Scientists of Faith: Theodosius Dobzhansky

Theodosius Dobzhansky (January 24, 1900 Ð December 18, 1975) was a prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the unifying modern evolutionary synthesis. Dobzhansky was born in Imperial Russia (now Ukraine) and emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States as a young man in 1927. He published a major work of the modern evolutionary synthesis, Genetics and the Origin of Species, in 1937. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1964, and the Franklin Medal in 1973.

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." 1973 essay by the evolutionary biologist and Russian Orthodox Christian Theodosius Dobzhansky, criticising anti-evolution creationism and espousing theistic evolution. The essay was first published in the American Biology Teacher, volume 35, pages 125-129.
Cited in Thinking About Evolution p108

"I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way." "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" (1973)

"Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. ...the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness." "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" (1973)

"There is, of course, nothing conscious or intentional in the action of natural selection. A biological species does not say to itself, "Let me try tomorrow (or one million years from now) to grow in a different soil, or use a different food..." "Natural selection is at one and the same time a blind and creative process." "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" p125-129 (1973)
Cited in Thinking About Evolution p135

"Pre-biological natural selection is a contradiction in terms." "Discussion of G. Schramm's Paper", p310.