J. B. S. Haldane - Fact Quotes

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Wright's theory certainly supports the view taken in this book that the evolution in large random-mating populations, which is recorded by palaeontology, is not representative of evolution in general, and perhaps gives a false impression of the events occurring in less numerous species. It is a striking fact that none of the extinct species, which, from the abundance of their fossil remains, are well known to us, appear to have been in our own ancestral line. Our ancestors were mostly rather rare creatures. " Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth."

J. B. S. Haldane
From the fact that there are 400,000 species of beetles on this planet, but only 8,000 species of mammals, he [Haldane] concluded that the Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles.

J. B. S. Haldane
I wish I had the voice of Homer
To sing of rectal carcinoma,
Which kills a lot more chaps, in fact,
Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked.

J. B. S. Haldane
The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms.

J. B. S. Haldane
In fact, words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better.

J. B. S. Haldane
I do not propose to argue the case for evolution, which I regard as being quite as well proven as most other historical facts, but to discuss its possible causes, which are certainly debatable.

J. B. S. Haldane
While the geneticists were disproving many of Darwin's ideas, the palaeontologists were determining the actual historical facts of evolution.... they were able to verify the law of succession, first explicitly given by Darwin's colleague Wallace. "Every species has come into existence coincident, both in time and space, with a pre-existing closely allied species."

J. B. S. Haldane
In scientific thought we adopt the simplest theory which will explain all the facts under consideration and enable us to predict new facts of the same kind. The catch in this criterion lies in the word "simplest." It is really an aesthetic canon such as we find implicit in our criticisms of poetry or painting. The layman finds such a law as much less simple than "it oozes," of which it is the mathematical statement. The physicist reverses this judgment, and his statement is certainly the more fruitful of the two, so far as prediction is concerned. It is, however, a statement about something very unfamiliar to the plainman, namely, the rate of change of a rate of change.

J. B. S. Haldane
Theories that go counter to the facts of human nature are foredoomed.

J. B. S. Haldane