Quotes About Species

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science - in all of biology.

A writer is a strange instrument of our species, a harp of sorts, fine-tuned to the dark contradictions of life.

The truth is that we need invertebrates but they don't need us. If human beings were to disappear tomorrow, the world would go on with little change…. But if invertebrates were to disappear, I doubt that the human species could last more than a few months.

If there is danger in the human trajectory, it is not so much in the survival of our own species as in the fulfillment of the ultimate irony of organic evolution: that in the instant of achieving self-understanding through the mind of man, life has doomed its most beautiful creations.

That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores.

A wiser intelligence might now truthfully say of us at this point: here is a chimera, a new and very odd species come shambling into our universe, a mix of Stone Age emotion, medieval self-image, and godlike technology. The combination makes the species unresponsive to the forces that count most for its own long-term survival.

Our species' dysfunction has produced the herditary myopia of which we are all uncomfortably familiar. People find it hard to care about other people beyond their own tribe or country, and even then past one or two generations. It is harder still to be concerned about animal species -- except for dogs, horses, and others of the very few we have domesticated to be our servile companions.

Humanity is part of nature, a species that evolved among other species. The more closely we identify ourselves with the rest of life, the more quickly we will be able to discover the sources of human sensibility and acquire the knowledge on which an enduring ethic, a sense of preferred direction, can be built.

What's really notable about the Logi's refusal to engage with us in our own language and media is how they've forced us to communicate on their terms. Our dire economic need to forge a productive relationship with another species has made us accept them and their demands. This gives them a lot more control over how they're seen, meanwhile forcing us to put all the effort into communication, such as our network of translators.

You are a cruel and lying species. You have not kept faith with evolution; you have not kept faith with yourselves; you have not kept faith with your own prophets and seers.

Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of squeezing one's eyes shut and wailing "Does not!"

Nearly every species that has ever lived has gone extinct, Laurette. No reason to think we humans will be any different!" Dr. Geffard pronounces this almost gleefully and pours wine into his glass, and she imagines his head as a cabinet filled with ten thousand little drawers.

Casi todas las especies que han existido alguna vez se han extinguido en el presente. No hay ningún motivo para pensar que con la raza humana vaya a ocurrir algo distinto.

But oh, the perils of leadership in a species so anxious to be told what to do. How little they knew of what they created by their demands. Leaders made mistakes. And those mistakes, amplified by the numbers who followed without questioning, moved inevitably toward great disasters.

Humans have a tendency to complain whenever the old must give way to the new. But change is the natural way of the universe, and we must learn to embrace it rather than fear it. The very process of transformation and adaptation strengthens the species.

extinct…the animal destroys and does not produce…animal

Behavioral engineering in all of its manifestations always degenerates into merciless manipulation. It reduces all (manipulators and manipulated alike) to a deadly mass effect. The central assumption, that manipulation of individual personalities can achieve uniform behavioral responses, has been exposed as a lie by many species but never with more telling effect than by the Gowachin on Dosadi. — The Dosadi Papers, BuSab reference

Here, they showed us the Walden Fallacy in ultimate foolishness, explaining: Given any species which reproduces by genetic mingling such that every individual is a unique specimen, all attempts to impose a decision matrix based on assumed uniform behavior will prove lethal. — The Dosadi Papers, BuSab reference

Love leads to misery. Love is a very ancient force, which served its purpose in its day but no longer is essential for the survival of the species. Remember that woman's mistake, the pain.

La sopravvivenza di se stessi, della specie, dell' ambiente, queste sono le cose che muovono gli esseri umani. Potete osservare come l'ordine d'importanza cambi nell'arco d'una vita. Quali sono le cose che suscitano una preoccupazione immediata a una certa età? Il clima? Lo stato della digestione? A lei o a lui importa davvero? Tutti quei vari tipi di fame che la carne sente e spera di soddisfare. Che altro può davvero importare?

So there was a species of logic to all of this but it kicked the performers out of the nest into chaos.

When Page describes Google reshaping the future of humanity, this isn't simply a description of the convenience it provides; what it aims to redirect is the course of evolution, in the Darwinian sense of the word. It's not too grandiose to claim that they are attempting to create a superior species, a species that transcends our natural form.

Steve worked tirelessly to promote conservation, wildlife, and the environment, and his work enabled the plight of endangered species to reach a whole new audience.

I fully support the goal of species protection and conservation and believe that recovery and ultimately delisting of species should be the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's top priority under ESA.