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.
Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"... "It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine.
In nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place.
Today, we must realize that nature is revealed in the simplest meadow, wood lot, marsh, stream, or tidepool, as well as in the remote grandeur of our parks and wilderness areas.
Among all researchers who have worked in the African field, I consider myself one of the most fortunate because of the privilege of having been able to study the mountain gorilla.
In nature's economy the currency is not money, it is life.
Hear and attend and listen; for this is what befell and be-happened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild -as wild as wild could be - and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself and all places were alike to him
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