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Evolutionary Biology Quotes

Browse 96 quotes about Evolutionary Biology.

Evolutionary Biology Quotes

“Many of our current health problems result, nonetheless, from the environments we have created to satisfy our desires. Most people in developed societies live better now physically than the kings and queens of just a century ago. We have a surfeit of delicious food, protection from the elements, time for leisure, and relief from pain. The accomplishments are spectacular, but they also cause most chronic disease.”

LifeCivilizationSicknessEvolutionary PsychologyModernityEvolutionary BiologyMismatch
Book:Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry
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“The lessons of relationship that our primordial ancestors learned are deeply encoded in the genetics of our neurobiological circuits of love. They are present from the moment we are born and activated at puberty by the cocktail of neurochemicals. It’s an elegant synchronized system. At first our brain weighs a potential partner, and if the person fits our ancestral wish list, we get a spike in the release of sex chemicals that makes us dizzy with a rush of unavoidable infatuation. It’s the first step down the primeval path of pair-bonding.”

LoveMindHeartRomanceLove QuotesEvolutionBrainy QuotesLove Quotes And SayingsSexualityRomance QuotesNeuroscienceEvolutionary PsychologyMind QuotesPhilosophy Of ScienceSexualEuphoriaMatingNeurologyMateEvolutionary BiologyScience Of MindLibidoSexual IntercourseMating RitualsPhilosophy Of LoveEmotions LoveMating RitualMating CallMating CoupleReproduction Philosophy
Book:What is Mind?
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“Evolution & Electronics (The Sonnet) I know electronic circuitry like the back of my hand, Yet it's the human mind that fascinates me most immensely. Fascination in electronics lies in new design possibility, Whereas the mind is the breeding ground of all possibility. Our engineering is puny compared to that of Mother Nature, Each day a new mystery unfolds in the vast organic kingdom. Our puny electronics work based on cold 'n rigid computation, Evolution of life in nature is predicated on plastic mutation. That's why we must never disregard nature blinded by arrogance, We may have conquered nature's mercy but we're still subordinate. The moment a lifeform starts to vilify the womb whence it came, With a single blow creator nature can flatten all our obstinance. Foster humility and wisdom, before going nuts about technology. Don't end up yet another fancy stain upon the honor of humanity.”

Evolutionary PsychologyMachine LearningNeurologyClimate CrisisEvolutionary BiologyConsciousness Mind BrainNeuroscience PoetryEngineering PoetryFourth Industrial RevolutionBiologist Poem
Book:Corazon Calamidad: Obedient to None, Oppressive to None
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“In short, the Industrial Revolution was actually a combination of technological, economical, scientific and social transformations that rapidly and radically altered the course of history and reconfigured the face of the planet in less than ten generations -a true blink of an eye by the standards of evolutionary time.”

EvolutionAnthropologyObesityHomo SapiensEvolutionary BiologyIndustrializationSedentarismErgonomics
Book:The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease
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“True. And there are an infinite number of universes, of course, in which we don't exist at all - that is, no creatures similar to us exist at all. In which the human race doesn't exist at all. There are an infinite number of universes, for instance, in which flowers are the predominant form of life -or in which no form of life has ever developed or will develop.”

Science FictionInfinityExtinctionEvolutionary BiologyMultiverseMany WorldsMany Worlds InterpretationSpeculative Science FictionSpeculativePhase Space
Book:"FREDRIC BROWN" BOOKS: What Mad Universe / Space on My Hands / Honeymoon in Hell
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“The textbook in question in the infamous Scope's Monkey Trial was partially written by the Harvard educated white supremacist, Charles B. Davenport.”

EvolutionRacismRacism In AmericaEugenicsTheory Of EvolutionEvolutionary BiologyDarwinCharles DarwinScientific RacismRace HygieneEugenicistScopes TrialScopes Monkey TrialLeonard Darwin
Book:From a "Race of Masters" to a "Master Race": 1948 to 1848
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“Different sorts of survival machine appear very varied on the outside and in their internal organs. An octopus is nothing like a mouse, and both are quite different from an oak tree. Yet in their fundamental chemistry they are rather uniform, and, in particular, the replicators that they bear, the genes, are basically the same kind of molecule in all of us—from bacteria to elephants. We are all survival machines for the same kind of replicator—molecules called DNA— but there are many different ways of making a living in the world, and the replicators have built a vast range of machines to exploit them. A monkey is a machine that preserves genes up trees, a fish is a machine that preserves genes in the water; there is even a small worm that preserves genes in German beer mats. DNA works in mysterious ways.”

ScienceEvolutionary Biology
Book:The Selfish Gene
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“Scientists who oppose evolution ask: What further evidence is needed to prove that evolution and the spontaneous origin of life is just a story? Since the 1950s, universities from around the world have performed thousands of experiments and spent millions of dollars in an attempt to produce life from non-life. Despite large degrees of scientific intervention and use of sophisticated laboratory equipment, the work thus far has produced nonfunctional fragments of DNA, proteinoids (but not proteins), and a poisonous mixture of amino acids. Not one living organism has been formed in the laboratory using a mixture of chemicals. If the top scientists from around the world cannot demonstrate that life formed spontaneously, then the theory of evolution is, for all practical purposes, dead.”

ScienceEvolutionEvolutionary BiologyCreation ScienceOrigins Of Life
Book:Evolution: The Grand Experiment: The Quest for an Answer, Volume 1
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“In many species, males pay for sex. For example, among black ticked hanging flies, an amorous male will present a female with a nice, juicy insect and then copulate with her while she distractedly enjoys her meal. If the female finishes before he does, she simply walks away. Game over. If, on the other hand, he finishes first, he snatches the insect away and tries to woo another female with the leftovers.”

FunnyScienceEvolutionary BiologySex Differences
Book:The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve
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“There are a whole other range of sciences that must deal with the narrative reconstruction of the inordinately complex events of history that can occur but once in their detailed glory. And for those kinds of sciences, be it cosmology, or evolutionary biology, or geology, or palaeontology, the experimental methods, simplification, quantification, prediction and repetition of the experimental sciences don't always work. You have to go with the narrative, the descriptive methods of what? Of historians.”

KindWholeDealsEventsGloryMethodComplexesNarrativeRangeBiologyHistorianRepetitionPredictionsCosmologyGeologyReconstructionSimplificationEvolutionary BiologyExperimental Science
Author:Richard Lewontin
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“If I may bend your ear for a moment, I like Terry Pratchett. I like footnotes. I like footnotes even when they are not as entertaining as a Pratchett footnote, even when they are in the middle of a book on evolutionary biology and briefly explain the Red Queen hypothesis or the fate of the Stephen's Island Wren or how many bunnies can dance on the back of Australia. Footnotes fill me with a very mild glee. The endnote simply does not compare.”

IfsMayDoeBookMomentsFateMiddleRedEarsCompareQueensIslandsAustraliaBiologyEntertainingHypothesisBunniesGleeFootnotesEvolutionary BiologyWrensRed Queen
Author:Ursula Vernon
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“"Methodological naturalism" and "metaphysical naturalism" are terms that often surface in the continuing battle between evolutionary biology and creationism/intelligent design. The methodological thesis says that scientific theories shouldn't postulate supernatural entities; the metaphysical thesis says that no such entities exist. In this debate, God is the supernatural entity at issue; the question isn't whether science gets to talk about mathematical entities if Platonism is correct.”

IfsTermIssuesDesignTheoryBattleIntelligentSurfaceDebateMathematicalBiologyEntityContinuingMetaphysicalNaturalismThesisCreationismIntelligent DesignScientific TheoryEvolutionary Biology
Author:Elliott Sober
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“Considering that we live in an era of evolutionary everything---evolutionary biology, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary economics, evolutionary computing---it was surprising how rarely people thought in evolutionary terms. It was a human blind spot. We look at the world around us as a snapshot when it was really a movie, constantly changing.”

PeopleWorldHumansLooksTermPsychologyEconomicsBlindMedicineSpotsErasBiologySurprisingConsideringEcologyEvolutionary PsychologyComputingSnapshotsEvolutionary BiologyBlind Spots
Book:Prey
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“Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology.”

IfsMeanDoeScienceFaithReligiousMistakeEvolutionHolyConflictCreatorAstronomyScriptureAriseDoctrineSymbolsBiologyImaginaryScience And ReligionAccusedReligious FaithClashAnthropologySystematicTextbooksBlasphemyGeologyBlundersHoly ScripturesEvolutionary BiologyNothing Makes Sense
Author:Theodosius Dobzhansky
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“In a high tech world the cure for the tragic shortcomings and perilous fallacies of human intuition is education, but education in economics, evolutionary biology, probability and statistics - unfortunately most High School and College curricula have barely changed since Medieval times!”

WorldHumansSchoolChangedCollegeHigh SchoolEconomicsIntuitionCuresTragicBiologyStatisticsProbabilityMedievalShortcomingsFallacyEvolutionary BiologyMedieval Times
Author:Steven Pinker
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“Paleontologist Niles Eldredge, a prominent evolutionist, said: 'The doubt that has infiltrated the previous, smugly confident certitude of evolutionary biology’s last twenty years has inflamed passions.' He spoke of the 'lack of total agreement even within the warring camps,' and added, 'things really are in an uproar these days . . . Sometimes it seems as though there are as many variations on each [evolutionary] theme as there are individual biologists.'”

YearsSaidSometimesSeemsLastsPassionIndividualDoubtTwentiesThese DaysThemeAgreementSpokesBiologyCampsVariationProminentBiologistCertitudeEvolutionary Biology
Author:Niles Eldredge
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“A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks semipopular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general. these have not been found-yet the optimism has died hard and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks.”

ThinkingYearsWellsIdeasHardFoundLevelsNumbersFantasyRecordsSourceInvolvedPureLowsOptimismScientistDiedInevitableBiologyArticlesFossilsPredictableProgressionLarge NumbersTextbooksWishful ThinkingEvolutionary BiologyLow LevelPaleontologyOversimplification
Author:David M. Raup
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“I don't believe, for instance, that evolutionary biology or any scientific endeavor has much to say about love. I'm sure a lot can be learned about the importance of hormones and their effects on our feelings. But do the bleak implications of evolution have any impact on the love I feel for my family? Do they make me more likely to break the law of flaunt society's expectations of me? No. I simply does not follow that human relationships are meaningless just because we live in a godless universe subject to the natural laws of biology.”

FeelsBelieveHumansDoeFeelingsLawUniverseNaturalBreakSubjectsEffectsEvolutionExpectationsMy FamilyImportanceImpactDon't BelieveInstanceBiologyEndeavorMeaninglessImplicationsHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsHormonesNatural LawBleakEvolutionary Biology
Author:Greg Graffin
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“If belief in evolution is a requirement to be a real scientist, it’s interesting to consider a quote from Dr. Marc Kirschner, founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School: “In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.”

IfsYearsRealFactsSchoolLastsBeliefInterestingTakenEvolutionScientistAccountsIndependentMedicalDepartmentChairsBiologyDrsRequirementsFoundingHarvardPhysiologyEvolutionary BiologyMedical SchoolBiochemistryMolecular Biology
Author:Marc Kirschner
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“If it is true that an influx of doubt and uncertainty actually marks periods of healthy growth in a science, then evolutionary biology is flourishing today as it seldom has flourished in the past. For biologists collectively are less agreed upon the details of evolutionary mechanics than they were a scant decade ago. Superficially, it seems as if we know less about evolution than we did in 1959, the centennial year of Darwin's on the Origin of Species.”

IfsKnowsYearsSeemsTodayPastGrowthDoubtEvolutionPeriodsHealthyMarkSpeciesDetailsDecadesUncertaintyBiologyMechanicFlourishingBiologistEvolutionary BiologyOrigin Of SpeciesCentennial
Book:Time Frames: The Evolution of Punctuated Equilibria
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“Today the human race is a single twig on the tree of life, a single species on a single planet. Our condition can thus only be described as extremely fragile, endangered by forces of nature currently beyond our control, our own mistakes, and other branches of the wildly blossoming tree itself. Looked at this way, we can then pose the question of the future of humanity on Earth, in the solar system, and in the galaxy from the standpoint of both evolutionary biology and human nature. The conclusion is straightforward: Our choice is to grow, branch, spread and develop, or stagnate and die.”

WayHumansTodayEarthHumanityDiesChoicesForceGrowsRaceMistakeTreeConditionsHuman NaturePlanetsWalkingMoonSpeciesSpreadConclusionHuman RaceBranchesBiologyFragileGalaxyStraightforwardStandpointStar GazingOur ChoicesSolar SystemForces Of NatureTree Of LifeBlossomingTwigsEvolutionary BiologyFuture Of Humanity
Book:Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization
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