Frases de Thomas Henry Huxley
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Thomas Henry Huxley PC, F.R.S. fue un biólogo británico, conocido como el Bulldog de Darwin por su defensa de la teoría de la evolución de Charles Darwin.

Su famoso debate en 1860 con el obispo de Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, fue un momento clave en la aceptación más amplia de la evolución, y para su propia carrera. Allí deslizó su mordaz frase "prefiero descender de un simio antes que de un obtuso como usted" cuando el obispo preguntó si era heredero del mono de manera materna o paterna; aunque no está recogido lo que respondió de forma exacta, contestó algo así:



"Si tuviera que elegir por antepasado, entre un pobre mono y un hombre magníficamente dotado por la naturaleza y de gran influencia, que utiliza sus dones para ridiculizar una discusión científica y para desacreditar a quienes buscaran humildemente la verdad, preferiría descender del mono." Se dice que el impacto de las palabras fue tal, que una señora presente en la sala se desmayó.



Huxley tuvo poca educación, y se enseñó él mismo casi todo de lo que sabía. Brillantemente, se convirtió en quizás el mejor anatomista comparativo de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. Trabajó primero con invertebrados, clarificando las relaciones entre grupos que previamente se les conocía poco. Más tarde, trabajó con vertebrados, especialmente en la relación entre hombre y los monos. Otra de sus conclusiones importantes fue que las aves evolucionaron de los dinosaurios, mayormente, los carnívoros pequeños . Esta idea es apoyada ampliamente hoy en día.

Su trabajo en la anatomía ha sido opacado por su apoyo controvertido a favor de la evolución, y por su extenso trabajo público en la educación científica, ambos han tenido un efecto significante en la sociedad británica y alrededor del mundo. Si bien pensadores y obras más antiguos ya habían promovido el punto de vista 'agnóstico', se considera a Huxley inventor del término ya que lo usó en 1869 para describir su propia visión de la religión, en demanda de criterio al presentar evidencias en lo científico.

✵ 4. mayo 1825 – 29. junio 1895   •   Otros nombres Thomas Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley Foto
Thomas Henry Huxley: 146   frases 6   Me gusta

Frases célebres de Thomas Henry Huxley

“El método de investigación científica no es más que la expresión del modo necesario del funcionamiento de la mente humana.”

Fuente: Autobiography and Selected Essays http://books.google.es/books?id=8xEoY_pWE2kC&pg=PA61. Thomas Henry Huxley. Echo Library, 2006. ISBN 1-4068-0059-7, pág. 61

“Prefiero ser el descendiente de dos simios que ser un hombre y tener miedo a enfrentar la verdad.”

Fuente: Citado en: Cyril Bibby: T.H. Huxley: Scientist, Humanist and Educator, Horizon Press (1960) pág. 259

“La ciencia … se suicida cuando adopta un credo.”

Fuente: "The Darwin Memorial" (1885) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE2/DarM.html.

“La vida es demasiado corta como para ocuparse uno mismo de matar lo ya matado más de una vez.”

Durante una serie de interpelaciones cuando Richard Owen repetidamente hacía afirmaciones que repudiaban de modo general el cerebro del gorila.
Fuente: Citado en: Charles Darwin: The Power of Place http://books.google.es/books?id=o0CeYRJnWmYC&pg=PA159, Volumen 2, de E. Janet Browne, Princeton University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-691-11439-0, pág. 159
Fuente: [Richard Owen: Conferencia en la Royal Institution. Athenaeum (13 de abril de 1861) pág. 498; Browne Vol. 2, pág. 159.]

“Es un error para un hombre decir que él está seguro de la verdad objetiva de una proposición a menos que pueda demostrar que, lógicamente, justifica esa certeza. Esto es lo que afirma el agnosticismo.”

Fuente: Citado en: Contemporary American Religion: A-L Volumen 1 de Contemporary American Religion, de Wade Clark Roof, ISBN 0-02-864928-1, 9780028649283, Macmillan Reference USA, 2000, pág. 12

Frases sobre la ciencia de Thomas Henry Huxley

“El hombre de ciencia ha aprendido a creer en la justificación, no por la fe, sino por la verificación.”

Fuente: On the advisableness of improving natural knowledge (1866) http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext01/thx1410.txt.

“La ciencia es simplemente sentido común en su máxima expresión, es decir, estricta precisión en la observación, y guerra sin cuartel contra las falacias lógicas.”

Fuente: T.H. Huxley, The Crayfish: an introduction to the study of zoology. D. Appleton & Co. Nueva York, 1880.

“En la cuna de toda ciencia yacen teólogos extinguidos, como las serpientes estranguladas junto a la cuna de Hércules.”

Fuente: Darwiniana: the Origin of Species (1860) http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8thdr10.txt.

Thomas Henry Huxley Frases y Citas

“No pretendo sugerir que las diferencias científicas deberían ser resueltas por sufragio universal, pero yo sólo concibo que las demostraciones sólidas deben basarse en algo más que en afirmaciones vacías y sin fundamento.”

Fuente: The cerebral structure of man and apes; A Succinct History of the Controversy respecting the Cerebral Structure of Man and the Apes]], en: Evidence as to Man's place in Nature (1863)

“La única libertad que me importa es la libertad de hacer lo correcto, de la libertad para hacer el mal estoy dispuesto a desprenderme de la manera más fácil con cualquier persona que venga a quitármela.”

Fuente: "On Descartes' Discourse touching the method of using one's reason rightly and of seeking scientific truth" (1870) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE1/DesDis.html.

“Soy demasiado escéptico para negar la posibilidad de cualquier cosa … pero no veo mi camino a su conclusión.”

Fuente: Carta a Herbert Spencer (22 de marzo de 1886). Citado en: The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley http://books.google.es/books?id=r6xAaNkOXgAC&pg=PA273, Volumen 2. Leonard Huxley. Echo Library, 2007. ISBN 1-4068-3645-1, pág. 273

Thomas Henry Huxley: Frases en inglés

“I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission”

"On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences" (1854) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/EdVal.html
1850s
Contexto: I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission; and will, at any rate, view with suspicion those weakly amiable theories of the Divine government, which would have us believe pain to be an oversight and a mistake, — to be corrected by and by. On the other hand, the predominance of happiness among living things — their lavish beauty — the secret and wonderful harmony which pervades them all, from the highest to the lowest, are equally striking refutations of that modern Manichean doctrine, which exhibits the world as a slave-mill, worked with many tears, for mere utilitarian ends.
There is yet another way in which natural history may, I am convinced, take a profound hold upon practical life, — and that is, by its influence over our finer feelings, as the greatest of all sources of that pleasure which is derivable from beauty.

“Physiology, Psychology, Ethics, Political Science, must submit to the same ordeal.”

Evolution and Ethics (1893)
Contexto: The history of civilization details the steps by which men have succeeded in building up an artificial world within the cosmos. Fragile reed as he may be, man, as Pascal says, is a thinking reed: there lies within him a fund of energy, operating intelligently and so far akin to that which pervades the universe, that it is competent to influence and modify the cosmic process. In virtue of his intelligence the dwarf bends the Titan to his will. In every family, in every polity that has been established, the cosmic process in man has been restrained and otherwise modified by law and custom; in surrounding nature, it has been similarly influenced by the art of the shepherd, the agriculturist, the artisan. As civilization has advanced, so has the extent of this interference increased; until the organized and highly developed sciences and arts of the present day have endowed man with a command over the course of non-human nature greater than that once attributed to the magicians.... a right comprehension of the process of life and of the means of influencing its manifestations is only just dawning upon us. We do not yet see our way beyond generalities; and we are befogged by the obtrusion of false analogies and crude anticipations. But Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, have all had to pass through similar phases, before they reached the stage at which their influence became an important factor in human affairs. Physiology, Psychology, Ethics, Political Science, must submit to the same ordeal. Yet it seems to me irrational to doubt that, at no distant period, they will work as great a revolution in the sphere of practice.<!--pp.83-84

“Each such answer to the great question, invariably asserted”

Fuente: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 72
Contexto: Each such answer to the great question, invariably asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, or it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth—tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors.

“The life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess.”

1860s, A Liberal Education and Where to Find It (1868)
Contexto: The life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated — without haste, but without remorse.

“Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation.”

"Address on University Education" (1876) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/Ad-U-Ed.html, delivered at the formal opening of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, September 12, 1876. Huxley, American Addresses (1877), p. 125. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey used the same words in a commencement address at the Holton-Arms School, Bethesda, Maryland, June 1967; reported in The Washington Post (June 11, 1967), p. K3
1870s
Contexto: I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness, or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is what are you going to do with all these things?

“I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything — especially as I am now so much occupied with theology — but I don't see my way to your conclusion.”

Letter to Herbert Spencer (22 March 1886); this is often quoted with a variant spelling as: I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.
1880s
Fuente: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley - Volume 1

“Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads or you shall learn nothing.”

1860s, Reply to Charles Kingsley (1860)
Contexto: Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.
Contexto: Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.

“Science … commits suicide when it adopts a creed.”

"The Darwin Memorial" (1885) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE2/DarM.html
1880s

“God give me strength to face a fact though it slay me.”

As quoted in Nature Vol. 149 (Jan-Jun) 1942 p. 291, and A Philosophy for Our Time (1954) by Bernard Mannes Baruch, p. 13
1890s

“I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed—from the inorganic to the organic—from blind force to conscious intellect and will.”

Fuente: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.1 (1884 edition) http://books.google.com/books?id=1Z9DGVKfXuQC p. 28
Contexto: The whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed—from the inorganic to the organic—from blind force to conscious intellect and will.

“Not far from the invention of fire… we must rank the invention of doubt.”

Collected Essays vol 6, viii; quoted in T. H. Huxley: Scientist, Humanist, and Educator (1950) by Cyril Bibby, p. 257
1890s

“Rousseau's writings are so admirably adapted to touch both these classes that the effect they produced, especially in France, is easily intelligible.”

"On The Natural Inequality of Men" (January 1890) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE1/NatIneq.html
1890s

“The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

Presidential Address at the British Association, "Biogenesis and abiogenesis" (1870) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE8/B-Ab.html; later published in Collected Essays, Vol. 8, p. 229
1870s

“Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once.”

One of a series of exchanges when Richard Owen repeated generally repudiated claims about the Gorilla brain in a Royal Institution lecture. Athenaeum (13 April 1861) p. 498; Browne Vol 2, p. 159
1860s

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