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75 Ethologist Quotes

The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift.

Fidelity Dog Precious Gift
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Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.

Cultures Determined Did Evolution
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The bond with a true dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth will ever be.

Bond Dog Earth Ever
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It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.

Before Breakfast Day Discard
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Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.

Best Better Defined Hypothesis
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I believe that present day civilized man suffers from insufficient discharge of his aggressive drive.

Aggressive Believe Civilized Day
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Most of the vices and mortal sins condemned today correspond to inclinations that were purely adaptive or at least harmless in primitive man.

Adaptive Condemned Correspond Harmless
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Evil, by definition, is that which endangers the good, and the good is what we perceive as a value.

Definition Evil Good Perceive
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We had better dispense with the personification of evil, because it leads, all too easily, to the most dangerous kind of war: religious war.

Because Better Dangerous Dispense
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Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing.

About Compete Every Every Man
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I have found the missing link between the higher ape and civilized man; it is we.

Ape Between Civilized Found
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Barking dogs occasionally bite, but laughing men hardly ever shoot.

Barking Bite Dogs Ever
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We do not take humor seriously enough.

Enough Humor Seriously Take
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'I don't need brains,' says the billionaire contemptuously. 'I'm brainy enough myself!' The broker cries out in desperation, 'What, in heaven's name, do you want?' 'Goodness,' is the answer.

Answer Billionaire Brains Brainy
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I consider early childhood events as most essential to a man's scientific and philosophical development.

Childhood Consider Development Early
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I grew up in the large house and the larger garden of my parents in Altenberg. They were supremely tolerant of my inordinate love for animals.

Animals Garden Grew House
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From a neighbour, I got a one-day-old duckling and found, to my intense joy, that it transferred its following response to my person. At the same time, my interest became irreversibly fixated on water fowl, and I became an expert on their behaviour even as a child.

Became Behaviour Child Even
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When I was about ten, I discovered evolution by reading a book by Wilhelm Boelsche and seeing a picture of Archaeopteryx.

About Book Discovered Evolution
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In the course of evolution, it constantly happens that, independently of each other, two different forms of life take similar, parallel paths in adapting themselves to the same external circumstances.

Adapting Circumstances Constantly Course
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Practically all animals which move fast in a homogeneous medium have found means of giving their body a streamlined shape, thereby reducing friction to a minimum.

Animals Body Fast Found
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Whenever we find, in two forms of life that are unrelated to each other, a similarity of form or of behaviour patterns which relates to more than a few minor details, we assume it to be caused by parallel adaptation to the same life-preserving function.

Adaptation Assume Behaviour Caused
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Ethologists are often accused of drawing false analogies between animal and human behaviour. However, no such thing as a false analogy exists: an analogy can be more or less detailed and, hence, more or less informative.

Accused Analogy Animal Behaviour
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There is indeed the possibility that the evolutionary process has, in gray antiquity, bred into us an excess of aggression.
Aggression Antiquity Bred Evolutionary
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I owe undying gratitude to my patient parents.
Gratitude Owe Parents Patient
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The father-mother family with two children isolated in a city flat is already insufficient.
Children City Family Flat
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We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

About Atheists Believed Ever
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If children understand that beliefs should be substantiated with evidence, as opposed to tradition, authority, revelation or faith, they will automatically work out for themselves that they are atheists.

Atheists Authority Automatically Beliefs
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Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world chess championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility.
Championship Chess Computer Forward
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I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

Against Am Because Religion
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Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

Because Belief Evaluate Even
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There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?

Agnostic Any Bottom Evidence
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By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Brains Drop Means Our
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Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

Altruism Because Born Generosity
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One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all.

Answers Really Religion Satisfied
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Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.

About Belief Institutions Passage
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The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.

Blind Discouraging Expedient Faith
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Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.

About Doubt Earth Evolution
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Complex, statistically improbable things are by their nature more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable things.

Complex Difficult Explain Improbable
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The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.
Colossal Essence Life Scale
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God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture.

Culture Environment Exists Form
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I once wrote that anybody who believes the world is only 6,000 years old is either ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked.

Anybody Believes Either Ignorant
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I love romantic poetry.
Love Romantic Poetry
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My decision to be a scientist was a bit of a drift really, more or less by default.

Bit Decision Default Drift
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I was confirmed at my prep school at the age of 13.

Age Confirmed Prep School
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I love words.
Love Words
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I don't know what to think about magic and fairy tales.

About Fairy Know Magic
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Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence.
Age Existence First Intelligent
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Of course in science there are things that are open to doubt and things need to be discussed. But among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know.

About Among Anything Certain
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We are a very, very unusual species.

Species Unusual Very
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It would be intolerant if I advocated the banning of religion, but of course I never have.

Banning Course Intolerant Never
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