13 quotes
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
River out of Eden (1995)
The world becomes full of organisms that have what it takes to become ancestors. That, in a sentence, is Darwinism.
River out of Eden (1995)
Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.
River out of Eden (1995)
What is truly revolutionary about molecular biology in the post-Watson-Crick era is that it has become digital.
River out of Eden (1995)
The river of my title is a river of DNA, and it flows through time, not space. It is a river of information, not a river of bones and tissues.
River out of Eden (1995)
There is no spirit-driven life force, no throbbing, heaving, pullulating, protoplasmic, mystic jelly. Life is just bytes and bytes and bytes of digital information.
River out of Eden (1995)
Your DNA may be destined to mingle with mine. Salutations!
River out of Eden (1995)
Each generation is a filter, a sieve; good genes tend to fall through the sieve into the next generation; bad genes tend to end up in bodies that die young or without reproducing.
River out of Eden (1995)
In one way or another, all my books have been devoted to expounding and exploring the almost limitless power of the Darwinian principle—power unleashed whenever and wherever there is enough time for the consequences of primordial self-replication to unfold.
River out of Eden (1995)
Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous – indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.
River out of Eden (1995)
We humans are an extremely important manifestation of the replication bomb, because it is through us – through our brains, our symbolic culture and our technology – that the explosion may proceed to the next stage and reverberate through deep space.
River out of Eden (1995)
Mitochondrial DNA is blessedly celibate. (p.53)
River out of Eden (1995)
... you need more than luck to navigate successfully through a thousand sieves in succession.
River out of Eden (1995)