Home / Quotes / Quote by Linus Pauling

Quote by Linus Pauling

“I like people. I like animals, too-whales and quail, dinosaurs and dodos. But I like human beings especially, and I am unhappy that the pool of human germ plasm, which determines the nature of the human race, is deteriorating.”

Quote by Linus Pauling

Author

Linus Pauling was a renowned chemist born on February 28, 1901, in the United States. He made significant contributions to the fields of chemical bonding theory, molecular structure, and quantum chemistry. Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 for his outstanding achievements in chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his efforts in the peace movement. more

You May Also Like

“I understood that you would take the Human Race in the concrete, have exploded the absurd notion of Pope's Essay on Man, [Erasmus] Darwin, and all the countless Believers-even (strange to say) among Xtians-of Man's having progressed from an Ouran Outang state-so contrary to all History, to all Religion, nay, to all Possibility-to have affirmed a Fall in some sense.”

Men Humans States Science Fall Race Possibility Strange Evolution Understood Notion Contrary Believer Absurd Human Race Concrete Pope Essays Erasmus

Book:Lectures 1818-1819 on the history of philosophy

Source: Lectures 1818-1819 on the history of philosophy

“If a single cell, under appropriate conditions, becomes a man in the space of a few years, there can surely be no difficulty in understanding how, under appropriate conditions, a cell may, in the course of untold millions of years, give origin to the human race.”

Ifs Men Giving Years Humans May Science Courses Understanding Space Race Millions Conditions Evolution Difficulty Cells Human Race Appropriate

Book:The Principles of Biology

Source: The Principles of Biology

“If the germ plasm wants to swim in the ocean, it makes itself a fish; if the germ plasm wants to fly in the air, it makes itself a bird. If it wants to go to Harvard, it makes itself a man. The strangest thing of all is that the germ plasm that we carry around within us has done all those things. There was a time, hundreds of millions of years ago, when it was making fish. Then ... amphibia ... reptiles ... mammals, and now it's making men.”

Ifs Men Want Years Done Science Millions Air Evolution Ocean Bird Years Ago Fishes Flight Swim Harvard Germs Mammals Reptiles

Author:George Wald

“If they [enlightened men] take any interest in examining, in the infancy of our species, the almost obliterated traces of so many nations that have become extinct, they will doubtless take a similar interest in collecting, amidst the darkness which covers the infancy of the globe, the traces of those revolutions which took place anterior to the existence of all nations.”

Ifs Men Science Nations Interest Existence Darkness Revolution Evolution Species Enlightened Globes Collecting Infancy Examining

Book:Essay on the Theory of the Earth

Source: Essay on the Theory of the Earth

“If we look round the world, there seem to be not above six distinct varieties in the human species, each of which is strongly marked, and speaks the kind seldom to have mixed with any other. But there is nothing in the shape, nothing in the faculties, that shows their coming from different originals; and the varieties of climate, of nourishment, and custom, are sufficient to produce every change.”

Source: A History of the Earth, and Animated Nature

“In the animal world, on the other hand, the process of evolution is characterised by the progressive discrimination of the animal and vegetative functions, and a consequent differentiation of these two great provinces into their separate departments.”

World Two Hands Science Process Animal Evolution Function Discrimination Department Progressive Provinces Animal World Differentiation

Book:Principles of Physiological Psychology

Source: Principles of Physiological Psychology

“In the process of natural selection, then, any device that can insert a higher proportion of certain genes into subsequent generations will come to characterize the species.”

Science Certain Process Natural Generations Evolution Higher Species Proportion Devices Genes Selection Natural Selection Insert

Author:E. O. Wilson

“It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.”

Science Process Imagine Conditions Depends Evolution Perfection Constant Errors Tendencies Imagine That Organisms Adaptation Modification Remodeling

Book:Evolution and Ethics

Source: Evolution and Ethics

“It is because of his brain that he [modern man] has risen above the animals. Guess which animals he has risen above.”

Men Science Animal Brain Modern Evolution Risen Modern Man He Has Risen

Author:Will Cuppy

“It is certainly true in the United States that there is an uneasiness about certain aspects of science, particularly evolution, because it conflicts, in some people's minds, with their sense of how we all came to be. But you know, if you are a believer in God, it's hard to imagine that God would somehow put this incontrovertible evidence in front of us about our relationship to other living organisms and expect us to disbelieve it. I mean, that doesn't make sense at all.”