Biologist Quotes

It is because science is sure of nothing that it is always advancing.

Oral myths are closer to the genetic conclusions than the often ambiguous scientific evidence of archaeology.

We suggest that in the next decades fisheries management will have to emphasize the rebuilding of fish populations embedded within functional food webs, within large 'no-take' marine protected areas.

The study of nature is a limitless field, the most fascinating adventure in the world.

Margaret Morse Nice

Travel is said to be broadening because it makes us realize that our way of doing things is not the only one, that people in other cultures live differently and get by just fine. Insects do that, too, only better.

It isn't necessary to seek out adventure. Opening to what is around you will produce the most extraordinary experiences.

Edward B. Lewis

At last, in the most recent times, an unexpected knowledge of the secret life energies of bacteria has been revealed, through which they rule with demoniacal power over the weal and woe, and even over the life and death of man.

Their universal presence in the cell, coupled with the known properties of bacteria, appear to indicate that mitochondria represent the end adjustment of a fundamental biologic process. The establishment of intimate microsymbiotic complexes has been designated "symbionticism" by the author....

Recall some of the lectures you may have heard recently. Did you always know why the research had been done? Was it clear what problem was being illuminated by the data presented?

John Alexander Moore

The study of adaptation is not an optional preoccupation with fascinating fragments of natural history, it is the core of biological study.

Colin Pittendrigh

Biology belongs to one of the surprising sciences, where each rule must always be supplemented with several exceptions (except this rule, of course).

For over two billion years, through the apparent fancy of her endless differentiations and metamorphosis, the Cell, as regards its basic physiological mechanisms, has remained one and the same. It is life itself, and our true and distant ancestor.

Concepts are games we play with our heads; methods are games we play with our hands, which at times are so handy they can be played without a head.

Frank Edwin Egler

Aging and death do seem to be what Nature has planned for us. But what if we have other plans?

Bernard L. Strehler

Evolution cannot be understood except in the frame of ecosystems.

When I went from academia to a company, they don't care how many committees you are on, how many papers you have. What counts is that you have a product that has an effect. The ego is wiped out. It is so much better.

Katalin Karikó

Human power, which mounted slowly indeed through the eons of prehistory and somewhat more rapidly after the advent of the sword and pen, has gathered momentum with logarithmic sweep since the dawn of modern science. Today it seems to be rocketing into outer space with the incredible energy of atomic fission.

H. Bentley Glass

Evolution, a fact rather than mere hypothesis, is the central unifying concept in biology. By extension it affects almost all other fields of knowledge and thought and must be considered one of the most influential concepts in Western thought.

Douglas J. Futuyma

No competent scientist ought to believe these things on first hearing.

Karl von Frisch

The fossil record says eloquently that profuse evolution had indeed occurred over millions of years, but the data just aren't sensitive enough to analyze evolutionary kinetics. This is the province of the evolutionary geneticist who works with descent and change in populations of present-day organisms.

Hampton L. Carson (biologist)

Scientific knowledge and understanding is a communal achievement, the sum of a multitude of contributions from many different people. Any individual may feel a certain justifiable pride if he knows that he has added one brick to the structure.

C. H. Waddington

There is no phenomenon in a living system that is not molecular, but there is none that is only molecular, either.

Paul Alfred Weiss

Neutrons paired incestuously with their proton offspring to form creation's first atoms - heavy hydrogen, otherwise known as deuterium.

Jack Cohen (scientist)

Freedom is the range of opportunities available to an individual - the more he has to choose from, the freer his choices. Science creates freedom by widening our range of understanding and therefore the possibilities from which we can choose.

David Baltimore

Science is imagination in the service of the verifiable truth and that service is indeed communal. It cannot be rigidly planned. Rather, it requires freedom and courage and the plural contributions of many different kinds of people who must maintain their individuality while giving to the group.