Quotes About Biology

Homo sapiens does its best to forget the fact, but it is an animal. And it is doubly important to remember our origins at a time when we seek to turn ourselves into gods.

As human fictions are translated into genetic and electronic codes, the intersubjective reality will swallow up the objective reality and biology will merge with history. In the twenty-first century fiction might thereby become the most potent force on earth, surpassing even wayward asteroids and natural selection.

Archaic humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles atrophied. Like a government diverting money from defence to education, humans diverted energy from biceps to neurons. It's hardly a foregone conclusion that this is a good strategy for survival on the savannah. A chimpanzee can't win an argument with a Homo sapiens, but the ape can rip the man apart like a rag doll.

Feelings are therefore not the opposite of rationality—they embody evolutionary rationality.

The feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers. Women who spent to much time fighting for power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future generations.

Mucho antes de la revolución industrial, Homo sapiens ostentaba el récord entre todos los organismos por provocar la extinción del mayor número de especies de plantas y animales. Poseemos la dudosa distinción de ser la especie más mortífera en los anales de la biología.

The proponents of this 'ancient commune' theory argue that the frequent infidelities that characterise modern marriages, and the high rates of divorce, not to mention the cornucopia of psychological complexes from which both children and adults suffer, all result from forcing humans to live in nuclear families and monogamous relationships that are incompatible with our biological software.

Biological knowledge multiplied by Computing power multiplied by Data equals Ability to Hack Humans.

Large animals – the primary victims of the Australian extinction – breed slowly. Pregnancy is long, offspring per pregnancy are few, and there are long breaks between pregnancies. Consequently, if humans cut down even one diprotodon every few months, it would be enough to cause diprotodon deaths to outnumber births. Within a few thousand years the last, lonesome diprotodon would pass away, and with her the entire species.4

Every other mammal that went to sea – seals, sea cows, dolphins – had to evolve for aeons to develop specialised organs and a hydrodynamic body.

Since the biological distinctions between different groups of Homo sapiens are, in fact, negligible, biology can't explain the intricacies of Indian society or American racial dynamics. We can only understand those phenomena by studying the events, circumstances, and power relations that transformed figments of imagination into cruel – and very real – social structures.

the mind is an object that is being shaped by history and biology.

When Charles Darwin indicated that Homo sapiens was just another kind of animal, people were outraged.

most up-to-date theories also maintain that sensations and emotions are biochemical data-processing algorithms.

The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans is that they were insignificant animals with no more impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish.

All social mammals, such as wolves, dolphins, and monkeys, have ethical codes, adapted by evolution to promote group cooperation.

But the best thing fire did was cook. Foods that humans cannot digest in their natural forms – such as wheat, rice and potatoes – became staples of our diet thanks to cooking. Fire not only changed food's chemistry, it changed its biology as well. Cooking killed germs and parasites that infested food. Humans also had a far easier time chewing and digesting old favourites such as fruits, nuts, insects and carrion if they were cooked.

Women are generally more resistant to hunger, disease and fatigue than men.

How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is biology enables, culture forbids. Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It's culture that obliges people to realize some possibilities while forbidding others.

The Cognitive Revolution is accordingly the point when history declared its independence from biology.

Organs evolve to perform a particular function, but once they exist, they can be adapted for other usages as well. Mouths, for example, appeared because the earliest multicellular organisms needed a way to take nutrients into their bodies. We still use our mouths for that purpose, but we also use them to kiss, speak and, if we are Rambo, to pull the pins out of hand grenades.

In evolutionary terms, cattle represent one of the most successful animal species ever to exist. At the same time, they are some of the most miserable animals on the planet.

The truth is that from about 2 million years ago until around 10,000 years ago, the world was home, at one and the same time, to several human species. And why not? Today there are many species of bears: brown bears, black bears, grizzly bears, polar bears.

The result was several distinct species, to each of which scientists have assigned a pompous Latin name.