“To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer.”
Source: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 6 “Origins and Miracles” (p. 141)
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Richard Dawkins 322
English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author 1941Related quotes
[Pragmatism, William James, Lecture Three: Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered, 80-81, Meridian Books, New York, 1955]https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.114743/2015.114743.Pragmatism-And-Four-Essays-From-The-Meaning-Of-Truth_djvu.txt}}
1900s
Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 2, “Just a Theory: What Scientists Do” (p. 39)
“Lamarck's attempt to explain the origin of species”
Source: The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Ch.20, p. 391-392
Context: I pointed out in 1832, as the two great flaws in Lamarck's attempt to explain the origin of species, first that he had failed to adduce a single instance of the initiation of a new organ in any species of animal or plant; and secondly, that variation, whether taking place in the course of nature or assisted artificially by the breeder and horticulturist, had never yet gone so far as to produce two races sufficiently remote from each other in physiological constitution as to be sterile when intermarried, or, if fertile, only capable of producing sterile hybrids, &c.
“Only when field maintenance is part of the original design can it be safely controlled”
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)
Context: The more complex the designed system the more field maintenance must be central to the final design. Only when field maintenance is part of the original design can it be safely controlled... This applies to both mechanical things and to human organizations.
“To design a flying machine is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything.”
Widely attributed to Lilienthal, this was actually an 1898 statement by Ferdinand Ferber dedicated to Lilienthal, published in L'Aviation; ses debuts son developpement [Aviation, its debut and devopment] (1908), translated into German as Die Kunst zu Fliegen [The Art of Flight] (1910).
Misattributed
Introduction to the 2002 Edition, p. xi.
The Design of Everyday Things (1988, 2002)
Pt. 1, Ch. 10
Disturbing the Universe (1979)
Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Appendix B: The System in its Ethical Necessity and its Practical Bearings, p.393
"The Act of Creation: Bridging Transcendence and Immanence" http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_actofcreation.htm, presented at Millstatt Forum, Strasbourg, France, 1998-08-10
1990s