Spencer Wells 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.

Everyone is related to Africa; everyone comes from Africa. We are all distant relatives.

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.

We are probably one of the last generations of Homo sapiens.

From a genomic perspective, we are all Africans.

The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly-organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians.

For the source of any characteristic so widespread and uniform as this adaptation to environment we must go back to the very beginning of the human race.

It's important to remember that we evolved. Now, I know that's a dirty word for some people, but we evolved from common ancestors with the gorillas, the chimpanzee and also the bonobos. We have a common past, and we have a common future.

I find a tremendous receptivity among the public for the subject matter of, 'Where did we come from and how did we get here?' People are thirsty and hungry for information on our origins. I feel a responsibility as a major figure in the area... to convey to the public the knowledge of human origins in a way that is understandable to them.

When we look for the origins of all humanity today, let's not just look at Europe, because I think Africa was the cradle, the crucible that created us as Homo sapiens.

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

With our knowledge of modern-day genetics, we realize that it was possible for God to place the potential for all people throughout history into the genes of Adam and Eve when He created them.

We haven't been able yet to determine in terms of genes what makes a human being a human and not another mammal.

The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man.

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.

One of the things about genetics that has become clearer as we've done genomes - as we've worked our way through the evolutionary tree, including humans - is that we're probably much more genetic animals than we want to confess we are.

My genetics are good, but they aren't crazy He-Man style.

I am fascinated by the human body and all its evolutions.

Ever since Darwin, we've been familiar with the stupendous timespans of the evolutionary past. But most people still somehow think we humans are necessarily the culmination of the evolutionary tree. No astronomer could believe this.

According to the now almost universally accepted theory, all the races of mankind had a common origin.

Living in your genome is the history of our species.

The evidence points to central Asia as man's original home, for the general movement of human migrations has been outward from that region and not inward.

Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping other people do the same.

We are all descendants of Adam, and we are all products of racial miscegenation.