Seth Lloyd Quotes

Sexual reproduction exists solely as a means to defeat parasites. By mixing male and female genes, sex produces offspring not exactly like either the male or female - making each generation different from the last, and presenting a moving target to intruders intent on compromising this system. ... Even with this variation, parasites continue to pose a threat... and parasitism evolves and moves through any system - not just living things. The less variation there is in a system, the more readily parasites will evolve to infest it.

You can always find an evolutionary quotation for anything. But the question is whether it's functional, which is not the same as being evolutionary.

The cell, over the billions of years of her life, has covered the earth many times with her substance, found ways to control herself and her environment, and insure her survival.

In the game of life, less diversity means fewer options for change. Wild or domesticated, panda or pea, adaptation is the requirement for survival.

If we didn't have genetic mutations, we wouldn't have us. You need error to open the door to the adjacent possible.

there is no doubt that anyone who had a fair knowledge of the principles of genetics, and who was given control over the matings of human beings, could in the course of a very few generations, produce a large number of very diverse types. He could breed a race of idiots, a race of dwarfs, a race of giants, an albino race, an insane race, a race of moral imbeciles, a race which would almost invariably get drunk in the presence of alcohol, a race of preeminent mental ability, or a race of unusual artistic talent. The task would be easy, as it would involve only the isolation of existing strains of the human species.

From an evolutionary point of view, sex is really just a reward mechanism to encourage us to pass on our genetic material.

No practical biologist interested in sexual reproduction would be led to work out the detailed consequences experienced by organisms having three or more sexes; yet what else should he do if he wishes to understand why the sexes are, in fact, always two?

As for organs, traits, etc., being "for" something, the notion may be a useful shorthand, but shouldn't be taken too seriously, if only because of the ubiquitous phenomenon of exaptation.

The great mystery of adaptation is that true fidelity can only be achieved through lavish promiscuity.

Variety is the pledge that matter makes to living things.

No. I'm simply saying that life, uh, finds a way.

I think there was always some scrawny dreamer sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore survived to pass his genes on to the next generation.

People will say, "You're never going to convince me that something as complicated as an eye could come about by sheer chance." And the answer is that natural selection is the very opposite of sheer chance. Natural selection is a non-random process.

Darwin's principle of natural selection leads to the prediction that the proper way to analyze any evolutionary development is to see the new features as adaptive to environments. And that's a perfectly good principle. The problem is that there are many evolutionary biologists who view everything that happens in evolution as directly evolved for adaptive benefit. And that just doesn't work. Whenever you build a structure for adaptive reasons, the structure is going to exhibit properties that have nothing to do with adaptation. They're just side consequences.

Nature varies the seed according to the variety of the things she desires to produce in the world.

Some things are going to work, some aren't. But there's always something new going on, so it's fun to watch and see what's coming next.

It should soon be possible dramatically to increase the intelligence and life span of a few individuals. They and their offspring could become a master race. Evolution pays no regard to social justice. It was not fair on the Neanderthals they were replaced by modern humans.

Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.

Simple DNA gradually morphed and evolved, so that you had the coming into being of ever more complex and diverse creatures, until one day you wake up and find there are peacocks and giraffes. Nature is an open-ended experiment based on morphing a DNA code, and ours is an open-ended experiment based on morphing a crochet code.

Expediency is a law of nature. The camel is a wonderful animal, but the desert made the camel.

Orchids manufacture their intricate devices from the common components of ordinary flowers, parts usually fitted for very different functions. If God had designed a beautiful machine to reflect his wisdom and power, surely he would not have used a collection of parts generally fashioned for other purposes. Orchids were not made by an ideal engineer; they are jury-rigged from a limited set of available components. Thus, they must have evolved from ordinary flowers.

I love you like a gay geneticist loves designer genes.

That a man lives is because he is straight. That a man who dupes others survives is because he has been fortunate enough to be spared.