“I am glad that the life of pandas is so dull by human standards, for our efforts at conservation have little moral value if we preserve creatures only as human ornaments; I shall be impressed when we show solicitude for warty toads and slithering worms.”

— Stephen Jay Gould , book An Urchin in the Storm

"How Does a Panda Fit?", p. 21
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)

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Stephen Jay Gould 274

American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002

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“I am glad that the life of pandas is so dull by human standards, for our efforts at conservation have little moral value if we preserve creatures only as human ornaments; I shall be impressed when we show solicitude for warty toads and slithering worms.”

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Stephen Jay Gould 274

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