive formations; he may overlook how important a part migration must have played, when the formations of any one great region alone, as that of Europe, are considered; he may urge the apparent, but often falsely apparent, sudden coming in of whole groups of species. He may ask where are the remains of those infinitely numerous organisms which must have existed long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited: I can answer this latter question only hypothetically, by saying that as far as we can see, where our oceans now extend they have for an enormous period extended, and where our oscillating continents now stand they have stood ever since the Silurian epoch; but that long before that period, the world may have presented a wholly different aspect; and that the older continents, formed of formations older than any known to us, may now all be in a metamorphosed condition, or may lie buried under the ocean.</p
chapter X: "On the Geological Succession of Organic Beings", pages 341-343 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=359&itemID=F373&viewtype=side
„We are a wretched family, and ought to be exterminated.“
— Charles Darwin
Context: We are a wretched family, and ought to be exterminated. We slept here to rest our poor boy on his journey to Bournemouth, and my poor dear wife sickened with scarlet fever, and has had it pretty sharply, but is recovering well. There is no end of trouble in this weary world. (Owing to the illness from scarlet fever of one of his boys, he [Darwin] took a house at Bournemouth in the autumn. He wrote to Dr. Gray from Southampton).
Volume II, Chapter III, "Spread of Evolution - 1861-1862,") p. 175 https://books.google.com/books?id=BSdBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA175&dq=We+are+a+wretched+family+%26+ought+to+be+exterminated+++++darwin++scarlet+fever&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBGoVChMI0OmV8rHGxwIVA56ACh2YEAYF#v=onepage&q=We%20are%20a%20wretched%20family%20%26%20ought%20to%20be%20exterminated%20%20%20%20%20darwin%20%20scarlet%20fever&f=false. Letter to Asa Gray (1810-1888), (21 August 1862)
