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Quote by Matt Ridley

“The interaction of genetic and external influences makes my behaviour unpredictable, but not undetermined. In the gap between those words lies freedom.”

Quote by Matt Ridley

Author

Matt Ridley is a British journalist, author, and biologist. He is known for his in-depth exploration of science, nature, and human behavior. Born on February 7, 1958, Ridley's career spans multiple disciplines, including economics, genetics, and politics. more

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“Society works not because we have consciously invented it, but because it is an ancient product of our evolved predispositions. It is literally in our nature.”

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Book:The Origins of Virtue

Source: The Origins of Virtue

“The great paradox of determinism and free will, which has held the attention of the wisest of philosophers and psychologists for generations, can be phrased in more biological terms as follows: If our genes are inherited, and our environment is a train of physical events set in motion before we were born, how can there be a truly independent agent within the brain? The agent itself is created by the interaction of the genes and the environment. It would appear that our freedom is only a self delusion.”

“But nature - that is, biological evolution - has not fitted man to any specific environment. On the contrary, ... he has a rather crude survival kit; and yet -this is the paradox of the human condition - one that fits him to all environments. Among the multitude of animals which scamper, fly, burrow and swim around us, man is the only one who is not locked into his environment. His imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness, make it possible for him not to accept the environment but to change it.”

“Because men, compared to male chimps, have such relatively small testicles (large testicles indicate a species where many males mate, one after the other, with the same female), we might guess that promiscuous societies were uncommon in the immediate human past.”

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Author:Carl Sagan

“Recent discoveries about apes suggest, however, that a gorilla or common chimp stands at least as good a chance being murdered as the average human.”

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Book:The Rise And Fall Of The Third Chimpanzee

Source: The Rise And Fall Of The Third Chimpanzee

“Our ancestors were eating meat over 2.5 million years ago. We mainly ate meat, fish, fruits, vegetables and nuts. We have to assume our physiology evolved in association with this diet. The balanced diet for our species was what we could acquire then, not what the government and doctors tell us to eat now.”

“The closer the genetic relationship of the family members, as for example father-to-son, as opposed to uncle-to-nephew, the higher the degree of cooperation.”

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Author:E. O. Wilson

“Actually, there is a sense in which polygynous marriage has not been the historical norm - even where polygyny is permitted, multiple wives are generally reserved for a relatively few men who can afford them or qualify via formal rank. For eons and eons, most marriages have been monogamous, even though most societies haven't been”

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Author:Robert Wright

“A life that stood out as a gospel of self-forgetting service. He could have added fortune to fame but caring for neither he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world. The centre of his world was the south where he was born in slavery some 79 years ago and where he did his work as a creative scientist.”

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Author:George Washington Carver

“Marie Curie is, of all celebrated beings, the only one whom fame has not corrupted.”

Author:Albert Einstein