English Biologist Quotes

Richard Dawkins

Thomas Henry Huxley

Richard Owen

Maurice Wilkins

Marianne North

Time and again, my sociobiological colleagues have upbraided me as a turncoat, because I will not agree with them that the ultimate criterion for the success of a meme must be its contribution to Darwinian "fitness". At bottom, they insist, a "good meme" spreads because brains are receptive to it, and the receptiveness of brains is ultimately shaped by (genetic) natural selection.

Richard Dawkins

If every man possessed everything he wanted, and no one had the power to interfere with such possession; or if no man desired thatwhich could damage his fellow-man, justice would have no part to play in the universe.

Thomas Henry Huxley

Mr. S. had a letter to Brigham Young, and took us to interview him, horrid old wretch! My hand felt dirty for a week after shaking hands with him.

A single substantive term is a better instrument of thought than a paraphrase.

The study of that which is thus common to all things, is the study of mathematics; and therefore mathematics, or the science of number, is and must be the most fundamental of all sciences, since it pertains to every other, and no other can be pursued without it.

St. George Jackson Mivart

Force is as absolutely inscrutable as mind. Force can never be known in itself; it is known by its manifestations. It is not a phenomenon; it produces phenomena. We cannot know it; but we know nothing without it.

William Dallinger

Science, with technology, is the only way we have to avoid starvation, disease, and premature death. The misapplication of science and technology is due to the fact that the politics are wrong. Now my own view is that the politics are indeed wrong; but politics and science are so closely interrelated that they can hardly be separated.

Maurice Wilkins