Status Updates From On the Origin of Species

“ the hen gives the danger-chuckle,”

LMAO 😭

“ After this interval, I felt sure that the aphides would want to excrete. I watched them for some time through a lens, but not one exereted; I then tickled and stroked them with a hair in the same manner, as well as I could, as the ants do with their antenna; but not one exereted.”

What a scientist-y thing to do 😔

“ If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down”

“To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable con- trivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.“

“ Long before having arrived at this part of my work, a crowd of difficulties will have occurred to the reader. Some of them are so grave that to this day I can never reflect on them without being staggered”