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But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere.

Garrett Hardin

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Garrett Hardin
Age: 88 †
Born: 1915
Born: April 21
Died: 2003
Died: September 14
Biologist
Demographer
Ecologist
Statistician
University Teacher
Dallas
Texas
Garrett James Hardin
Garrett J. Hardin
Using
Trouble
Tongs
Fire
Chestnuts
Lying
Fundamentalists
Reason
Troubles
Real
Elsewhere
Good
Contradiction
Pull

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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
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The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.
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Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity
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People are the quintessential element in all technology... Once we recognize the inescapable human nexus of all technology our attitude toward the reliability problem is fundamentally changed.
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Numeracy: 1. The art of putting numbers to things, that is, assigning amounts to variables in order that practical decisions may be reach. 2. That aspect of education (beyond mere literacy) which takes account of quantitative aspects of reality.
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You can never do merely one thing. The law applies to any action that changes something in a complex system. The point is that an action taken to alleviate a problem will trigger several effects, some of which may offset or even negate the one intended.
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Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed.
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In an approximate way, the logic of commons has been understood for a long time, perhaps since the discovery of agriculture or the invention of private property in real estate.
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Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable.
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A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.
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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
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Religious reasons, which is no reason. I notice Skeptic had a review of Dennett's book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Religious reasons amount to what Dennett terms skyhooks. Do you believe in skyhooks? I don't.
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We see only what we have names for.
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But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights.
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The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
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The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
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Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust?
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Value is a relative concept: the value of each action is determined by comparing it with other possible actions.
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Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.
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