“The adaptation observed in men, animals and plants… one part of this adaptation is explained from a thought-process in the interior of these bodies… another part, however, the adaptation of the organism, by a thought-process in a greater whole.”
Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)
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Bernhard Riemann 43
German mathematician 1826–1866Related quotes

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 242.

“Crime is an adaptive organism. Squeeze one niche and it moves into another.”
Source: On the Steel Breeze (2013), Chapter 26 (p. 283)

Source: Red Mars (1992), Chapter 4, “Homesick” (p. 205)
p ix-x
Information and Decision Processes (1960)
Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 225

Pt. I, Ch. 2 : The Evanescence of Evil, concluding paragraph
Social Statics (1851)
Context: Man needed one moral constitution to fit him for his original state; he needs another to fit him for his present state; and he has been, is, and will long continue to be, in process of adaptation. And the belief in human perfectibility merely amounts to the belief that, in virtue of this process, man will eventually become completely suited to his mode of life.
Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity. Instead of civilization being artificial, it is part of nature; all of a piece with the development of the embryo or the unfolding of a flower. The modifications mankind have undergone, and are still undergoing, result from a law underlying the whole organic creation; and provided the human race continues, and the constitution of things remains the same, those modifications must end in completeness.

Part 1 “Four Classical Arguments”, Chapter 2 “The Argument from Design (and Some Creationist Calculations)” (p. 19)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)