zoologists-from-france

"We find among the Indians the vestiges of the most remote antiquity .... We know that all peoples came there to draw the elements of their knowledge ... India, in her splendor, gave religions and laws to all the other peoples; Egypt and Greece owed to her both their fables and their wisdom.""

"Ancient India gave to to the world its religions and philosophies: Egypt and Greece owe India their wisdom and it is known that Pythagoras went to India to study under Brahmins, who were the most enlightened of human beings."

"Buffon, the director of the Jardin du Roi... watched... the sun... Besides him.. stood... his latest experiment: four large wooden frames holding between them an array of over 150 mirrors. Screw threads ensured that each mirror was precisely aligned... Buffon had been inspired to conduct the experiment by the famous story of how... Archimedes defended his hometown from an attack by the Roman fleet... [by] [[w:Archimedes#Heat ray|focus[ing] the sun's rays onto the ships' wooden hulls]]. ...In 1747, at the age of thirty-nine, [Buffon] felt it was time to make his mark... Within two minutes the deal plank began to char, then to smoke. Just as it looked as if it would burst into flames, however, the sun disappeared behind a cloud. ...That summer, crowds flocked... to see the now celebrated scientist set fire to buildings over two hundred feet away."

"What better way to establish his name than to tackle the most fundamental philosophical question man could ask: When was the world created? And how? ...Unlike all previous theorists, Buffon chose to ignore the Bible. ...Instead, his inspiration came from Newton. ...he believed that Newton's mechanics would enable man to unravel the mysteries of the universe. If Newton's laws could explain the motion of the moon and planets... why shouldn't they also reveal our history?"

"[F]rom the earliest periods of time [man] alone has divided the empire of the world between him and Nature. ...[H]e rather enjoys than possesses, and it is by constant and perpetual activity and vigilance that he preserves his advantage, for if those are neglected every thing languishes, changes, and returns to the absolute dominion of Nature. She resumes her power, destroys the operations of man; envelopes with moss and dust his most pompous monuments, and in the progress of time entirely effaces them, leaving man to regret having lost by his negligence what his ancestors had acquired by their industry. Those periods in which man loses his empire, those ages in which every thing valuable perishes, commence with war and are completed by famine and depopulation. Although the strength of man depends solely upon the union of numbers, and his happiness is derived from peace, he is, nevertheless, so regardless of his own comforts as to take up arms and to fight, which are never-failing sources of ruin and misery. Incited by insatiable avarice, or blind ambition, which is still more insatiable, he becomes callous to the feelings of humanity; regardless of his own welfare, his whole thoughts turn upon the destruction of his own species, which he soon accomplishes. The days of blood and carnage over, and the intoxicating fumes of glory dispelled, he beholds, with a melancholy eye, the earth desolated, the arts buried, nations dispersed, an enfeebled people, the ruins of his own happiness, and the loss of his real power."

"La génie n'est utre chose qu'une grande aptitude à la patience."

"Le style c'est l'homme."

"Man alone consumes more flesh than all the other animals together devour; he is, then, the greatest destroyer; and this more from custom than necessity. Instead of using with moderation the blessings which are offered him, instead of disposing of them with equity, instead of increasing them in proportion as he destroys, the rich man places all his glory in consuming, in one day, at his table, as much as would be necessary to support many families: he equally abuses both animals and his fellow-creatures, some of whom remain starving and languishing in misery, and labour only to satisfy his immoderate appetite, and more insatiable vanity, and who, by destroying others through wantonness, destroys himself by excess. Nevertheless, man, like some other animals, might live on vegetables."

"Buffon produced in the fifty years from 1749 an Histoire Naturelle... one of the signal products of eighteenth-century science. ...He attempted to see nature as a whole, produced a vast synthesis and sought to give a picture of the history of the earth... [If] Newton had appeared to reduce the inanimate world to a system of law, Buffon... set his mind on a similar achievement, and even a wider one—comprising... biological phenomana and expanding into the realm of history. ...Along with Leibnitz he believed that the earth had once been in an incandescent state... part of the sun, but had broken away after a collision with a comet. He rejected the tradition that this globe was only six thousand years old and made an attempt to set out the periods or stages of its history; a time when mountain ranges were formed...a time when waters entirely covered... the globe... and a time when the continents came to be separated from one another. ...He held something like Leibnitz's idea that every plant and animal was composed of a mass of minute particles, each of which was a pattern of the whole individual; and this enabled him to explain the origin of living creatures without reference to an act of creation. He tried to show that no absolutely definite boundary existed between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Nature always proceeds by nuances, he said."

"Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius."

"The mutation of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect."

"Exceptional, unforeseeable, or even inexplicable phenomena would hence be fortuitous. these very vague adjectives too often have a merely circumstancial meaning. A given phenomenon, today considered random, may tomorrow be considered determined because its causes will have been unraveled by thorough and specific study. Biologists, whose task is not to seek moral causes or intentions, must first of all make sure that so-called random facts really are random facts; they must constantly keep in mind Poincare's (1912b, p. 65) famous phrase: "Chance is only the measure of our ignorance.""

"The philosopher considering the Universe in its entirety is led to admit that there is only one necessary, absolute being, God. All other beings are contingent; this is why Pascal said of himself: "I feel that I might not have been... therefore I am not a necessary being" (Pensées, No. 597). The proposition applies equally to every living thing."

"The Darwinians have coined the terms pseudoteleology and teleonomy to designate the finality which they at the same time deny. Appearances are deceptive, they say; the materials of life are always the work of chance. What some take for finality is only the result of the ordering of random materials bynatural selection. Even were this to be true, as it is not, the demon of finility would still not have been exorcized. For natural selection is, in essence and function, the supreme finilizing agent. Actually, the terms pseudoteleology and teleonomy are the homage paid to finality, as hypocrisy pays homage to virtue. Giard (1905), himself a shrewd scholar but blinded by a foolish anticlericalism, went so far as to abjure Lamarckism and write, "To account for the wondrous adaptations such as those we observe between orchids and the insects that fertilize them, we have hardly any choice but the bare alternative hypotheses: the intervention of a sovereignly intelligent being, and selection." He cannot have seriously subjected his supposed dilemma to critical scrutiny or he would have seen that he was substituting for the dethroned divinity just such another, a sorting and finalizing, in sum transcendental, agent, natural selection. Paul Wintrebert, a convinced and even intractable atheist, did not fall into the same trap but realized perfectly that Giard's alternative involves, whatever opinion be held, recognizing the intervention of a purposive guiding agent. Giard's concept, which is that held by many atheists and "freethinkers", gives a singular and belittling idea of God. The Almighty, obliged to remodel and retouch His own handiwork."

"For those who would still doubt the relevance of our criticisms, another quote from a paper written by two American biologists, King and Jukes (1969), is presented: "Darwinism is so well established that it is difficult to think of evolution except in terms of selection for desirable characteristics and advantageous genes. New technical developments and new knowledge, such as the sequential analysis of proteins and the deciphering of the genetic code, have made a much closer examination of evolutionary processes the sequential analysis of proteins and the deciphering of the genetic code, have made a much closer examination of evolutionary processes possible, and therefore necessary.". These biologists are convinced that the Darwinian credo is correct, and they accept it. They are quite sincere but they are not critical enough. Biochemists and biologists who adhere blindly to the Darwinism theory search for results that will be in agreement with their theories and consequently orient their research in a given direction, whether it be in the field of ecology, ethology, sociology, demography (dynamics of populations), genetics (so-called evolutionary genetics), or paleontology. This intrusion of theories has unfortunate results: it deprives observations and experiments of their objectivity, makes them biased, and, moreover, creates false problems. Heedful of genetics and demography, Darwinians have seldom taken fossils* into consideration, or, and this is more serious, they have applied the laws of genetics to them without making a critical analysis; considering our ignorance of the relationships between fossils, which in most cases are found very far apart and in distinct beds, this approach can only be arbitrary."

"Through use and abuse of hidden postulates, of bold, often ill-founded extrapolations, a pseudoscience has been created. It is taking root in the very heart of biology and is leading astray many biochemists and biologists, who sincerely believe that the accuracy of fundamental concepts has been demonstrated, which is not the case. Wishing to point out this type of misconception, we quote P. T. Mora, an American biochemist, who writes about polysaccharides contained in the cell membrane: "Of course we know that such specific structure is the result of the working of enzymes, which in turn is a reflection of the genetic information transmitted by nucleic acids through cycles of reproduction as selected by evolution (Mora, 1965, p. 40, the italics are mine). To admit that the action of enzymes and, enzymes and, more important, that their foundation is directed by the genetic code should not permit one to mantain that the information was selected by evolution (the consequence is mistaken for the cause); no one knows anything about this."

"The immanent purpose is an intrinsic property of living beings, without it, they would not exist. Consider the autonomous function units and their components: organs, tissues, isolated cells, as well as other properties such as nutrition, body defense, growth, reproduction, to which they are subject at the end. When it comes to these properties, biologists do not argue; but if you pronounce the word purpose, there is a public outcry. Probably because they do not distinguish the purpose of fact or immanent, the trascendental purpose. Of the latter, the biologist has little or nothing to say; it is a matter of metaphysics."

"When we consider a human work, we believe we know where the "intelligence" which fashioned it comes from; but when a living being is concerned, no one knows or ever knew, neither Darwin nor Epicurus, neither Leibniz nor Aristotle, neither Einstein nor Parmenides. An act of faith is necessary to make us adopt one hypothesis rather than another. Science, which does not accept any credo, or in any case should not, acknowledges its ignorance, its inability to solve this problem which, we are certain, exists and has reality."

"Here we are, up to our ears in transcendence: Any organization or function is controlled by it. The building blocks for making living creatures are utilized by it. Thus, the entire world of living beings is transcended by phenomena that create finality. Natural selection working for the continuance and welfare of animals, plants, and man himself, is seen to be the grand law which organizes the living universe. So the Darwinians, who fancied they had exorcized finalism and transcendency but forgot to analyze critically the idea of natural selection, failed to see its implications or metaphysical consequences. They thought they were absolved from giving any finalization or deistic interpretation by decreeing that on earth all is but deceptive appearances; finality is a sham, guided evolution illusory. How is it possible to understand such an attitude?"

"The study of contemporary species does not establish the existence of evolution; it provides facts which support it, but which do not fully demonstrate its existence. This is understandable, since at present we cannot show the series of successive stages which make up evolution, but only a fleeting picture of evolution."

"We have gone from Darwinism into neo-Darwinism, and, very recently, to ultra-Darwinism, which not only claims to be the sole custodian truth in regard to evolution, but to be evolution itself. Darwin himself did not display so much confidence when writing to one of his grandsons... Present-day ultra-Darwinism, which is so sure of itself, impresses incompletely informed biologists, misleads them, and inspires fallacious interpretations. The following is one of the numerous examples found in books today: "In microorganisms, the generation time is rather short and the size of the population can be enormous. Therefore, mutation acts as a very powerful evolutionary process during a shorter lapse of time than in populations of higher organisms"(Levine, 1969, p. 196. the italics are mine) This text suggests that modern bacteria are evolving very quickly, thanks to their innumerable mutations. Now, this is not true. For millions, or even billions of years, bacteria have not transgressed the structural frame within which they have always fluctuated and still do. It is a fact that microbiologists can see in their cultures species of bacteria oscillating around an intermediate form, but this does not mean that two phenomena, which are quite distinct, should be confused; the variation of the genetic code because of a DNA copy error and evolution. To vary and to evolve are two different things; this can never be sufficiently emphasized."

"Natural order was not invented by the human mind or set up by certain perceptive powers... The existence of order presupposes the existence of organizing intelligence. Such intelligence can be none other than God's."

"Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere school-boys to old Aristotle."

"Why has not anyone seen that fossils alone gave birth to a theory about the formation of the earth, that without them, no one would have ever dreamed that there were successive epochs in the formation of the globe."

"It is evident that one cannot say anything demonstrable about the problem before having resolved these preliminary questions, and yet we hardly possess the necessary information to solve some of them."

"To spread healthy ideas among even the lowest classes of people, to remove men from the influence of prejudice and passion, to make reason the arbiter and supreme guide of public opinion; that is the essential goal of the sciences; that is how science will contribute to the advancement of civilization, and that is what deserves protection of governments who want to insure the stability of their power."

"The works which this man leaves behind him occupy a few pages only; their importance is not greatly superior to their extent."

"The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears to consist of the fruits, roots, and other succulent parts of vegetables."

"The synthesis of paleontology, taxonomy, and comparative anatomy that Cuvier achieved was based on a teleological approach to nature, one that gave primacy to functional purpose over structural affinity."

"Cuvier advanced his doctrine on methodological as well as scientific grounds. Although his work was far from empirical, Cuvier adopted and promulgated an empiricist ideology in order to combat opposing points of view."

"Georges Cuvier was a great naturalist from the beginning of the 19th century, so right around 1800, and he was the first person to really say organisms go extinct...And Georges Cuvier came along and said, you know, really, essentially, if they’re out there, we would have seen them. We haven’t seen them: They’re gone. And he posited this whole lost world, which he then proceeded to start to uncover. So a lot of the animal names that we have now—for example, pterodactyl—he came up with. He was the first person to identify a pterodactyl. And his theory was that animals only went extinct in these catastrophic waves—you know, something happened, the planet changed; otherwise, why else would they go extinct? And then a naturalist named Charles Lyell, who was Charles Darwin’s mentor, came along, and he said, “That’s ridiculous. You know, we never see these catastrophes. They don’t happen. Only—the only way the Earth changes is very, very, very gradually, and things go extinct very gradually, and the world changes very gradually.” And that became sort of the doctrine for a very long time, over a hundred years, until the Alvarezes came along and identified an asteroid impact as the event that had done in the dinosaurs—and many other creatures, I should say."

"From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free."

"Sylvia Earle, though a great scientist, is also the heir to Jacques Cousteau, inducting the landbound among us into the mysteries of the sea, helping us to feel both astonished and at ease."

"Sylvia Earle's generation — they were explorers...They’re like, what is even down there? How do we understand this? And then: Oh [bleep], this is in trouble. And they all became conservationists, right? We saw that same professional transformation with Jacques Cousteau."

"Sometimes we are lucky enough to know that our lives have been changed, to discard the old, embrace the new, and turn headlong down an immutable course."

"We have to prepare for what life could become in 40 years. We need to outline what is possible and what is impossible with the non-renewable resources of the Earth. What role will technological improvement play? Taking all this into account, what kind of life can we produce in the best way for 10 billion people? That's a problem that needs to be solved."

"In the last few decades, a terribly pernicious rumor has been circulated by the press. It claims, exhibiting a level of stupidity heretofore considered impossible, that a human being could crawl through the arteries of a blue whale. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. I do not know why this deleterious rumor has been systematically repeated, but its very existence is an ugly cancer upon the face of science."

"I said that the oceans were sick but they're not going to die. There is no death possible in the oceans — there will always be life — but they're getting sicker every year."

"The glory of nature provides evidence that God exists"

"I am not a scientist. I am, rather, an impresario of scientists."

"Man, of all the animals, is probably the only one to regard himself as a great delicacy."

"What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what’s going on."

"If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed — if we are not willing — we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect."

"Farming as we do it is hunting, and in the sea we act like barbarians."

"We must plant the sea and herd its animals … using the sea as farmers instead of hunters. That is what civilization is all about — farming replacing hunting."

"The sea is the universal sewer."

"Buoyed by water, he can fly in any direction — up, down, sideways — by merely flipping his hand. Under water, man becomes an archangel."