When the ancestors of the cheetah first began pursuing the ancestors of the gazelle, neither of them could run as fast as they can today.
Interpretation
This quote illustrates the idea of evolution and adaptation through the relationship between predator and prey.
Richard Dawkins highlights how both cheetahs and gazelles have evolved over time in response to each other, showcasing the dynamic nature of survival and adaptation in the animal kingdom. This ongoing process emphasizes the significance of natural selection, where both species have developed unique traits to enhance their chances of survival in a competitive environment.
In practice
In a discussion about evolution in a biology class.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
I care to live only to entice people to look at Natureβs loveliness.
The Westerly Wind asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a monarch gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most faithful of his courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death.
Forests are the lungs of our land.
'Years of Living Dangerously' is a wonderful opportunity to reach a lot of people with the story and importance of climate change in our lives; in recent history, there's no bigger threat to the quality of human life than what is taking place right now in respect of climate change.
What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.
Thunder is no longer the voice of an angry god... No river contains a spirit... no snake the embodiment of wisdom, no mountain cave the home of a great demon. No voices now speak to man from stones, plants and animals, nor does he speak to them thinking they can hear. His contact with nature has gone, and with it has gone the profound emotional energy that this symbolic connection supplied.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.