Dune Genesis (1980)
Context: In the beginning I was just as ready as anyone to fall into step, to seek out the guilty and to punish the sinners, even to become a leader. Nothing, I felt, would give me more gratification than riding the steed of yellow journalism into crusade, doing the book that would right the old wrongs.
Reevaluation raised haunting questions. I now believe that evolution, or deevolution, never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal. In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability.
“The pope notwithstanding, the human species is by no means the pinnacle of evolution. Evolution has no pinnacle and there is no such thing as evolutionary progress.”
Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 2 “Species” (p. 24)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Matt Ridley 65
economist 1958Related quotes
The Philosophical Emperor, a Political Experiment, or, The Progress of a False Position: (1841)
Context: To jump occasionally into the pit is common to all who visit the mountain, and to some who keep on the plain; but the madness to which I have alluded consists in rapid alternations from the mountain to the pit, annoying all persons who are forced, by friendship or consanguinity, to consort with the unfortunate maniacs. To remain permanently either on the pinnacle or in the abyss is deemed a species of the same disorder, though not so common.
Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII
Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 31 (p. 344)
“Human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.”
Source: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 3 “Accumulating Small Change” (p. 50)
“Human evolution should be humane evolution.”
From Humane Evolution http://www.quartetbooks.wordpress.com/2015/03/19/the-love-bird-from-the-mountains-of-lebanon/, a speech delivered at the 28th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, March 13, 2015
The Ageless Wisdom, An Introduction to Humanity's Spiritual Legacy (1996)