Here’s what we can do to change the world right now to a better ride: take all of that money we spend on weapons and defence each year and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, and not one human being excluded, and we can explore space together, both inner and outer, in peace. I believe that God left certain drugs growing naturally upon our planet to help speed up and facilitate our evolution. Bill Hicks, Revelations, Dominion Theatre London
The attack on evolution in this country at least and I think elsewhere is based on a fundamental fear of science. A fear that science is immoral because it doesn’t explicitly mention God. Professor Lawrence Krauss
We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special. Stephen Hawking
It is also worth noting that one can obtain a Phd in any branch of science for no other purpose than to make cynical use of scientific language in an effort to rationalize the glaring inadequacies of the Bible. A handful of Christians appear to have done this; some have even obtained their degrees from reputable universities. No doubt, others will follow in their footsteps. While such people are technically ‘scientists’, they are not behaving like scientists. They simply are not engaged in an honest inquiry into the nature of the universe. And their proclamations about God and the failures of Darwinism do not in the least signify that there is a legitimate scientific controversy about evolution. Sam Harris, The End of Faith
All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. Paul Broun, cited Los Angeles Times 7th October 2012
Imagine if our planet’s eventful history was compressed into the twenty-four hours of a single day. At midnight the infant Earth was born ... At sixteen minutes past midnight a cataclysmic collision created our moon ... Then just before one o’clock in the morning the scene was set for ... the origin of life ... It took more than seven hours for all the iron to be removed from the oceans till one p.m. in the afternoon ... Over the next eight hours the microbes raised the level of oxygen ... It took only the last three hours of our twenty-four day for all the other life-forms on our planet to evolve. The first multi-cellular life emerged at six minutes past nine in the evening. The first fish at twenty-two minutes past nine ... By ten to eleven in the evening dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The first primates appeared at twenty to midnight. And with just thirty seconds to go, the first humans made their appearance. Tiny microbes had ruled the planet for over three billion years – two-thirds of the history of the Earth. The Day the Earth Was Born
The best explanation we have for the origin of life on Earth is that it is the result of an accumulation of organic molecules; these organic molecules are probably produced from the primitive atmosphere of the Earth by the actions of various kinds of energy: electrical discharges, heat from volcanoes, the ultraviolet light from the sun – all these would have combined together to give what has been described as a primordial soup. Professor Cyril Ponnamperum, interview Horizon: Message in the Rocks, BBC 1979
Could primitive life have survived a caustic environment? The Universe s1e6: Spaceship Earth, History 2007
Could the building blocks of life have come from somewhere else? Perhaps from an extraterrestrial object. ibid.
Consensus that the first life-forms were single-celled organisms that lived in the oceans. ibid.
Because of cyanobacteria, life was able to diversify and become more complex very rapidly. ibid.
Microbes reigned supreme for much of Earth’s history. They revolutionised the planet and paved the way for a myriad of more sophisticated species. But it was land that gave life-forms a new home. ibid.
Its history has been compared to a twenty-four-hour clock with man occupying only the final two seconds of the day. ibid.
Flowers drive the evolution of animals, especially primates. Professor Iain Stewart, How to Grow a Planet II: The Power of Flowers, BBC 2012
Evolution often comes up with our cleverest solutions during desperate times. And one group of plants, the grasses, turned this crisis into an opportunity. Professor Iain Stewart, How to Grow a Planet III: The Challenger
There was a time when we shared this planet with other, very different types of human. By the time our ancestors left Africa 100,000 years ago most of these others had gone extinct. But not all. Other species have made the journey out of Africa before us. Planet of the Apemen I: Battle For Earth BBC 2011
For thousands of years [homo] erectus had been one of Asia’s most successful predators. The arrival of modern humans would have threatened their world. ibid.
The first humans species to walk fully upright, [homo] erectus would have made formidable opponents. ibid.
There is no evidence homo erectus made spears ... Their palms faced forwards. ibid.
The spear wasn’t our ancestors only weapon. At some point in the distant past they developed something very new: the slingshot like the spear gave our ancestors the ability to strike and kill at a distance. ibid.
This ability to plan ahead was something our hominid rivals lacked. ibid.
Another advantage we had was language. ibid.
Imagination, the ability to visualise what can’t be seen, would prove another defining advantage for our species. ibid.
Like us, [homo] erectus are believed to have lived in small family groups; there is evidence they cared for each other and looked after the sick and injured. ibid.
Recent studies suggest that [homo] erectus were infected with tapeworms which you get from eating raw meat. It seems erectus liked his food red and bloody, even though he could have cooked it. ibid.
Above the ash only our tools are found. The lack of evidence of erectus after the Toba eruption suggests that they might have been wiped out of India never to return. In other parts of Asia they hung on. Fossilised skulls from Indonesia show homo erectus living here as recently as 30,000 years ago. A descendant of theirs – homo Floresiensis, nicknamed the Hobbits – lived until about 18,000 years ago. ibid.
Socially too Toba left a mark on our species. Evidence reveals that social networking in surviving humans increased. ibid.
This is our world. We have shaped it in our image. Made it our own. We are now the only humans in existence. Absolute rulers of the Earth. Planet of the Apemen II: Battle for Earth
Why against the odds did we win the battle of planet Earth? ibid.
32,000 years ago a new species of human was spreading out across Europe. Southern France. The colour of their skin betrayed their African origins. Homo sapiens hadn’t been here very long and there wasn’t very many of them. These people were modern humans. They were our ancestors. As they spread out across our continent they entered the territory of another species – the Neanderthals. ibid.
That physical power was complimented by another vital asset. So as well as having significantly larger bodies Neanderthal had considerably larger brains. Making them a formidable enemy. ibid.
That’s what got us in trouble in the first place – interfering with Nature. Meddling. Doesn’t anybody understand that? … Stop interfering. Leave Nature alone: haven’t we done enough damage?… And the supreme arrogance – Save the Planet. Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves. We haven’t learned to care for one another – we’re gonna save the fucking planet? George Carlin, Napalm & Silly Putty
By the way, there’s nothing wrong with the planet in the first place – the planet is fine. The people are fucked! Compare with the people, the planet is doing great; it’s been there over four billion years … Believe me, the planet has put up with much worse than us … The planet isn’t going anywhere, folks. We are. We’re going away. Pack your shit, we’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little styrofoam. The planet will be here and we’ll be gone. Another failed mutation. Another closed-end biological mistake. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas, and it will heal itself, because that’s what the planet does – it’s a self-correcting system. The air and water and earth recover and be renewed, and if plastic is not degradable, well, most likely, the Earth will include it in a new paradigm. Earth plus plastic. The Earth doesn’t share our prejudice against plastic. Plastic came out of the Earth; She probably sees it as one of her many children. In fact, it could be the reason the Earth allowed us to be spawned in the first place – it wanted plastic and didn’t know how to make it. It needed us. That could be the answer to our age-old question: why are we here? Plastic, assholes! ibid.
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection was built on the work of naturalists who were discovering thousands of new species across the world. Brian Cox, Wonders of Life III: Endless Forms Most Beautiful, BBC 2013
Evolution doesn’t have a free hand: it is constrained by the universal laws of Physics. Brian Cox, Wonders of Life IV: Size Matters
Last week, Gallup announced the results of their latest survey on Americans and evolution. The numbers were a stark blow to high-school science teachers everywhere: 46% of adults said they believed that ‘God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years’. Only 15% agreed with the statement that humans had evolved without the guidance of a divine power. The New Yorker, article Jonah Lerer 7th June 2010, ‘Why We Don’t Believe in Science’