Quotes About Species

INTELLIGENCE IS ONGOING, INDIVIDUAL adaptability. Adaptations that an intelligent species may make in a single generation, other species make over many generations of selective breeding and selective dying. Yet intelligence is demanding. If it is misdirected by accident or by intent, it can foster its own orgies of breeding and dying.

Adaptations that an intelligent species may make in a single generation, other species make over many generations of selective breeding and selective dying. Yet intelligence is demanding. If it is misdirected by accident or by intent, it can foster its own orgies of breeding and dying.

Joseph sighed. "I don't understand why the sight of you should scare me so," Joseph said. He did not sound frightened. "You don't look that threatening. Just … very different." "Different is threatening to most species," Nikanj answered. "Different is dangerous. It might kill you. That was true to your animal ancestors and your nearest animal relatives. And it's true for you.

When humanitarianism came into vogue, and the unsound were tended at public expense, this natural selection ceased. And since these unfortunates were incapable alike of prudence and of social responsibility, they procreated without restraint, and threatened to infect the whole species with their rottenness.

No influence of ours can save your species from destruction. Nothing could save it but a profound change in your own nature; and that cannot be. Wandering among you, we move always with fore-knowledge of the doom which your own imperfection imposes on you. Even if we could, we would not change it; for it is a theme required in the strange music of the spheres.

Marriage is not as necessary for survival of the species as it used to be, and it has suffered somewhat from the change.

Few worlds tend to have more than one sentient race. At some point in their history, worlds with more than one smart species have the tendency to do dumb things like try to wipe out their competition. I'm told that's why there are no Neanderthals left on Earth and the dragons left for space.

A startup is like a mosquito. A bear can absorb a hit and a crab is armored against one, but a mosquito is designed for one thing : to score. No energy is wasted on defense. The defense of mosquitos, as a species, is that there are a lot of them, but this is little consolation to the individual mosquito.

n the wake of catastrophes, fungal diversity helps restore devastated habitats. Evolutionary trends generally lead to increased bio-diversity. However, due to human activities we are losing many species before we can even identify them. In effect, as we lose species, we are experiencing devolution--turning back the clock on biodiversity, which is a slippery slope toward massive ecological collapse. The interconnectedness of life is an obvious truth that we ignore at our peril.

Toxic fungicides like methyl bromide, once touted, not only harm targeted species but also nontargeted organisms and their food chains and threaten the ozone layer.

Mycelium steers the course of ecosystems by favoring successions of species. Ultimately, mycelium prepares its immediate environment for its benefit by growing ecosystems that fuel its food chains.

fully three-quarters of life's great & bounteous cornucopia consists of parasites, battening furtively on the flesh of the few productive species that grace creation.

The highest moral purpose aimed at tn the highest species of the drama, is the teaching the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself;

The fact is that we live on a rapidly aging planet, and we will soon have but two choices if our species is to survive: engineer on a planetary scale or get off.

Any species possessing this kind of knowledge base is best left unannoyed.

The dead hand of society's inertia and the financial interest of the elite minority hold us back as a species. They govern us so they can continue to govern us.

there could well be two alien species out there, both with weapons and technology so far ahead of ours it might as well be magic." "Thank you, Sir Arthur," Ozzie muttered. Nigel grinned at his old friend; he doubted anyone else in the room got the reference.

They might be different species, but it was easy enough to see your own kind in a mirror, however great the distortion.

I believe I understand, friend Orion," Tochee said. "You are attracted to the young female of your species. Is she one totally fuckable babe?

our most recent common ancestor—a worm-like creature

We're not very good as a species at looking into the future. It's much easier to look back at the past. We can edit out the bits we don't like, reinvent ourselves. But there's nothing about the future we can edit or reinvent. Most people are prisoners of the future just as much as they are prisoners of their genes.

The species in which peace and mutual support are the rule, prosper, while the unsociable species decay.

they and every kind of wild animal, livestock, crawling creature, bird, and winged creature.

Not all flesh is the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another.