Quotes About Species

For every problem in a given discipline of science, there exists a species or other entity or phenomenon ideal for its solution. (Example: a kind of mollusk, Aplysia, proved ideal for exploring the cellular base of memory.) Conversely, for very species or other entity or phenomenon, there exist important problems for the solution of which it is ideally suited. (Example: bats were logical for the discovery of sonar.)

HISTORY MAKES LITTLE SENSE WITHOUT PREHISTORY, AND PREHISTORY MAKES LITTLE SENSE WITHOUT BIOLOGY. KNOWLEDGE OF PREHISTORY AND BIOLOGY IS INCREASING RAPIDLY, BRINGING INTO FOCUS HOW HUMANITY ORIGINATED AND WHY A SPECIES LIKE OUR OWN EXISTS ON THIS PLANET.

Who are we to destroy the planet's Creation? Each species around us is a masterpiece of evolution, exquisitely adapted to its environment. Species existing today are thousands to millions of years old. Their genes, having been tested by adversity over countless generations, engineer a staggeringly complex mix of biochemical devices that promote the survival and reproduction of the organisms carrying them.

Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species

Humanity is a biological species, living in a biological environment, because like all species, we are exquisitely adapted in everything: from our behavior, to our genetics, to our physiology, to that particular environment in which we live. The earth is our home. Unless we preserve the rest of life, as a sacred duty, we will be endangering ourselves by destroying the home in which we evolved, and on which we completely depend.

In fact, one of Gopnik's most important arguments is that this cognitive flexibility and creativity is a design feature of youth. She and her colleagues review evidence that suggests that when it comes to novel learning tasks, the young of many species often outperform their elders.20 This is certainly true of humans.

From the lowest animals of which we can affirm intelligence up to man this type of intellect is found.

Many humans make the mistake of fighting for race when it's the species driving our genes. And there is only one weapon to fight for species: the brain.

The necessity of perpetuating the species, forms the combining principle between males and females; a principle independent of choice or design, and alike incident to animals and to plants, which are all naturally impelled to propagate their respective kinds.

Genome sequencing has changed taxonomy.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

What surprises me most when surveying the great destinies of man is always seeing before me the opposite of what Darwin and his school see or want to see today: selection in favor of the stronger, in favor of those who have come off better, the progress of the species. The very opposite is quite palpably the case: the elimination of the strokes of luck, the uselessness of the better-constituted types, the inevitable domination achieved by the average, even below-average types.

There cometh the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself. Lo! I show you THE LAST MAN. What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?--so asketh the last man and blinketh. The earth hath then become small, and on it there hoppeth the last man who maketh everything small. His species is ineradicable like that of the ground-flea; the last man liveth longest.

In all ages one has wanted to 'improve' men: this above all is what morality has meant. But one word can conceal the most divergent tendencies. Both the taming of the beast man and the breeding of a certain species of man has been called 'improvement':

The most complex ecosystems on Earth are the tropical coral reef and the tropical rainforest. Both are characterized by large numbers of species, a rapid turnover of matter and energy, and extensive recycling of all essential materials. In both of these ecosystems, the principles of ecology are exhibited clearly and beautifully.

In the 20th century, ecologists discovered that in the self-organization of ecosystems, cooperation is actually much more important than competition. We constantly observe partnerships, linkages, associations—species living inside one another, depending on one another for survival. Partnership is a key characteristic of life. Self-organization is a collective enterprise.

Communism is an aggressive religion of the species.

Phoebus Levene was characteristically blunt: 'Nucleic acids carry no individuality, no specificity . . . It may be just to accept the conclusion of the biologist that they do not determine species specificity, nor are they carriers of the Mendelian characters.

Evolutionary science kind of bears that out: When species are rivals and competing for space and resources, the superior one wins. Nature has no compunction about that; it just is.

I think it's in our nature to try to get beyond that next horizon. I think that when we, as a species, are scratching that itch, we're actually following an evolutionary compulsion that is wired into us. I think good things come of it.

If we lived within our means - by being prudent - the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction. But we think as people and countries, not as a species.

As Darwin himself was at pains to point out, natural selection is all about differential survival within species, not between them.

If current technological processes continue without change, the environment will change, and we, the human species, will either have to mutate or even die, to disappear, as many species have disappeared.

People will be able to survive, of course, without honeycreepers and monk seals. But if the wolf spider is in trouble, we are in trouble, too.