Quotes About Species

natural selection explains "only the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest.

host of distinguished biologists have explained in recent technical papers, small-scale, or "microevolutionary," change cannot be extrapolated to explain large-scale, or "macroevolutionary," innovation

What is the great difference," he wrote, "between supposing that God makes variable species or that he makes laws by which species vary?" A

The brain that we think of as a necessity for intelligence is only one possible form a neural network can take and that is determined by ecological function and species shape; it is not essential to intelligence. As neurologist Antonio Damasio puts it, "the mind is embodied, not just embrained.

In this process, any particular organism that emerges out of the self-organized matrix of the Earth system does so for particular reasons at a particular time. Those reasons will not always exist, nor will that particular species.

Rhodiola, various species, has been found effective in the treatment of breast cancer.

And such challenges just don't stop; our boundaries are extremely porous. Viruses, for instance, perform a really irritating function of intermingling the DNA from every species on Earth with every other. As Richard Lewontin

Most daytime grizzly bear attacks are defensive, and most daytime, persistent black bear attacks are predatory. Still, both species may attack defensively or predatorily. The species of bear involved in such attacks offers only a rule of thumb regarding how you should react to try to minimize injury. An additional rule of thumb is this: If an attack cannot be deterred and is defensive, play dead; if predatory, fight back.

What species of bears live in the area you will be visiting: black bears, grizzly bears, or both? I have already documented that black bear females with cubs are much less dangerous in sudden encounters compared to grizzly bear females with cubs. In areas where both species are found, it is sometimes difficult even for the experts to identify whether a given individual is a black bear or a grizzly. When in doubt, assume the most dangerous case—that it is a grizzly.

Over the past sixty years a rather impressive assembly of respectable taxonomists and evolutionary biologists have tried to unseat the biological species concept for a wide variety of reasons. Most of them failed, probably because Ernst Mayr is alive, adroit, and articulate at ninety-six years young as I write these words, and most critics are no match for him.

Field biologists studying large and charismatic animals wanted to know if their own species had genetic problems. I listened carefully to stories of koalas in Australia, giant pandas in China, black-footed ferrets in the Midwest, elephants, rhinos, and leopards in Africa, and orangutans in Asia--all threatened or endangered species attended by packs of worried field biologists. If cheetahs paid a price for their brush with extinction, did these species suffer the same?

Geology gave us the immensity of time and taught us how little of it our own species has occupied.

sparing only those species that could adapt to

He said he didn't like my kind and I was filled with the delirious expectation that he would identify me as a common species - that there were others like myself. I controlled my excitement, but he seemed to sense it - his gaze wavered uncertainly.

The bottom line: higher-level taxonomy is usually unhelpful for birding. Species-level taxonomy is a matter of opinion. But in between, at the levels of family and genus, that's where taxonomy can be really helpful for birding.

The conventional materialist mode has very serious consequences in terms of how we live our lives, and how we treat other species and the natural world. It leads to a devaluation of life—of our own lives, of other species' and the Earth itself..a spiritual worldview can change our relationship to the world. It can engender a reverential attitude to nature, and to life itself. It can heal us, just as it can heal the whole world.

In the selfsame day entered Noah … and every beast." With a million or so species (There are more than a million known today.), the animals must have boarded at a rate of at least 10 pairs/second.

The species name is kind of like your own first name (except it comes last in a plant's botanical name). The genus name is similar to your family name (except in botanical names, it comes first).

A hybrid plant is the result of the cross-pollination between two genetically different plants, usually of the same species but different varieties. This combination can happen because of cultivation, or it can occur naturally through bee pollination between two different plants.

We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And, indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again." ~Fiddler, pg. 558

Seeds have the power to preserve species, to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity, to counter economic monopoly and to check the advance of conformity on all its many fronts. "Preservation through Dissemination" is Hudson's credo, a principle he raises (need I mention it?) high above profit: Hudson calls on his subscribers to save and exchange seeds with him and one another;

More birds on a farm mean fewer insects, but most birds won't venture more than a couple hundred yards from the safety of cover. Like many species, their preferred habitat is the edge between forest and field. The biodiversity of the forest edge also helps control predators. As long as the weasels and coyotes have plenty of chipmunks and voles to eat, they're less likely to venture out and prey on the chickens.

Domesticated species don't command our respect the way their wild cousins often do. Evolution may reward interdependence, but our thinking selves continue to prize self-reliance.

depatterning factor." There are times in the evolution of a species when the old patterns no longer avail, and the radical, potentially innovative perceptions and behaviors that psychedelics sometimes inspire may offer the best chance for adaptation. Think of it as a neurochemically induced source of variation in a population.