“Human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.”
Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker
Source: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 3 “Accumulating Small Change” (p. 50)
Source: Point Counter Point
“Human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.”
Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker
Source: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 3 “Accumulating Small Change” (p. 50)
Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)
Source: The Ape that Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences? (2013), p. 144
Laurie Zoloth (1950) American ethicist
"Interrupting Your Life: An Ethics for the Coming Storm" (2014)
“There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer
Source: A Writer's Notebook (1946), p. 38. Maugham says something similar in The Summing up, Ch 22: "Love was only the dirty trick nature played on us to achieve the continuation of the species"
John Steinbeck book East of Eden
East of Eden (1952)
Context: Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in art, in music, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning blows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for it is the one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.
“It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us.”
Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice
Source: Pride and Prejudice
Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)
Source: The Ape that Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2013), p. 267
Ludwig Feuerbach book The Essence of Christianity
Introduction, Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), pp. 103-104
The Essence of Christianity (1841)