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The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting flabby. Let us be duly thankful for out blessings.

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
Also
Dog
Flabby
Must
Blessing
Duly
Atheism
Fundamentalists
Created
Fleas
Situation
Thankful
Getting
Blessings
Rationalists
Religion
Dogs
Moping
Keep
Atheist
Reputed

More quotes by Garrett Hardin

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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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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.
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Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.
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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity
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However, I think the major opposition to ecology has deeper roots than mere economics ecology threatens widely held values so fundamental that they must be called religious.
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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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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
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The population problem has no technical solution it requires a fundamental extension in morality.
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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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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.
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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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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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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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Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies.
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Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
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Incommensurables cannot be compared.
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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.
Garrett Hardin