Biologists From England

"Conceptual simplicity, recursiveness, and formal separation of levels of selection are attractive features of these equations. But, of course, being able to point to a relevant and generally non-zero part of selective change is far from showing that group selection can override individual selection when the two are in conflict. Moreover, even the possibility of devising model circumstances in which a positive group-selection term (first term) outweighs a negative individual selection one (second term, assuming no further levels), gives no guarantee that ‘altruism’ can evolve by group selection: we have to consider whether the population can get into the specified state, and, if it can, whether its present trend will continue."

"If humans turn out to be near the Kondrashov limit —that is, if on average every gamete has one bad mutation created during the lifetime of its producer— it is obviously not going to be nearly enough to test a baby for the subset of the few hundreds or so of well-characterized genetic defects"

"“They survive.” “Ah yes, survive. And achieve nothing to deserve it.” “The only meaning of life, if it can be said to have meaning, is to survive. My brothers and sisters, herding their children on the plains, find meaning in the simple pattern of their lives and need nothing more. They are immersed in the processes of the world: all is one. That is their religion. They seek no other meaning. “Your race, now, believes that expansion is all. You think to outrace your dark destiny, believe that the whole universe is yours when you understand so little of it.”"

"You can’t hate change. It’s like hating life."

"Many people were bitterly puzzled that the first truly intelligent aliens to be found should be so immediately, unremittingly hostile, but the astronomers shrugged it off. The universe was at best a marginal place for life."

"“And now you have had to alter your theory.” ”Well,” Andrews said, smiling, “that’s science.”"

"“I read in some of it (the reference is to Shakespeare). It’s not so bad when you get used to it, pretty archaic though. Why do you like old stuff like this?” “It has everything in it, if you look hard enough,” Dorthy said, taking the sheaf. “Love, jealousy, avarice, loyalty, murder, madness...I find it reassuring that human nature is so constant.”"

"Stay the same and after a while you come to think that nothing will ever change."

"“We must remember that they are alien.” “That’s hardly a basis for speculation now. It explains everything and nothing.”"

"Things are simply what they are, neither good nor bad. The potential for evil is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

"“They’re following one bunch of herders. Marta has this idea that she can work out their social behavior.” “And do they have any?” Dorthy asked. “Fucking mostly,” Andrew said evenly. The boss female controls the group by choosing which males fuck her, and the males fuck each other, too, to establish their dominance. Rather like the Navy.”"

"Zithsa hunter claim they sometimes see man-shaped creatures in the lowlands. Mist demons, the hunters call them, and say that they are the ghosts of the fabled lost race. I say they are half vodka, half imagination."

"It was both true, and not the complete truth, like so much of his talk."

"We wish not to be alone in the universe, Dorthy, and this drives people to invent things that are not really there."

"“I didn’t know that you were into politics.” “Anyone with money has to be. Real money, I mean. Even criminals need to keep a politician in their pockets these days.”"

"Many dogs, cats and horses are loved and cherished, and are even mourned when they die. But pigs, chickens, calves and other animals grown in factory farms are treated in the most brutal and exploitative way, devoid of all affection. They are units in a production line; their only purpose is to produce the maximum amount of food at the minimum cost. Factory farms epitomize the mechanistic spirit. … To justify this treatment, the less-favoured animals have to be regarded as inferior, unworthy of any sentimental attachment. A terrible conflict arises if the exploited animals are considered to have any value in themselves. One way to avoid this conflict is to keep the privileged and the exploited animals in separate categories in our minds. … But if emotions spill over from pets to other animals, there is trouble. People become vegetarians, or even animal rights activists."

"This summer, soon after the TED controversy, a commando squad of skeptics captured the Wikipedia page about me. They have occupied and controlled it ever since, rewriting my biography with as much negative bias as possible, to the point of defamation. At the beginning of the "Talk" page, on which editorial changes are discussed, they have posted a warning to editors who do not share their biases: "A common objection made by new arrivals is that the article presents Sheldrake's work in an unsympathetic light and that criticism of it is too extensive or violates Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy." Several new arrivals have indeed attempted to restore a more balanced picture, but have had a bewildering variety of rules thrown at them, and warned that they will be banned if they persist in opposing the skeptics."

"I was impressed by the way that Hindus relate to the land of India and the holy places, and was moved by the great variety of pilgrimages and holy animals and plants and festivals. There are so many aspects of Hinduism that link it to the land and to the natural world in India. It is also closely linked to the culture and languages of India."

"It's unnecessary to introduce magic into the explanation of physical and biological phenomena when in fact there is every likelihood that the continuation of research as it is now practiced will indeed fill all the gaps that Sheldrake draws attention to."

"Physiologists have usually represented that our species holds a middle rank, in the masticatory and digestive apparatus, between the flesh-eating and the herbivorous animals; — a statement which seems rather to have been deduced from what we have learned by experience on this subject, than to result fairly from an actual comparison of man and animals. … The teeth of man have not the slightest resemblance to those of the carnivorous animals, except that their enamel is confined to the external surface. He possesses, indeed, teeth called canine, but they do not exceed the level of the others, and are obviously unsuited to the purposes which the corresponding teeth execute in carnivorous animals. … Thus we find that, whether we consider the teeth and jaws, or the immediate instruments of digestion, the human structure closely resembles that of the simiæ; all of which, in their natural state, are completely herbivorous."

"It should not forgotten, however, that it was his "Observations on the natural history of the Cuckoo" (1788) that had won him membership in the Royal Society 10 years before. His work on bird migration, although done at about the same time, was not published until after his death in 1823. Both of these papers were landmarks in ornithological history, for no one prior to Jenner had approached these problems, of brood parasitism and migration, in anywhere near so comprehensive a fashion or with such searching questions."

"I am not surprised that men are not thankful to me; but I wonder that they are not grateful to God for the good which he has made me the instrument of conveying to my fellow-creatures."

"A sincere acquiescence in the dispensations of Providence will check discomposure of mind beyond any thing. It will produce a calm in the midst of a storm."

"The highest powers in our nature are our sense of moral excellence, the principle of reason and reflection, benevolence to our creatures and our love of the Divine Being."

"More than one hundred years ago, William Bateson suggested that studying the regulation and timing of development was the key to understanding evolutionary change. He was right."

"In Darwin's time no serious attempt had been made to examine the manifestations of variability. A vast assemblage of miscellaneous facts could formerly be adduced as seemingly comparable illustrations of the phenomenon "Variation." Time has shown this mass of evidence to be capable of analysis. When first promulgated it produced the impression that variability was a phenomenon generally distributed amongst living things in such a way that the specific divisions must be arbitrary. When this variability is sorted out, and is seen to be in part a result of hybridisation, in part a consequence of the persistence of hybrids by parthenogenetic reproduction, a polymorphism due to the continued presence of individuals representing various combinations of Mendelian allelomorphs, partly also the transient effect of alteration in external circumstances, we see how cautious we must be in drawing inferences as to the indefiniteness of specific limits from a bare knowledge that intermediates exist."

"In spite of Darwin's hopes, the acceptance of his views has led to no real improvement — scarcely indeed to any change at all in either the practice or aims of systematists. In a famous passage in the Origin he confidently declares that when his interpretation is generally adopted "Systematists will be able to pursue their labours as at present; but they will not be incessantly haunted by the shadowy doubt whether this or that form be a true species. This, I feel sure, and I speak after experience, will be no slight relief. The endless disputes whether or not some fifty species of British brambles are good species will cease." Those disputes nevertheless proceed almost exactly as before. It is true that biologists in general do not, as formerly, participate in these discussions because they have abandoned systematics altogether; but those who are engaged in the actual work of naming and cataloguing animals and plants usually debate the old questions in the old way. There is still the same divergence of opinion and of practice, some inclining to make much of small differences, others to neglect them. Not only does the work of the sytematists as a whole proceed as if Darwin had never written but their attitude towards these problems is but little changed."

"I am well aware that some very eminent systematists regard the whole problem as solved. They hold as Darwin did that specific diversity has no physiological foundation or causation apart from adaptation, and that species are impermanent groups, the delimitations of which are ultimately determined by environmental exigency or "fitness." The specific diversity of living things is thus regarded as being something quite different in nature from the specific diversity of inorganic substances. In practice those who share these opinions are, as might be anticipated, to be found among the 'lumpers' rather than among the 'splitters.' In their work, certainly, the Darwinian theory is actually followed as a guiding principle; unanalysed intergradations of all kinds are accepted as impugning the integrity of species; the underlying physiological problem is forgotten, and while the product is almost valueless as a contribution to biological research, I can scarcely suppose that it aids greatly in the advances of other branches of our science."

"Since the belief in transmission of acquired adaptations arose from preconception rather than from evidence, it is worth observing that, rightly considered, the probability should surely be the other way. For the adaptations relate to every variety of exigency. To supply themselves with food, to find it, to seize and digest it, to protect themselves from predatory enemies whether by offence or defence, to counter-balance the changes of temperature, or pressure, to provide for mechanical strains, to obtain immunity from poison and from invading organisms, to bring the sexual elements into contact, to ensure the distribution of the type; all these and many more are accomplished by organisms in a thousand most diverse and alternative methods. Those are the things that are hard to imagine as produced by any concatenation of natural events; but the suggestions that organisms had had from the beginning innate in them a power of modifying themselves, their organs and their instincts so as to meet these multifarious requirements does not materially differ from the more overt appeals to supernatural intervention. The conception, originally introduced by Hering and independently by S. Butler, that adaptation is a consequence or product of accumulated memory was of late revived by Semon and has been received with some approval, especially by F. Darwin. I see nothing fantastic in the notion that memory may be unconsciously preserved with the same continuity that the protoplasmic basis of life possesses. That idea, though purely speculative and, as yet, incapable of proof or disproof contains nothing which our experience of matter or of life at all refutes. On the contrary, we probably do well to retain the suggestion as a clue that may some day be of service. But if adaptation is to be the product of these accumulated experiences, they must in some way be translated into terms of physiological and structural change, a process frankly inconceivable."

"In the light of the new knowledge various plausible, but frequently unsatisfying, suggestions put forward, especially by Wallace, Weismann, and their followers, as probable accounts of evolutionary progress, must be finally abandoned."

"That the variations are controlled by physiological law, we have now experimental proof; but that this control is guided ever so little in response to the needs of adaptation there is not the smallest sign."

"As systematic inquiry into the natural facts was begun it was at once found that the accepted ideas of variation were unfounded. Variation was seen very frequently to be a definite and specific phenomenon, affecting different forms of life in different ways, but in all its diversity showing manifold and often obvious indications of regularity. This observation was not in its essence novel. Several examples of definite variation had been well known to Darwin and others, but many, especially Darwin himself in his later years, had nevertheless been disposed to depreciate the significance of such facts. They consequently then lapsed into general disparagement. Upon more careful inquiry the abundance of such phenomena proved to be far greater than was currently supposed, and a discussion of their nature brought into prominence a consideration of greater weight, namely that the differences by which these definite or discontinuous variations are constituted again and again approximate to and are comparable with the class of differences by which species are distinguished from each other."

"Few who are familiar with the facts that genetic research has revealed are now inclined to speculate as to the manner by which the process [species come into existence] has been accomplished. Our knowledge of the nature and properties of living things is far too meagre to justify any such attempts. Suggestions of course can be made: though, however, these ideas may have a stimulating value in the lecture room, they look weak and thin when set out in print."

"The concept of evolution as proceeding through the gradual transformation of masses of individuals by the accumulation of impalpable changes is one that the study of genetics shows immediately to be false. Once for all, that burden so gratuitously undertaken in ignorance of generic physiology by the evolutionists of the last century may be cast into oblivion. For the facts of heredity and variation unite to prove that genetic variation is a phenomenon of individuals."

"Memory is a mystery as deep as any that even psychology can propound. [Natural] Philosophers might perhaps encourage themselves to attack the problem of the nature of memory by reflecting that after all the process may in some of its aspects be comparable with that of inheritance, but the student of genetics, as long as he can keep in close touch with a profitable basis of material fact, will scarcely be tempted to look for inspiration in psychical analogies."

"Truer notions of genetic physiology are given by the Hebrew expression "seed". If we speak of a man as "of the blood-royal" we think at once of plebeian dilution, and we wonder how much of the royal fluid is likely to be "in his veins"; but if we say he is "of the seed of Abraham" we feel something of the permanence and indestructibility of that germ which can be divided and scattered among all nations, but remains recognisable in type and characteristics after 4000 years."

"Misconception was especially brought in by describing descent in terms of "blood". The common speech uses expressions such as consanguinity, pure-blooded, half-blood, and the like, which call up a misleading picture to the mind. Blood is in some respects a fluid, and thus it is supposed that this fluid can be both quantitatively and qualitatively diluted with other bloods, just as treacle can be diluted with water."

"It was in the attempt to ascertain the interrelationships between species that experiments n genetics were first made. The words "evolution" and "origin of species" are now so intimately associated with the name of Darwin that we are apt to forger that the idea of common descent had been prominent in the mnds of naturalists before he wrote, and that, for more than half a century, zealous investigators had been devoting themselves to the experimental study of that possibility. Prominent among this group of experimenters may be mentioned Koelreauter, John Hunter, Herbert Knight, Gartner, Jordan. Naudin, Godron, Lecoq, Wichura--men whose names are familiar to every reader of Animals and Plants unders Domestication."

"I well remember receiving from one of the most earnest of my seniors the friendly warning that it was waste of time to study variation, for "Darwin had swept the field." Parenthetically we may notice that though scientific opinion in general became rapidly converted to the doctrine of pure selection, there was one remarkable exception. Systematists for the most part kept aloof. Everyone was convinced that natural selection operating in a continuously varying population was a sufficient account of the origin of species except the one class of scientific workers whose labours familiarised them with the phenomenon of specific difference. From that time the systematists became, as they still in great measure remain, a class apart."

"If species had really arisen by the natural selection for impalpable differences, intermediate forms should abound, and the limits between species should be on the whole indefinite. As this conclusion follows necessarily from the premisses, the selectionists believe and declare that it represents the facts of nature. Difference between species being by axiom indefinite, the differences between varieties must be supposed to be still less definite. Consequently the conclusion that evolution must proceed by insensible transformation of masses of individuals has become an established dogma."

"Of the contributions made during the essayist period three call for notice: Weismann deserves mention for his useful work in asking for the proof that "acquired characters" or, to speak more precisely, parental experience can really be transmitted to the offspring. The ocurrence of progressive adaptation by transmission of effects of use had seemed so natural to Darwin and his contemporaries that no proof of the physiological reality of the henomenon was thought necessary. Weismann's challenge revealed the utter inadequacy of the evidence on which the beliefs were based. They are doubtless isolated observations which may be interpreted as favouring the belief in these transmissions, but such meagre indications as exist are by general consent admitted to be too slight to be of much assistance in the attempt to understand how the more complex adaptive mechanisms arose."

"The cause of extinction is usually a delayed reaction to habitat loss. ...H. sapiens might ...already be a dead species walking."

"[O]ver the past few decades, the quality of human sperm has declined massively... Pollution... is one possible factor. Another might be stress... triggered by living in close proximity..."

"[T]he human population is set not just for shrinkage but collapse—and soon. To paraphrase Lehrer, if we are going to write about human extinction, we’d better start writing now."

"To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific."

"There is more genetic variation in a few troupes of wild chimpanzees than in the entire human population. Lack of genetic variation is never good for species survival."

"It's evident that Darwin saw evolution not as progressive or improving, but as an activity that happens moment by moment. From this it is clear that evolution has no plan. It has neither memory nor foresight. No vestige of cosmic strivings from some remote beginning; no prospect of revelatory culmination in some transcendent end."

"The intervals of time that separate the fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent."

"I am very conscious that there is no scientific explanation for the fact that we are conscious."

"There was a young lady named Bright, Whose speed was far faster than light; She started one day In a relative way, And returned on the previous night."