Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Richard Leakey

Quote by Richard Leakey

“It has taken biologists some 230 years to identify and describe three quarters of a million insects; if there are indeed at least thirty million, as Erwin (Terry Erwin, the Smithsonian Institute) estimates, then, working as they have in the past, insect taxonomists have ten thousand years of employment ahead of them. Ghilean Prance, director of the Botanical Gardens in Kew, estimates that a complete list of plants in the Americas would occupy taxonomists for four centuries, again working at historical rates.”

Quote by Richard Leakey

Author

Richard Leakey
Richard Leakey

Richard Leakey (born December 19, 1944) is a renowned Kenyan paleoanthropologist, politician, and environmental activist. As a member of the famous Leakey family, he continued the legacy of his parents, Louis and Mary Leakey, in discovering early human fossils in Africa. He served as director of the National Museums of Kenya and led excavations at Lake Turkana, uncovering significant fossils including the 'Turkana Boy.' He also held the position of director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, where he fought against ivory poaching and promoted conservation. His work has profoundly influenced the understanding of human origins and African wildlife protection. more

You May Also Like

“Careless of waste, wallowing in refuse, exterminating the enemies . . . despising age, denying human natural history, fabricating pseudotraditions, swamped in the repeated personal crises of the aging preadolescent; all are familiar images of American society. They are signs of private nightmares of incoherence and disorder in broken climaxes where technologies in pursuit of mastery create ever-worsening problems - private nightmares expanded to a social level.”

“It is one of the great ironies of human history that some mortals with incorrect understanding of God and life's purposes sometimes scold God because of the abundance of human misery and suffering-which, indeed, lies all about us. Such individuals almost dare God to demonstrate His existence by straightening things out-and at once! But He is a much different kind of Father than that. Surely it is requisite to eternal life that we come to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (see John 17:3).”

“It is one of the ironies of religious history that many mortals err in their understanding of the nature of God and end up rejecting not the real God but their own erroneous and stereotypical image of God. Frequently this is because they have thought of God solely in terms of thunderings at Sinai without pondering substance. . . .”