Human Evolution Quotes

“In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”
― Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

“In Egyptian Arabic, the word 'insan' means 'human'. If we remove the 'n', the word becomes 'insa', which means 'to forget'. So you see, the word 'forget' is taken from the word 'human'. And since it was God who created our minds and hearts, He knew from the very beginning that we would quickly forget our history, only to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. So the ultimate test of every human is to seek wisdom. After all, wisdom is gained from having a good memory. Only after we have passed this test will we evolve to become better humans. Man is only a forgetful mortal, but God — He sees, hears and remembers everything.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Nature's stern discipline enjoins mutual help at least as often as warfare. The fittest may also be the gentlest.”
― Theodosius Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving: The Evolution of the Human Species

“The question of the position of man, as an animal, has given rise to much disputation, with the result of proving that there is no anatomical or developmental character by which he is more widely distinguished from the group of animals most nearly allied to him, than they are from one another.”
― Thomas Henry Huxley, Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century, The

“It is very difficult to evolve by altering the deep fabric of life; any change there is likely to be lethal. But fundamental change can be accomplished by the addition of new systems on top of old ones.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“Today we are even manipulating the DNA that makes us possible in the first place—a case of evolution evolving new ways to evolve.”
― Chip Walter, Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived

“It is very difficult to evolve by altering the deep fabric of life; any change there is likely to be lethal. But fundamental change can be accomplished by the addition of new systems on top of old ones…Thus evolution by addition and the functional preservation of the preexisting structure must occur for one of two reasons-either the old function is required as well as the new one, or there is no way of bypassing the old system that is consistent with survival.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“No existing form of anthropoid ape is even remotely related to the stock which has given rise to man.”
― Henry Fairfield Osborn

“A genius masters the art of observation, and unites with the source of imagination to create advancements in the cause for human evolution.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“It is our ultimate purpose to continually evolve as a species both physically and emotionally, as change is the mechanism for growth and development, and if we fear change we stunt our own growth and with it, human evolution.”
― Kat Lahr, Anatomy Of Illumination

“In addition, human beings have, in the most recent few tenths of a percent of our existence, invented not only extra-genetic but also extrasomatic knowledge: information stored outside our bodies, of which writing is the most notable example.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“The time scale for evolutionary or genetic change is very long. A characteristic period for the emergence of one advanced species from another is perhaps a hundred thousand years; and very often the difference in behavior between closely related
species-say, lions and tigers-do not seem very great... But today we do not have ten million years to wait for the next advance. We live in a time when our world is changing at an unprecedented rate. While the changes are largely of our own making, they cannot be ignored. We must adjust and adapt and
control, or we perish.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“Evolution is adventitious and not foresighted. Only through the deaths of an immense number of slightly maladapted organisms are we, brains and all, here today.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“Somewhere in the steaming jungles of the Carboniferous Period there emerged an organism that for the first time in the history of the world had more information in its brains than in its genes. It was an early reptile which, were we to come upon it in these sophisticated times, we would probably not describe as exceptionally intelligent… Much of the history of life since the Carboniferous Period can be described as the gradual (and certainly incomplete) dominance of brains over genes.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“MacLean has shown that the R-complex plays an important role in aggressive behavior, territoriality, ritual and the establishment of social hierarchies. Despite occasional welcome exceptions, this seems to me to characterize a great deal of modern human bureaucratic and political behavior.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“Quite recently the human descent theory has been stigmatized as the 'gorilla theory of human ancestry.' All this despite the fact that Darwin himself, in the days when not a single bit of evidence regarding the fossil ancestors of man was recognized, distinctly stated that none of the known anthropoid apes, much less any of the known monkeys, should be considered in any way as ancestral to the human stock.”
― Henry Fairfield Osborn

“a typical chromosomal DNA molecule in a human being is composed of about five billion pairs of nucleotides… But since there are four different kinds of nucleotides, the number of bits of information in DNA is four times the number of nucleotide pairs. Thus if a single chromosome has five billion (5 X 10^9) nucleotides, it contains twenty billion (2 X 10^10) bits of information… We also see that if more than some tens of billions (several times 10^10) of bits of information are necessary for human survival, extragenetic systems will have to provide them: the rate of development of genetic systems is so slow that no source of such additional biological information can be sought in the DNA.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“It is precisely our plasticity, our long childhood, that prevents a slavish adherence to genetically preprogrammed behavior in human beings more than in any other species… Some substantial adjustment of the relative role of each component of the triune brain is well within our powers.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“with rare exceptions (chiefly the social insects), mammals and birds are the only organisms to devote substantial attention to the care of their young; an evolutionary development that, through the long period of plasticity which it permits, takes advantage of the large information-processing capability of the mammalian and primate brains. Love seems to be an invention of the mammals.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“The time scale for evolutionary or genetic change is very long. A characteristic period for the emergence of one advanced species from another is perhaps a hundred thousand years; and very often the difference in behavior between closely related species -say, lions and tigers- do not seem very great... But today we do not have ten million years to wait for the next advance. We live in a time when our world is changing at an unprecedented rate. While the changes are largely of our own making, they cannot be ignored. We must adjust and adapt and control, or we perish.”
― Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“I am perhaps more proud of having helped to redeem the character of the cave-man than of any other single achievement of mine in the field of anthropology.”
― Henry Fairfield Osborn

“Dar, oricât de departe am ajuns, e aproape sigur greşit să ne închipuim că suntem aproape de răspunsul final. A gândi astfel este o greşeală recurentă de-a lungul istoriei. În Antichitate, babilonienii erau siguri că Pământul a fost creat din cadavrul zeiţei mării, Tiamat. Mii de ani mai târziu, după ce grecii au făcut progrese incredibile în înţelegerea naturii, mulţi erau la fel de convinşi că toate obiectele din lumea terestră sunt alcătuite dintr-o combinaţie de pământ, aer, foc şi apă. După alte două milenii, newtonienii credeau că tot ce s-a întâmplat sau se va întâmpla, de la mişcările atomilor până la orbitele planetelor, poate fi în principiu explicat şi prezis folosind legile mişcării ale lui Newton. Toate acestea au fost convingeri susţinute cu fervoare, şi toate au fost greşite.”
― Leonard Mlodinow

“Tatăl meu mi-a povestit odată de un tovarăş de detenţie emaciat, din lagărul de concentrare de la Buchenwald, care era de formaţie matematician. Poţi spune unele lucruri despre oameni după ceea ce le vine în minte când aud cuvântul "pi". Pentru un "matematician", "pi" reprezintă raportul dintre circumferinţa şi diametrul unui cerc. Dacă l-aş fi întrebat pe tatăl meu, care avea doar şapte clase, ar fi spus că "pi" este o plăcintă rotundă, cu mere. Într-o zi, în pofida discrepanţei dintre ei, deţinutul matematician i-a dat tatălui meu să rezolve o enigmă matematică. Tatăl meu s-a gândit la ea timp de câteva zile, dar nu a reuşit să-i dea de capăt. Când s-a întâlnit din nou cu matematicianul, i-a cerut soluţia. Omul nu a vrut să i-o dea, zicându-i că trebuie s-o găsească el însuşi. După câtva timp, tatăl meu l-a rugat din nou, dar omul ţinea la secretul său ca la ochii din cap. Tatăl meu a încercat să-şi ignore curiozitatea, dar nu a putut. Înconjurat de duhoare şi moarte, el a făcut o obsesie pentru cunoaşterea răspunsului. Până la urmă, celălalt deţinut i-a propus un târg - el îi va dezvălui soluţia enigmei în schimbul colţului lui de pâine. Nu ştiu ce greutate avea tatăl meu atunci, dar când trupele americane au eliberat lagărul, el cântărea 38 de kilograme. Cu toate acestea, dorinţa lui de a şti a fost atât de puternică, încât a renunţat la pâine în schimbul răspunsului.

Aveam aproapre douăzeci de ani când tatăl meu mi-a povestit episodul acesta, care a avut un impact enorm asupra mea. Familia tatălui meu pierise, bunurile îi fuseseră confiscate, el însuşi era înfometat, emaciat şi bătut. Naziştii îl despuiaseră de tot ce era palpabil, şi totuşi imboldul lui de a gândi, de a raţiona şi de a cunoaşte supravieţuise. Deşi era întemniţat, mintea îi era liberă să cutreiere, şi aşa a şi făcut. Am înţeles atunci că a căuta cunoaşterea este cea mai omenească dintre toate dorinţele şi că, oricât de diferite ar fi circumstanţele noastre, pasiunea mea de a înţelege lumea a fost stimulată de acelaşi instinct ca şi a tatălui meu.”
― Leonard Mlodinow, The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos