Svante Paabo Quotes

We all evolved out of the same three or four groups in Africa, as black Africans.

I, too, am convinced that our ancestors came from Africa.

It turns out that every person alive today can trace his or her ancestry back to Africa. Everyone's DNA tells a story of a journey from an African homeland to wherever you live.

Regardless of what we look like on the outside, genetically, on the inside, everyone is an African.

Man may be considered as having a twofold origin - natural, which is common and the same to all - patronymic, which belongs to the various families of which the whole human race is composed.

Living in your genome is the history of our species.

What if I told you every single person in America - every single person on Earth - is African? With a small scrape of cells from the inside of anyone's cheek, the science of genetics can even prove it.

Every creature that lives climbs up its own genealogical tree before it reaches its mature condition. All animals living, or that ever have lived, are united together by blood relationship of varying nearness or remoteness, and every animal now in existence has a pedigree stretching back, not merely for ten or a hundred generations, but through all geologic time since life first commenced on the earth.

Humankind has mainly evolved in Africa, and we only left Africa very, very late in our evolutionary path. This means that there is very little genetic diversity among those who left Africa and very much genetic diversity among those who stayed.

Obviously I descend from Africa.

Along with the evidence of common sense, researchers have proven scientifically that humans are all one people. We're a lot like dogs in that regard. If a Great Dane interacts (can we say interact?) with a Chihuahua, you get a dog.

All other species on this planet are gene machines only. They don't imitate at all well; we alone are gene machines and meme machines as well.

The chimpanzees' closest relative is not the gorilla but humans.

At the deepest level, all living things that have ever been looked at have the same DNA code. And many of the same genes.

I am sure I was an evolutionist in the abstract, or by the quality and complexion of my mind, before I read Darwin, but to become an evolutionist in the concrete, and accept the doctrine of the animal origin of man, has not for me been an easy matter.

So much of the physical world has been explored. But the deluge of data I get to investigate really lets me chart new territory. Genetic data from people living today forms an archaeological record of what happened to their ancestors 10,000 years ago.

I thought we'd just sequence the genome once and that would be sufficient for most things in people's lifetimes. Now we're seeing how changeable and adaptable it is, which is why we're surviving and evolving as a species.

It's time you stop thinking that because you did something, it's... amazing. All you've got to do is say, 'OK. If I'm great, what do they call Steve Jobs?'

I find teaching to be a great way to keep everything in perspective and to help give back. It's also a lot of fun and creatively invigorating.

I am 3.8 percent Neanderthal. One of my ancestors mated with a Neanderthal, and I am not embarrassed by that.

'Pressure' is not a word that I associate with very much; it is a matter of perspective. It depends on your disposition as a person. It can either be that you are pressurised by something, or you can be motivated and encouraged by it.

Three and a half million years ago our ancestors - yours and mine - left these traces [indicates footprints]. We stood up and parted ways from them. Once we were standing on two feet, our eyes were no longer fixated on the ground. Now, we were free to look up and wonder.

The differences you perceive between Humans-between groups of Humans-are the result of isolation and inbreeding, mutation, and adaptation to different Earth environments

Since the 1940s, we've been saying there are no differences, we [humans] are all identical. We're going to know at year end if that is true.

We are bipedal apes, and it should not be surprising to see that fact reflected in the way our ancestors lived.