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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

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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
Greatest
Uncritically
Least
Expert
Opinion
Experts
Another
Folly
Always
Statements
Seek
Accept
Accepting

More quotes by Garrett Hardin

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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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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
Garrett Hardin
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Every plausible policy must be followed by the question 'And then what?'
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
Garrett Hardin
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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
Garrett Hardin
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The population problem has no technical solution it requires a fundamental extension in morality.
Garrett Hardin
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The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
Garrett Hardin
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In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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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
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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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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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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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Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
Garrett Hardin
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Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species
Garrett Hardin
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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
Garrett Hardin