“Evolution is so creative. That's how we got giraffes.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Evolution is so creative. That's how we got giraffes." by Kurt Vonnegut?

Kurt Vonnegut318

American writer 1922–2007

Related quotes

“Why didn't evolution make a giraffe good at carpentry so it could build a ladder?”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Xfm 11 June 2005
On Biology

“I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That’s why we’ve got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

On evolution vs. "intelligent design", interviewed by Jon Stewart, The Daily Show http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=18090&title=kurt-vonnegut/ (13 September 2005) <br class="br">Various interviews

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

“The giraffe's neck supposedly supplies a crucial example for preferring natural selection over Lamarckism as a cause of evolution. But Darwin himself (however wrongly by later judgement) did not deny the Lamarckian principle of inheritance for characters acquired by use or lost by disuse. He regarded the Lamarckian mechanism as weak, infrequent, and entirely subsidiary to natural selection, but he accepted the validity of evolution by use and disuse. Darwin does speculate about the adaptive advantage of giraffe's necks, but he cites both natural selection and Lamarckism as probable causes of elongation.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"The Tallest Tale", p. 312
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

“(Holism is) the tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution …”

Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa

Holism and Evolution (1926)

“Does the giraffe know what he's for? Or care? Or even think about his place in things? A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things

“How old do I think the earth is? You know what? I don't have any idea. I know it's pretty old, so it goes back a long, long way. I'm not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how long, how old the earth is. I hear your mom was asking about evolution. You know, it's a theory that's out there. It's got some gaps in it, but in Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools, because I figured you're smart enough to figure out which one is right.”

Rick Perry (1950) 14th and current United States Secretary of Energy

2011-08-18T12:52
Quote of the Day: How Old is the Earth?
Mother Jones
Kevin
Drum
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/08/quote-day-how-old-earth
to a 9-year-old boy
2011

“The human brain is evolution’s most magnificent disaster, a beautiful and glorious cesspool of brilliant analytical powers, infinite creativity, and pure madness.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

“We don’t need fossils – the case for evolution is watertight without them; so it is paradoxical to use gaps in the fossil record as though they were evidence against evolution”

Richard Dawkins book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Source: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (2009), p. 164

“Evolution is so creative. That's how we got giraffes.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Kurt Vonnegut318

Related quotes

Related topics