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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.

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
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Review
Religious
Reviews
Idea
Notice
Ideas
Reasons
Reason
Atheism
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Believe
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Darwin
Dangerous
Skeptic

More quotes by Garrett Hardin

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Every plausible policy must be followed by the question 'And then what?'
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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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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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In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.
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To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it.
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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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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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Incommensurables cannot be compared.
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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.
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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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Value is a relative concept: the value of each action is determined by comparing it with other possible actions.
Garrett Hardin
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The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.
Garrett Hardin