Best evolution & genes Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“As a consequence, geneticists described evolution simply as a change in gene frequencies in populations, totally ignoring the fact that evolution consists of the two simultaneous but quite separate phenomena of adaptation and diversification.”

Two Facts Evolution Consequence Population Genes Adaptation Frequency Simultaneous Diversification Ignoring Facts

Book:Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist

Source: Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist

“The newborn infant is now seen to be wired with awesome precision... This marvelous robot will be launched into the world under the care of its parents... But to what extent does the wiring of the neurons, so undeniably encoded in the genes, preordain the directions that social development will follow?”

World Doe Care Social Parent Development Evolution Genes Marvelous Robots Infant Precision Social Development Newborn Neurons Wiring

Author:E. O. Wilson

“As an evolutionary biologist, I have learned over the years that most people do not want to see themselves as lumbering robots programmed to ensure the survival of their genes. I don't think they will want to see themselves as digital computers either. To be told by someone with impeccable scientific credentials that they are nothing of the kind can only be pleasing.”

People Thinking Want Years Kind Evolution Computer Survival Digital Genes I Have Learned Robots Biologist Impeccable Credentials

Author:John Maynard Smith

“And I tell you one thing, if the primates that we came from, had know that someday politicians would come out of the gene pool, they would have stayed up in the trees and written evolution off as a bad idea.”

Ifs Knows Ideas Written One Thing Tree Evolution Politician Someday Pool Genes Bad Ideas Primates

Author:John Sheridan

“But the 20th century suffered "two" ideologies that led to genocides. The other one, Marxism, had no use for race, didn't believe in genes and denied that human nature was a meaningful concept. Clearly, it's not an emphasis on genes or evolution that is dangerous. It's the desire to remake humanity by coercive means (eugenics or social engineering) and the belief that humanity advances through a struggle in which superior groups (race or classes) triumph over inferior ones.”

“I think we have got to start again and go right back to first principles. The argument I shall advance, surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the evolution of modern man, we must begin by throwing out the gene as the sole basis of our ideas on evolution. If there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? ... Is he manuvering to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings?”

Source: The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition

“We have new media, new forms of connectivity, and an enormous transference of knowledge. When you study evolution, you see that when new genes meet and multiply, they create new contexts and new species. In a sense, the gene-pool of knowledge and of people connecting at all levels is literally spawning a kind of mind-pool of possibilities.”

People Mind Kind Form Levels Study Media Possibility Evolution Species Enormous Pool Genes Connecting New Media Transference

Author:Jean Houston

“Animals have genes for altruism, and those genes have been selected in the evolution of many creatures because of the advantage they confer for the continuing survival of the species.”

Has Beens Science Animal Evolution Creatures Survival Advantage Species Genes Continuing Altruism Selected

Book:Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony

Source: Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony

“i learned that predators don't intentionally choose the weak or old or sick. they kill what they can, which means the slow members of the pack. thus, they strengthen the very gene pool they're feeding from. the threshold for what is weak, old or sick gets raised, and the strength, speed and instincts of new generations of hunters grow. a beautiful, self-perpetuating system where evolution is the antithesis of entropy.”

Source: The Contortionist's Handbook

“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.”

Stills Science Known Evolution Survival Machines Selfish Preserves Genes Vehicle Robots Genetics Molecules Astonishment Selfish Gene

Author:Richard Dawkins

“If theft is advantageous to everyone who succeeds at it, and adultery is a good strategy, at least for males, for increasing presence in the gene pool, why do we feel they are wrong? Shouldn't the only morality that evolution produces be the kind Bill Clinton had - being sorry you got caught?”

Ifs Feels Kind Produce Evolution Morality Succeed Bills Strategy Clinton Males Sorry Caught Pool Genes Adultery Theft Being Sorry

Author:Robert J. Sawyer

“For Dawkins, evolution is a battle among genes, each seeking to make more copies of itself. Bodies are merely the places where genes aggregate for a time.”

Body Evolution Battle Seeking Copies Genes

Book:The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History

Source: The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History

“As for the presence of large NGF [nerve growth factor] sources in snake venom and male genital organs, they may be conceived as instances of bizarre evolutionary gene expression.”

May Science Growth Expression Source Evolution Males Factors Instance Nerves Genes Organs Bizarre Snakes Venom

Author:Rita Levi-Montalcini

“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

“The neutral zone of selective advantage in the neighbourhood of zero is thus so narrow that changes in the environment, and in the genetic constitution of species, must cause this zone to be crossed and perhaps recrossed relatively rapidly in the course of evolutionary change, so that many possible gene substitutions may have a fluctuating history of advance and regression before the final balance of selective advantage is determined.”

May Science Courses Causes Environment Evolution Balance Advantage Constitution Species Finals Determined Zone Zero Genes Selective Substitution Neighbourhoods Regression

Author:Ronald Fisher

“The genes hold culture on a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance with their effects on the human gene pool. The brain is a product of evolution. Human behavior-like the deepest capacities for emotional respone which drive and guide it-is the circuitous technique by which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact.”

Humans Long Has Beens Science Values Culture Brain Effects Emotional Materials Products Evolution Behavior Capacity Guides Technique Pool Genes Human Behavior Leashes

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Our minds have been built by selfish genes, but they have been built to be social, trustworthy and cooperative.”

Mind Has Beens Social Evolution Built Selfish Genes Trustworthy Cooperatives Selfish Gene

Author:Matt Ridley

“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.”

“Genetically influenced behavior is not necessarily good and not necessarily unchangeable. Explanations of bad behavior that appeal to genes do not absolve a person any more than do explanations that appeal to upbringing.”

Persons Evolution Behavior Appeals Explanation Genes Upbringing Unchangeable Bad Behavior

Author:Steven Pinker

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