Evolução
# Evolução

Evolução significa um processo de mudança ou transformação e é comumente usada para se referir à evolução biológica, genética ou orgânica, às mudanças nas populações de organismos ao longo das gerações, aos processos pelos quais tais mudanças ocorrem e às teorias a respeito delas.
       - Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called "creationism" and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God. This antithesis is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such. But on the other, the doctrine of evolution does not answer every query, especially the great philosophical question: where does everything come from? And how did everything start which ultimately led to man?
          - Papa Bento XVI, discurso em Auronzo di Cadore, 24 de julho de 2007
       - I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
          - Charles Darwin, A Origem das Espécies (1859), Capítulo III
       - This belief, that Darwinian evolution is "random", is not merely false. It is the exact opposite of the truth. Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially non-random.
          - Richard Dawkins, O Relojoeiro Cego (1986) capítulo 3, p. 49
       -So far from a gradual progress towards perfection forming any necessary part of the Darwinian creed, it appears to us that it is perfectly consistent with indefinite persistence in one state, or with a gradual retrogression.
          -Thomas Huxley, Críticas sobre "A Origem das Espécies" (1864)
       -New knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.
          -Papa João Paulo II, discurso à Pontifícia Academia das Ciências, 22 de outubro de 1996
       -Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.
          -Theodosius Dobzhansky, ensaio homônimo publicado pela primeira vez na American Biology Teacher em 1973
       -The evolutionary process results immediately and automatically from the basic property of living matter—that of self-copying, but with occasional errors. Self-copying leads to multiplication and competition; the errors in self-copying are what we call mutations, and mutations will inevitably confer different degrees of biological advantage or disadvantage on their possessors. The consequence will be differential reproduction down the generations—in other words, natural selection.
          -Julian Huxley, Evolution as Process (Nova York: Harper and Row, 1953).