Quotes About Biology

It is now known that the basic mutation rate in DNA is 0.71 per cent per million years. Working back from the present difference between chimpanzee and human DNA, we arrive at a figure of 6.6 million years ago for the chimpanzee–human divergence.5

It's amazing the limitation of the human anatomy, the fact that food and air must share a common passage.

I am a breast. A Phenomenon that has been vastly described to me as a massive hormonal influx, a endocrinopathic catastrophe and/or a hermaphroditic explosion of chromosomes took place within my body between midnight and 4 A.M. on February 18, 1971, and converted me into a mammary gland disconnected from any human form.

I have to keep reminding myself -- this is not me . It is chemistry. It is biology. It is not who I am.

First, an evolutionary perspective does not view sexual coercion as a biological imperative, as inevitable, or as ineluctable. Just as modern science has created novel vaccines and drugs to eliminate many "natural" diseases, with enough knowledge we can create personal, social, and legal environments that curtail or suppress the components of male psychology that contribute to sexual coercion.

From the moment of conception, when the one tiny sperm joins the nutrient-rich egg, women are already contributing much more than the man.

Identifying evolutionary origins of nefarious behavior in no way justifies or excuses it.

molecular genetic studies show that there has been an acceleration of human adaptive evolution over the past 40,000 years, and especially during the past 10,000 years

Of the more than 10 million animal species that exist, including roughly 5,000 mammals, only two species have been documented to show male-initiated coordinated coalitions that raid neighboring territories and lethally attack members of their own species: chimpanzees and humans.

In brief encounters, it seems, women demand sexy partners who are highly desirable to other women, perhaps because their sons stand a greater chance of being sexy themselves. Women, of course, do not think these thoughts; there is no conscious calculus of genetic effects. They just find some men sexy and that's all they need to produce sons who will be sexually successful.

In part because of the evolutionary roots of women's sexual attractiveness, self-esteem is greatly influenced by how women feel about their bodies.

Nuestros mecanismos de emparejamiento son los fósiles vivientes que nos indican lo que somos y de dónde venimos.

Both sexes place a tremendous value on intelligence and dependability in a lifetime mate. Both seek long-term mates who are cooperative, trustworthy, and loyal. And both desire mates who will not inflict crushing costs on them. We are all of one species from the same planet. Recognition of our shared psychology and shared biology is one step toward producing harmony between the sexes.

Because the reproductive stakes are higher for men than for women, more men than women risk being shut out of mating entirely. Men who are mateless for life are more numerous than similarly mateless women in every society.

One might think that killing would be a great turnoff to women, but apparently that's not the case.

According to most surveys, the average penis ranges from five to six inches in length when erect and three to four inches in length when flaccid, or nonerect. Contrary to popular belief, penis length is not closely related to height.

If a woman enjoys having her cervix stimulated during sexual intercourse, then size can matter. For most women, it is going to take a good five or six inches in length to reach the cervix when a woman is sexually aroused.

To paraphrase the evolutionary anthropologist Sarah Hrdy, "Men are one long breeding experiment run by women.

For every incremental gain in men's ability to deceive women, women evolve comparable incremental gains in their ability to detect deception.

Men who were indifferent to the sexual contact that their wives might have with other men ended up raising their rival's children more often than men who didn't tolerate their mates' indiscretions. So modern men have descended not from these indifferent men, but from men who strived, and succeeded more often than not, to maintain exclusive sexual control of their mates.

La inversión que la mujer anhela es precisamente la que el hombre guarda más celosamente. El acceso sexual que el hombre busca es precisamente el recurso que la mujer entrega de forma más selectiva.

Women's heavier reproductive investment in producing their offspring means they are by far the more valuable reproductive resource. As a general rule, the more valuable the resource, the more people compete for access to it. Men must compete with each other for sexual access to women. Women can afford to be choosy since they are in greater demand when it comes to sex.

Nuestros pensamientos relacionados con el emparejamiento -lo maravilloso del idilio, el arrebato de la pasión, el triunfo del amor- son el producto afortunado de ese proceso evolutivo.

Del mismo modo que hemos desarrollado mecanismos que nos hacen entrar en conflicto, hemos desarrollado otros que nos permiten vivir en armonía con el otro sexo.