Sublime

—reminds me of Buckle whom I once met at Hensleigh Wedgwood's. I was very glad to learn from him his system of collecting facts. He told me that he bought all the books which he read, and made a full index, to each, of the facts which he thought might prove serviceable to him, and that he could always remember in what book he had read anything, for

the severe problem for Darwin’s theory of evolution in accounting for biological features that require multiple interacting components was one of the first major scientific arguments advanced against it

Evidence of common descent is routinely confused for evidence of Darwin’s mechanism.

An unverified hypothesis is of little or no value; but if anyone should hereafter be led to make observations by which some such hypothesis could be established, I shall have done good service, as an astonishing number of isolated facts can be thus connected together and rendered intelligible.

Evolution (the sinister enemy of revolution) does not especially deny the existence of God; what it does deny is the existence of man.

However, to ensure that enough of us reach this age and reproduce accordingly, we have evolved to be sufficiently “overengineered” that statistically many of us are able to live much longer.

Natural selection among animals is incessant and merciless and has produced millions of species, all of whom adhere to this simple principle: Minimize the risk of committing type I errors to curtail the risk of injury or death, and learn to live with type II errors or foregone benefits.