Science Quote by John Polkinghorne

Polkinghorne smuggles a big metaphysical claim into a sentence that sounds like a mild clarification. “Of course” is the tell: he’s not offering evolution as a controversial theory about biology, but as a default grammar for reality itself. Coming from a physicist (and one famously comfortable talking across science and theology), the line works like a bridge: it invites readers to see Darwin not as a siloed explanation for finches and fossils, but as one chapter in a broader story of lawful change.

The intent is expansive and quietly polemical. By stretching “evolution” to “the whole universe,” Polkinghorne nudges against a common cultural partition: science explains matter, religion explains meaning, and the two keep to their lanes. His subtext says the lanes were always arbitrary. Cosmology already speaks in evolutionary verbs - the early universe cools, structures condense, stars cook heavier elements, planets assemble, chemistry complexifies. Life’s emergence stops looking like an exception and starts looking like an expected downstream consequence of a universe with the right kinds of rules and time.

Context matters: late-20th-century debates often framed evolution as a threat to purpose. Polkinghorne’s move is to reframe “evolution” as a feature of creation rather than a rival account of it. He’s also signaling a methodological humility: the universe isn’t a static artifact but a process, and any serious worldview has to make peace with becoming, contingency, and novelty. The line lands because it enlarges the frame without raising its voice.