Quotes About Species

although evolution may seem, in some vague sense, a 'good thing', especially since we are the product of it, nothing actually 'wants' to evolve. Evolution

There exists no objective basis on which to elevate one species above another. Chimp and human, lizard and fungus, we have all evolved over some three billion years by a process known as natural selection.

There exists no objective basis on which to elevate one species above another.

It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips

our species, with its unique gift of foresight – product of the simulated virtual-reality we call the human imagination

Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense.

Es tan fuerte el prejuicio a favor de nuestra especie, inspirado en nuestra actitud cristiana, que el aborto de un solo zigoto humano (la mayoría de ellos están destinados, de todas maneras, a abortar espontáneamente), puede generar más preocupación moral y más justa indignación que la vivisección de un número indeterminado de chimpancés adultos.

The 'expert' on the programme observed that the vast majority of baby spiders end up as prey for other species, and she then went on to say: 'Perhaps this is the real purpose of their existence, as only a few need to survive in order for the species to be preserved'!

It is widely admitted that serious error follows from the uncritical assumption that adaptations are for the good of the species.

A stick insect looks like a replicator, in that we may lay out a sequence consisting of daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, etc., in which each appears to be a replica of the preceding one in the series. But suppose a flaw or blemish appears somewhere in the chain, say a stick insect is unfortunate enough to lose a leg. The blemish may last for the whole of her lifetime, but it is not passed on to the next link in the chain.

However, we must expect lies and deceit, and selfish exploitation of communication to arise whenever the interests of the genes of different individuals diverge. This will include individuals of the same species.

although evolution may seem, in some vague sense, a 'good thing', especially since we are the product of it, nothing actually 'wants' to evolve.

Natural selection favours genes that control their survival machines in such a way that they make the best use of their environment. This includes making the best use of other survival machines, both of the same and of different species.

Finally, at the end of the chapter, we saw that genes 'sharing' a given extended phenotypic trait might come from different species, even different phyla and different kingdoms.

What makes a gene good? As a first approximation I said that what makes a gene good is the ability to build efficient survival machines—bodies. We must now amend that statement. The gene pool will become an evolutionarily stable set of genes, defined as a gene pool that cannot be invaded by any new gene.

These are claims that could have been made for Lorenz's On Aggression, Ardrey's The Social Contract, and Eibl-Eibesfeldt's Love and Hate. The trouble with these books is that their authors got it totally and utterly wrong. They got it wrong because they misunderstood how evolution works. They made the erroneous assumption that the important thing in evolution is the good of the species (or the group) rather than the good of the individual (or the gene).

If human breeders can transform a wolf into a Pekinese, or a wild cabbage into a cauliflower, in just a few centuries or millennia, why shouldn't the non-random survival of wild animals and plants do the same thing over millions of years?

Each gene works in a world of phenotypic consequences of other genes. Some of those other genes will be members of the same genome. Others will be members of the same gene-pool operating through other bodies. Yet others may be members of different gene-pools, different species, different phyla.

delayed reciprocal altruism can evolve in species that are capable of recognizing and remembering each other as individuals

Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable.

I do not share the pessimism of the age about the novel. They are one of our greatest spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual inventions. As a species it is story that distinguishes us, and one of the supreme expressions of story is the novel. Novels are not content. Nor are they are a mirror to life or an explanation of life or a guide to life. Novels are life, or they are nothing.

I imagined a world of the future as a barren sameness in which everyone had gorged so much fish that no more remained, & where Science knew absolutely every species & phylum & genus, but no-one knew love because it had disappeared along with the fish (201).

Then somebody said—Carter Knott—that Eddie was writing a novel (the last outpost for a certain species of doomed optimist).

He was all too aware of the failings of his species and he knew how to use them to his advantage. A fascinating skill. A useful one. But hardly a loving one.