Theodosius Dobzhansky - Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937)

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

Theodosius Dobzhansky
Evolutionary plasticity can be purchased only at the ruthlessly dear price of continuously sacrificing some individuals to death from unfavourable mutations. Bemoaning this imperfection of nature has, however, no place in a scientific treatment of this subject.

Theodosius Dobzhansky
A majority of mutations, both those arising in laboratories and those stored in natural populations, produce deteriorations of... viability, hereditary disease and monstrosities. Such changes it would seem, can hardly serve as evolutionary building blocks.

Theodosius Dobzhansky
Any evolution theory which disregard the established genetic principles is faulty at its source.

Theodosius Dobzhansky
The long pageant of evolution extending over one billion years appears to have been brought about by fundamental causes which are still in operation and which can be experimented with today.

Theodosius Dobzhansky
Experience shows... that there is no way toward understanding of the mechanisms ofmacroevolutionary changes, which require time on geological scales, other than through understanding of microevolutionary processes observable within the span of a human lifetime, often controlled by man's will, and sometimes reproducible in laboratory experiments.

Theodosius Dobzhansky