David G. Haskell Quotes

David George Haskell is a British-born American biologist, author, and professor of biology at Sewanee: The University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee. In addition to scientific papers, he has written essays, poems, op-eds, and the book The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees .

The Forest Unseen was winner of the 2013 National Academies Communication Award for Best Book, finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction, runner-up for the 2013 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, winner of the 2012 National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature, and the 2013 Reed Environmental Writing Award. The Forest Unseen has been translated into ten languages and was winner of the 2016 Dapeng Nature Book Award in China.

Haskell's second book, The Songs of Trees, was published in April 2017 by Viking. It won the 2018 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing. Public Radio International's Science Friday named The Songs of Trees of the Best Science Books of 2017, Maria Popova included the book in Brain Pickings Favorite Science Books of 2017, and Forbes.com named the book one of 10 Best Environment, Climate Science and Conservation Books of 2017.Haskell received his B.A. in zoology from the University of Oxford and his Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Cornell University. In 2009 he was named the Carnegie-CASE Professor of the Year in Tennessee. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2014. Wikipedia

✵ 1950

David G. Haskell: 8 quotes 0 likes

Famous David G. Haskell Quotes

“Our sensitivity to the tone, hue, and intensity of light is bound up with our evolutionary heritage. Even the diversity of our visual abilities may echo our ancestors' ecology.”

David G. Haskell

"November 5th — Light," page 206
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature http://theforestunseen.com/ (2012)

“Human artifacts are not stains imposed on nature. Such a view drives a wedge between humanity and the rest of the community of life. A golf ball is the manifestation of the mind of a clever, playful African primate. This primate loves to invent games to test its physical and mental skill. Generally, these games are played on carefully reconstructed replicas of the savanna from which the ape came and for which its subconscious still hankers. The clever primate belongs in this world. … To love nature and to hate humanity is illogical.”

David G. Haskell

"August 8th — Earthstar," pages 157-158
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature http://theforestunseen.com/ (2012)

“Storms in the forest have a more primal character than storms playing over tamed urban land. A vigorous cloudburst is exhilarating, a burst of sensory delight with its leafy smells, gray light, and chill. But a full tree-ripping storm pushes the senses beyond exhilaration or thrill, into fear.”

David G. Haskell

"November 21st — Twigs," page 218
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature http://theforestunseen.com/ (2012)

“We can find our way back to thoughtful management for the long-term well-being of both humans and forests. But finding this way will require some quiet and humility.”

David G. Haskell

"April 2nd — Chainsaw," page 67
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature http://theforestunseen.com/ (2012)

“The skin is impossibly wet, a cloud condensed into animate matter.”

David G. Haskell

"February 28th — Salamander," page 41
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature http://theforestunseen.com/ (2012)

“The old "red in tooth and claw" view of the natural economy has to be updated. We need a new metaphor for the forest, one that helps us visualize plants both sharing and competing. … Evolution's engine is fired by genetic self-interest, but this manifests itself in cooperative action as well as solo selfishness. The natural economy has as many trade unions as robber barons, as much solidarity as individualistic entrepreneurship.”

David G. Haskell

"December 3rd — Litter," pages 228-229
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature http://theforestunseen.com/ (2012)

“The study of twigs seems esoteric. But this impression is dangerously wrong. Counting back through bud scars, tallying yearly growth, I not only see the struggle among native and foreign trees, I read the ledger of the world's atmosphere.”

David G. Haskell

"November 21st — Twigs," page 220
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature http://theforestunseen.com/ (2012)

“When laughing children chase after fireflies, they are not pursuing beetles but catching wonder.When wonder matures, it peels back experience to seek deeper layers of marvel below. This is science's highest purpose.”

David G. Haskell

"July 13th — Fireflies," page 139
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature http://theforestunseen.com/ (2012)

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