21 quotes
History, as well as life itself, is complicated; neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
My hope in writing this book has been that enough people will choose to profit from that opportunity to make a difference.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
Our sex is ultimately laid down by our genes.
Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1997)
Behavior evolves through natural selection, just as anatomy does. Hence if sex is enjoyable, natural selection must have been responsible for that outcome.
Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1997)
Remember that impact is the product of two factors: population multiplied times impact per person.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
Put another way, the chimpanzees' closest relative is not the gorilla but humans.
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (1991)
Men like fighting and women like men who are prepared to fight on their behalf.
There really are broad patterns in history, and the search for them is as fascinating as it is productive.
Perhaps our greatest distinction as a species is our capacity, unique among animals, to make counter-evolutionary choices.
Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1997)
All recognized famous inventors had capable predecessors and successors and made their improvements at a time when society was capable of using their product.
In the latter case it is often government that organizes the conquest, and religion that justifies it.
Those numbers may not sound like a big deal until one reflects that average global temperatures were "only" 5 degrees cooler at the height of the last Ice Age.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
People often ask, "What is the single most important environmental/population problem facing the world today?" A flip answer would be, "The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem!"
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
[..] the values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
How can we explain simultaneously this general pattern of female parental care and also its numerous exceptions?
The answer comes from the realization that genes for behavior, as well as for malaria resistance and teeth, are subject to natural selection.
Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1997)
Businesses have changed when the public came to expect and require different behavior, to reward businesses for behavior that the public wanted, and to make things difficult for businesses practising behaviors that the public didn't want. I predict that in the future, just as in the past, changes in public attitudes will be essential for changes in businesses' environmental practices.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping their outcomes towards success or failure: long-term planning, and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection, we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
Physiologists and molecular biologists regularly fall into the trap of overlooking this distinction, which is fundamental to biology, history, and human behavior. Physiology and molecular biology can do no more than identify proximate mechanisms; only evolutionary biology can provide ultimate causal explanations.
Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1997)
Though seemingly remote from human sexuality, shorebird sexuality is instructive because it illustrates the main message of this book: a species’ sexuality is molded by other aspects of the species’ biology. It’s easier for us to acknowledge this conclusion about shorebirds, to which we don’t apply moral standards, than about ourselves.
Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1997)
The details of which candidate said what during a single televised debate in October 1960 could have given the electoral victory to Nixon instead of to Kennedy, but no details of who said what could have blocked the European conquest of Native Americans.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997)