“We are inescapably the result of a long heritage of learning, adaptation, mutation and evolution, the product of a history which predates our birth as a biological species and stretches back over many thousand millennia… Going further back, we share a common ancestry with our fellow primates; and going still further back, we share a common ancestry with all other living creatures and plants down to the simplest microbe. The further back we go, the greater the difference from external appearances and behavior patterns which we observe today.”

—  Fred Hoyle

Lifecloud: The Origin of Life in the Universe (1978), p. 15

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We are inescapably the result of a long heritage of learning, adaptation, mutation and evolution, the product of a hist…" by Fred Hoyle?
Fred Hoyle photo
Fred Hoyle 19
British astronomer 1915–2001

Related quotes

Denise Levertov photo

“The more thorough the understanding needed, the further back in time one must go.”

Gordon H. Clark (1902–1985) American philosopher and Calvinist theologian

A Christian View of Men and Things (1951), p. 58.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Václav Havel photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

"Remarks in Newport at the Australian Ambassador's Dinner for the America's Cup Crews (383)" (14 September 1962) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx<!-- Public Papers of the President: John F. Kennedy, 1962 -->
1962
Context: I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea — whether it is to sail or to watch it — we are going back from whence we came.

John Zerzan photo

“If we once — and for so long — lived in balance with nature and each other, we should be able to do so again. The catastrophe that’s overtaking us has deep roots, but our previous state of natural anarchy reaches much further into our shared history.”

John Zerzan (1943) American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author

"Whose Future?", from the book Take My Advice : Letters to the Next Generation from People Who Know a Thing or Two (2007) by James L. Harmon

Robert Fulghum photo
Louis Eugène Félix Néel photo

“… in science, we often have predecessors much further back in time than we think a priori.”

Louis Eugène Félix Néel (1904–2000) French physicist

... en matière scientifique, on a souvent des prédécesseurs beaucoup plus anciens qu'on ne le pense a priori.
mentionning Pierre de Maricourt who thoroughly studied magnetic materials in the 13th century. In his Nobel Prize Banquet speech http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1970/neel-speech.html, December 10, 1970.

Edison Rijna photo

“Our local representatives do not participate in the deliberations. Of course, they are not member of parliaments like you, but we are each other's neighbors, share a common history and in many ways, we are each other's fellow sufferers.”

Edison Rijna (1967) Dutch politician on Bonaire

Source: Edison Rijna (2021) cited in: " IPKO should develop friendship between Kingdom countries https://www.curacaochronicle.com/post/main/ipko-should-develop-friendship-between-kingdom-countries/" in Curaçao Chronicle, 24 August 2021.

Charlie Chaplin photo

Related topics