Dan Flores (1948) American historian
The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (2003)
Mankind Quarterly, Winter98, Vol. 39 Issue 2, p231
Dan Flores (1948) American historian
The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (2003)
Karl Popper book The Open Society and Its Enemies
Vol 2, Ch. 25 "Has History any Meaning?" Variant: There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
Context: There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. It is hardly better than to treat the history of embezzlement or of robbery or of poisoning as the history of mankind. For the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including it is true, some of the attempts to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as heroes.
Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist
Genes and Sexuality: An Exchange (1995)
Ruth Benedict (1887–1948) American anthropologist and folklorologist
Race: Science and Politics [1940], ch. 2
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist
The Median Isn't the Message (1985)
James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer
The Day the Universe Changed (1985), 1 - The Way We Are
Context: The oldest answers to the most basic questions about how to operate are common to virtually every culture on the planet, because at the simplest level, every culture needs to keep order -- especially this kind: (James Burke displays a wedding ring.) This is one of those things in life we protect most against being changed when knowledge changes us. We protect it by turning it into a ritual. When we get married, or buried, get christened, or anything else too important to play by ear, the event is turned into a kind of play where everybody gets a role they act out. It's a kind of public agreement to stick to the general rules about whatever it is. The people doing it are effectively saying, "No matter what else may change, we won't rock the boat! We're not maverick. You can trust us." Expressions of approval follow. Most of these ritual ways of answering a social need that we got from the past look like it. They include something from an ancient rite -- in this case, the old symbol of fertility: the ring. And then, it's all done in the presence of a supernatural being: a God. So, the agreement is also made under what was once a real threat of heavenly retribution if you broke your promise later on. Some things, this ritual says, must be permanent.
Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist
Source: 1960s, Economics As A Moral Science, 1969, p. 12
“Screw every known human culture.”
Greg Egan (1961) Australian science fiction writer and former computer programmer
Fiction, Distress (1995)
Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint
Encyclical Fides et Ratio, 14 September 1998 <br class="br">Source: www.vatican.va http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio_en.html