Nothing in the natural world makes sense - except when seen in the light of evolution
Interpretation
This quote suggests that understanding evolution provides clarity to the complexities of the natural world.
David Attenborough's quote emphasizes the importance of evolutionary theory in making sense of the vast and often perplexing natural phenomena we observe. It implies that without the lens of evolution to guide us, many aspects of nature can seem chaotic and meaningless, but when viewed through the context of evolutionary development, a coherent narrative emerges, highlighting the interconnectedness of all living things.
In practice
In a lecture about environmental science, one might quote this to emphasize the significance of evolution in understanding biodiversity.
I don't think we are going to become extinct. We're very clever and extremely resourceful - and we will find ways of preserving ourselves, of that I'm sure. But whether our lives will be as rich as they are now is another question.
I'm against this huge globalisation on the basis of economic advantage.
I would be absolutely astounded if population growth and industrialisation and all the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere hadn't changed the climatic balance. Of course it has. There is no valid argument for denial.
There's a small worm called Loa Loa Filariasis. This parasite can survive in one environment exclusively- namely, underneath the skin and inside the eyes of human beings. Children and the elderly in tropical regions (usually the poorest) are the most widely affected. A painful, slow death is virtually certain. The worm can actually live in the host for 17 years before the host finally dies.
The fundamental issue is the moral issue.
It is vital that there is a narrator figure whom people believe. That's why I never do commercials. If I started saying that margarine was the same as motherhood, people would think I was a liar.
In the history of physics, there have been three great revolutions in thought that first seemed absurd yet proved to be true. The first proposed that the earth, instead of being stationary, was moving around at a great and variable speed in a universe that is much bigger than it appears to our immediate perception. That proposal, I believe, was first made by Aristarchos two millenia ago ... Remarkably enough, the name Aristarchos in Greek means best beginning.
No machines will ever truly fully figure the brain out, because the brain's performance is constantly altered or else constrained by this inanimate, rogue artifact you can't control, namely, speech.
Follow the evidence wherever it leads, and question everything.
It's often better to read first-rate science fiction than second-rate science - it's far more stimulating, and perhaps no more likely to be wrong.
It is impossible to devise an experiment without a preconceived idea; devising an experiment, we said, is putting a question; we never conceive a question without an idea which invites an answer. I consider it, therefore, an absolute principle that experiments must always be devised in view of a preconceived idea, no matter if the idea be not very clear nor very well defined.
If we look at the way the universe behaves, quantum mechanics gives us fundamental, unavoidable indeterminacy, so that alternative histories of the universe can be assigned probability.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.