Jacek

“As Dawkins goes on to say (p. 316), “The one thing that makes evolution such a neat theory is that it explains how organized complexity can arise out of primeval simplicity.” This is one of the key strengths of Darwin’s idea, and the key weakness of the alternatives. In fact, I once argued, it is unlikely that any other theory could have this strength:”
― Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life

“Zapamiętajmy także katolickiego arcybiskupa Toledo, Obayda Allaha ibn Qâsima. Zapamiętajmy kordobańskie synagogi. Nigdy już potem, przez omal tysiąclecie, nie spotkał się świat z taką religijną tolerancją, czy dzisiejszymi mówiąc słowami – ekumenizmem. Mogli kalifowie zmieniać królów na szachownicy konfliktów rozdrobnionych państewek Hiszpanii, ich poddanym zostawiali jednak pełną wolność religijną i światopoglądową.”
― Anonymous

“Adopting and extending the existing system of mamluk recruitment, he purchased thousands of young male slaves, drawn from Kipchak Turkish and, later, Caucasian stock. These boys were trained and indoctrinated as mamluk troops, and then at the age of eighteen freed to serve their masters within the Mamluk sultanate. This approach created a constantly self-rejuvenating military force–what one modern historian has called a ‘one-generation nobility’–because children born of mamluks were not regarded as being part of the martial elite, although they were permitted to enrol in the army’s second-tier halqa reserves.”
― Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land

“We can now expose perhaps the most common misunderstanding of Darwinism: the idea that Darwin showed that evolution by natural selection is a procedure for producing Us. Ever since Darwin proposed his theory, people have often misguidedly tried to interpret it as showing that we are the destination, the goal, the point of all that winnowing and competition, and our arrival on the scene was guaranteed by the mere holding of the tournament. This confusion has been fostered by evolution’s friends and foes alike, and it is parallel to the confusion of the coin-toss tournament winner who basks in the misconsidered glory of the idea that since the tournament had to have a winner, and since he is the winner, the tournament had to produce him as the winner. Evolution can be an algorithm, and evolution can have produced us by an algorithmic process, without its being true that evolution is an algorithm for producing us.”
― Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life