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Perhaps our greatest distinction as a species is our capacity, unique among animals, to make counter-evolutionary choices.

Jared Diamond

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Jared Diamond
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: September 10
Biologist
Ecologist
Geographer
Ornithologist
Physiologist
Scientist
University Teacher
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Jared Mason Diamond
Jared M. Diamond
Choices
Animals
Make
Species
Unique
Capacity
Among
Perhaps
Evolutionary
Greatest
Counter
Animal
Distinction

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I've always been interested in a lot of things, and a lot of things at the same time, and I always tried to explain them to myself. I ask a lot of questions.
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History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.
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The King's 28 letters have been described by scholars as the world's best alphabet and the most scientific system of writing.
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Australia is the most isolated continent.
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Think of all the human suffering caused by the sad truth that beautiful sexy women or handsome Porsche-owning men often prove to have miserable genes for other traits
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Measles and TB evolved from diseases of our cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs, and smallpox possibly from a disease of camels. The Americas had very few native domesticated animal species from which humans could acquire such diseases.
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The United States has long thought of itself as the land of infinite plenty, and historically we did have abundant resources. But now we are gradually exhausting our fisheries, our topsoil, our water. On top of that, we're coming to the end of world resources.
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We scientists have fantasies of being uniquely qualified to make great discoveries. Alas, reality is cruel: most of us are replaceable. For the vast majority of scientific contributions, if scientist X hadn't achieved it that year, scientist Y would have achieved the same result or something very similar soon thereafter.
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It invites a search for ultimate causes: why were Europeans, rather than Africans or Native Americans, the ones to end up with guns, the nastiest germs, and steel?
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I personally am not conscious of my accent.
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The past was still a Golden Age, of ignorance, while the present is an Iron Age of willful bliss.
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We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.
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Thousands of years ago, humans domesticated every possible large wild mammal species fulfilling all those criteria and worth domesticating, with the result that there have been no valuable additions of domestic animals in recent times, despite the efforts of modern science.
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One person making a wrong decision affects the whole country.
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All human societies go through fads in which they temporarily either adopt practices of little use or else abandon practices of considerable use.
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Even to this day, no native Australian animal species and only one plant species-the macadamia nut-have proved suitable for domestication. There still are no domestic kangaroos.
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Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.
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Biology is the science. Evolution is the concept that makes biology unique.
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History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves
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The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem!
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