It's the old idea that the process of evolution is some push in the direction of greater complexity--in particular greater intellectual complexity. In one twig of the tree of life, namely ours, having a big brain happened to have advantages. But that's just what worked for a particular species of primate 5 to 7 million years ago.
I got a hundred bucks says my baby beats Pete's baby. I just think genetics are in my favour.
One of the things I say is from an evolutionary point of view: probably the ideal rich environment for a baby includes more mud, livestock, and relatives than most of us could tolerate nowadays.
High status males had multiple wives or additional mating opportunities in the ancestral environment.
The best engineered organisms can outpace others, even if they start smaller or later.
Take, for example, the African jungle, the home of the cheetah. On whom does the cheetah prey? The old, the sick, the wounded, the weak, the very young, but never the strong. Lesson: If you would not be prey, you had better be strong.
Evolutionary psychologists suggest that humans experienced evolutionary benefits from brain developments that included aversion to loss and risk and from instincts for cooperation that helped strengthen communities.
The point of human evolution is adapting to circumstance. Not letting go of the old, but adapting it, is necessary.
Throw me to the wolves. I learn faster when I'm around wolves and sharks.
Raw foodists are kind of paddling upstream against evolution. The only reason they can do it, and they don't all keel over, is that they are using blenders. They're very Cuisinart-dependent.
If you think about evolution, sleep, at some time, was a dangerous undertaking. You lie down in your cave or shelter, and along comes a predator and has you for dinner. Many creatures do not sleep or sleep while standing so they can escape from dangerous situations.
As humans, we have evolved to compete... it is in our genes, and we love to watch a competition.
We have these amazing gifts of music and mathematics and painting and Olympic running. I mean, we're the animal that is best of all the animals at long-distance running. Why? It is quite amazing. Superfluous gifts you don't really need to survive.
Neanderthals might think differently than we do. They could even be more intelligent than us. When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet, it's conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial.
Most animals are built to withstand one bad year.
Your brain has a music room, and evolution would not have gone to the trouble of designing that if it didn't have some benefits. So, that suggests to me that we and our ancestors have had music as a central part of our experience for eons. And we're just beginning to understand how that might be. I think that's fascinating.
As beavers build dams and bees build hives, human beings have spears. Or take the high intelligence of human beings, the ability to make plans, to transmit information - that was also there before, but that, together with the tools, was not enough to make man special.
From an evolutionary perspective children are, literally, designed to learn. Childhood is a special period of protected immaturity. It gives the young breathing time to master the things they will need to know in order to survive as adults.
Some of the animals outsee man, outsmell him, outhear him, outrun him, outswim him, because their lives depend more upon these special powers than his does; but he can outwit them all because he has the resourcefulness of reason and is at home in many different fields.
We found evolution will punish you if you're selfish and mean. For a short time and against a specific set of opponents, some selfish organisms may come out ahead. But selfishness isn't evolutionarily sustainable.
