“Natural selection has designed all parts of our bodies to last just long enough to see our children into independence, no more.”

— Matt Ridley , book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 14 “Immortality” (p. 202)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 26, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Natural selection has designed all parts of our bodies to last just long enough to see our children into independence, …" by Matt Ridley?

Matt Ridley 65

economist 1958

Related quotes

“Just like any woman,… we weave our stories out of our bodies. Some of us through our children, or our art; some do it just by living. It's all the same.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

“Never mind our kind friends: if they can part our bodies, it is enough; in God's name, let them not sunder our souls!”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XLV : Reconciliation; Gilbert to Helen

“Independent derivation meshed beautifully with the triumph, from the 1930's on, of a strict version of Darwinism based on the near ubiquity of adaptive design built by natural selection… Arthropods and vertebrates do share several features of functional design. But those similarities only reflect the power of natural selection to craft optimal structures independently in a world of limited biomechanical solutions to common functional problems - an evolutionary phenomenon called convergence.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"Brotherhood by Inversion", p. 328
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

“No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Benjamin Banneker (30 August 1791) http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(tj060149))
1790s
Context: No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.

“Whenever I appear before a body of soldiers, I feel tempted to talk to them of the nature of the struggle in which we are engaged. I look upon it as an attempt on the one hand to overwhelm and destroy the national existence, while, on our part, we are striving to maintain the government and institutions of our fathers, to enjoy them ourselves, and transmit them to our children and our children's children forever.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speeches to Ohio Regiments (1864), Speech to One Hundred Forty-eighth Ohio Regiment (1864)
Context: SOLDIERS OF THE 148TH OHIO: — I am most happy to meet you on this occasion. I understand that it has been your honorable privilege to stand, for a brief period, in the defense of your country, and that now you are on your way to your homes. I congratulate you, and those who are waiting to bid you welcome home from the war; and permit me, in the name of the people, to thank you for the part you have taken in this struggle for the life of the nation. You are soldiers of the Republic, everywhere honored and respected. Whenever I appear before a body of soldiers, I feel tempted to talk to them of the nature of the struggle in which we are engaged. I look upon it as an attempt on the one hand to overwhelm and destroy the national existence, while, on our part, we are striving to maintain the government and institutions of our fathers, to enjoy them ourselves, and transmit them to our children and our children's children forever.