Science Authors

"In particular, to suggest that the creature which is measurably superior in any particular respect is ipso facto morally superior is bad science (since it is not in the brief of science to make such judgments) and also bad moral philosophy (since this is merely a variation on the deeply suspect theme of “might makes right”)."

"In short, we are innately bad at introspection."

"The effect of natural selection over time is to change the composition of the gene pool."

"The crucial notion that the world has not always been the way it is now."

"In practice, the attempt to relate the evidence on the ground directly to the Noachian Flood was more or less abandoned after the 1820s."

"Natural selection is not concerned with dignity—only with reproductive success."

"The point is simply to realize that the Earth does indeed behave in extraordinary ways—and incredulity is no defense."

"I find that as my knowledge grows, so my appreciation deepens."

"We cannot claim to take the environment seriously until we acknowledge that a million years is a proper unit of political time. That is the general lesson of history."

"Nature’s rules are universal, and nature has no taste."

"Every society has cause to know that the beneficence of the Earth cannot be taken for granted."

"A knowledge of our own history is a significant part of culture and, at present, that knowledge is absurdly curtailed."

"This intricate picture has not been easy to put together. It has required a succession of insights over three centuries, each one demanding a huge leap of imagination, and the Earth scientists, though little recognized, have been among the most imaginative of all. But because the insights did require such imagination, each has met with incredulity. No scientists have been more comprehensively scorned than those who have sought to explain how the world behaves. Time after time, however, the most extraordinary ideas have turned out to be right, and the conservative notions have proved inadequate."

"The agricultural systems of the world are not actually designed to feed people....If the prime concern of the human species was to feed people, then we would do things very differently."

"The growing interest in mating preferences in animals has been generated in part by the renewed vitality of evolutionary biology. A characteristic that successfully attracts a member of the opposite sex might become increasingly common in the population simply because it is likely to be transmitted to offspring which in turn may be better than others in winning mates This evolutionary process, which is a part of what is called sexual selection, could be an important source of genetic change."

"Hybrid vigour is so dramatic when it occurs that it seems to make the arguments for outbreeding depression implausible. Nevertheless, some empirical evidence supports the view that outbreeding too much can carry genetic costs in certain species."

"... But what would happen if genetic determinism could be destroyed once and for all? Will men cease to be patriarchal? And will the rich distribute their possessions to the poor? Fat chance."

"... The male emperor penguin brooding his mate's egg over the Antarctic winter cannot be relieved by his mate because the growth of the ice shelf puts the sea and food beyond reach. So, in the interests of producing an offspring, he fasts for months—a feat any human would find impossible. Other potential solutions to this problem, such as shorter stints of breeding and trekking repeatedly across the ice shelf during the winter, presumably proved to be less successful. The penguins that fasted all winter were the ones whose ancestors had best survived with this adaptation. Examples like this emphasise how dependent is the organisation of behaviour on the ecology of the species. Differences between individuals in the processes of development are to be expected."

"Look at the solar system, and look at the Earth. On Earth, there are many intelligent species, but only one has achieved technology. Right here in the journey of our own solar system, there is a very, very powerful message that says here's how we should look for alien life, small and big. So yeah, microbes are talking and we are listening, and they are taking us, one planet at a time and one moon at a time, towards their big brothers out there. And they are telling us about diversity, they are telling us about abundance of life, and they are telling us how this life has survived thus far to reach civilization, intelligence, technology and, indeed, philosophy."

"[T]he divers were able to commune with these animals for hours... and get footage that no one else has ever gotten."

"The whales welcomed them into their pods, started shooting them with echolocation to figure out what they were, and then started shooting them with... communication clicks. ...[T]his lasted for a series of days ..."

"The animals are usually very wary of scuba but... they saw something similar to themselves. ...[W]hales also have mammalian dive reflexes. That's how they're able to dive down to 8,000 feet for 90 minutes..."

"The sperm whale's brain is about 6 times the size of ours... They've had it for 15 million year longer... We've had our current size brain around 200,000 years."

"[A] few years ago a French researcher and a Belgian freediver... thought "What if we try freediving with whales? Maybe we could get close enough... and start communicating...""

"[A]fter around 30 feet... the water stops buoying you... and starts dragging you down to the sea floor. ...[T]he deeper ...the more your body changes. ...Your organs allow for the free flow of fluids so they don't collapse. Your brain waves slow down. Your heart rate will slow to about 1/3 its resting rate."

"[I]f we're able to understand just the rudiments of this communication, we may be able to save them. ...70% of the population is gone, and it's declining very quickly."

"[T]he lowest recorded heart rate [of a free diver]... was 7 beats per minute... about 1/2 of someone in a ..."

"He... had dolphin English language immersion workshops... where... an intern [would] grant dolphins sexual favors if they learned English words, and this... worked."

"Lilly... wanted to... figure out the communication code. He said these animals are by far the most intelligent... on the planet. They have a form of communication that is far more sophisticated than ours. But you can't quite put a 60 foot long whale into a lab."

"He had a dolphin telephone... and he would listen in as these dolphins would have these very complex conversations..."

"So for the past 50 years we've been... studying these animals from the deck of a boat. Now this is very limiting. You can't see... you... have to put... s off the deck... But... they've found... that... sperm whales have dialects... they can shoot this click communication in focused sound beams to other whales across great distances... [T]hese sperm whales can cram 1600 micro-clicks into a single second... and move discreet frequencies around..."

"[T]he more you focus in on these clicks, the tinier... they get, [growing] into more complex structures. ...[O]ther ns such as dolphins and orcas also use these. It's this secret language... discrete codes... down to the millisecond."

"Back in the 60s... John Lilly had a lab... dedicated to solving the dolphin communication problem..."

"But they could not crack the communication code. To do that you have to get below the surface. You have to see these animals... to gauge their behavior."

"Japan and Iceland... want to keep hunting sperm whales, and are petitioning to do that... [I]f we're able to prove their intelligence and their capacity for communication we might be able to establish them some... rights."

"I found out later that these clicks are actually used for communication. These animals also use them to see in the deep ocean. ...It's a form of called echolocation."

"They're able to see better with sounds than we are able to see with our eyes."

"It's going to a lot harder to kill an animal that's able to speak its name."

"Inside of these clicks is encoded information... a secret language..."

"Most people take breathing for granted. ...James Nestor's new book about how breathing properly can transform your physical and mental health, feels eerily well-timed. It lays out how we breath incorrectly or at least fail to maximize our potential."

"Mr. Nestor claims 90% of people breathe incorrectly. ...As for why we breathe through our mouths, he traces the trouble to our diets. ...[S]oft, processed foods ...leave our jaws and facial bones underworked and smaller ...Nearly every cliché of the Western Spritual Quest makes an appearance ...He's a bit wide-eyed in repeating claims from self-proclaimed... "pulmonauts"... who can supposedly kill E. coli, or cure hemorrhoids and , or treat and and ... Mr. Nestor slaps down... curing cancer. But... purge[s] a schizophrenic woman's hallucinations... [W]hile there's no reason to doubt... that his breathing exercises improved his life, the real question is why... so much. ...Placebos have real, documented medical benefits ...[H]e never grapples with the effect as a plausible explanation ..."

"People who say that this is a placebo effect don't understand that this is a biological function that you're taking control of... [I]f you can elicit such a strong response in a couple of minutes, imagine what you can do in a couple of days."

"[] was able, on command, to make his heart beat 300 times a minute. ...[I]t was so fast, they were looking at the EKG readout, and they said, "He's stopped his heart." Then they looked... a little closer and said "No, it's beating 300 times a minute." ...[T]hen he would snap out of it."

"[B]reathing... allows us these levers into systems that we can't otherwise control. ...[T]he is supposed to be beyond our control. ...When you breath a certain way, you can influence ...functions and you can start taking control of these other elements of your body, as Wim is showing... [N]ot only the nervous system, but with immune function. All of this was supposed to be impossible until he showed up and said "...test me"..."

"Even if someone has a pulse-ox or... a monitor, you can breath in certain ways and instantly see what it does to your body."

"[Varying the temperature] on... the same hand, one area was grey and the other was red. ...It was at the Menninger Clinic... and a Navy physicist [Elmer Green] did these tests. It was reported in The New York Times. ...They haven't found [anyone else] who had the powers of . I think Wim's about as close as we've gotten..."

"[Y]our body wants to be in balance... the right amount of CO2 and oxygen for optimum delivery, and that's what the nose helps you to do."

"A group of scientists, acoustic engineers and free divers have... the goal of trying to crack the sperm whale communication code in the next 2 years. ...We're going to use and AI algorithms... We're already doing this with mice... bats..."

"Just look at freedivers... [A]t the World Freediving Championship [Seventh AIDA Individual World Championship] in Greece... [Y]ou see these people [of all sizes] from all walks of life,.. something like 30 countries had representatives... [T]hese people weren't born with these enormous lungs... They did this by... breathing and expanding their lung capacity. ...Once they explained to me ...the benefits ...go beyond just diving deep. It can allow us to heal our bodies (problems). It can allow super-endurance. It can allow us to do all these things that we've been told are medically impossible. ...I didn't believe them. ...I spent several years... talking to people at Stanford, Harvard... the leaders in the field in... this research, and what they'd told be is absolutely true."

"[B]reathing has to be considered along with diet and exercise as a pillar of health, because even if you eat keto, vegan, paleo, whatever. Even if you exercise all the time, if you're not breathing right, you're never going to be healthy. We know that to be the truth."