Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"Intuitive: The word conveys, I think, a diffuse annoyance at our inability to understand how we come by such knowledge."
58 Quotes
"Intuitive: The word conveys, I think, a diffuse annoyance at our inability to understand how we come by such knowledge."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"Those mothers with hereditary large pelvises were able to bear large-brained babies who because of their superior intelligence were able to compete successfully in adulthood with the smaller-brained offspring of mothers with smaller pelvises."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"Mac Lean has shown that the R-complex plays an important role in aggressive behavior, territoriality, ritual and the establishment of social hierarchies. Despite occasional welcome exceptions, this seems to me to characterize a great deal of modern human bureaucratic and political behavior."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"In addition to Ameslan, chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates are being taught a variety of other gestural languages. And it is just this transition from tongue to hand that has permitted humans to regain the ability-lost, according to Josephus, since Eden-to communicate with the animals."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"Washburn has reported that infant baboons and other young primates appear to be born with only three inborn fears -of falling, snakes, and the dark-corresponding respectively to the dangers posed by Newtonian gravitation to tree-dwellers, by our ancient enemies the reptiles, and by mammalian nocturnal predators, which must have been particularly terrifying for the visually oriented primates."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"The sleeping style of each organism is exquisitelyadapted to the ecology of the animal. It is conceivable that animals who are too stupid to be quiet on their own initiative are, during periods of high risk, immobilized by the implacable arm of sleep."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"It is very difficult to evolve by altering the deep fabric of life; any change there is likely to be lethal. But fundamental change can be accomplished by the addition of new systems on top of old ones…Thus evolution by addition and the functional preservation of the preexisting structure must occur for one of two reasons-either the old function is required as well as the new one, or there is no way of bypassing the old system that is consistent with survival."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"Our probable ancestors, Homo erectus and Homo habilis -now extinct- are classified as of the same genus (Homo) but of different species, although no one (at least lately) has attempted the appropriate experiments to see if crosses of them with us would produce fertile offspring."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"Curiosity and the urge to solve problems are theemotional hallmarks of our species"
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"For their surface area, insects weigh very little. A beetle, falling from a high altitude, quickly achieves terminal velocity: air resistance prevents it from falling very fast, and, after alighting on the ground, it will walk away, apparently none the worse for the experience… In contrast, human beings are characteristically maimed or killed by any fall of more than a few dozen feet: because of our size, we weigh too much for our surface area."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"The time scale for evolutionary or genetic change is very long. A characteristic period for the emergence of one advanced species from another is perhaps a hundred thousand years; and very often the difference in behavior between closely related species -say, lions and tigers- do not seem very great... But today we do not have ten million years to wait for the next advance. We live in a time when our world is changing at an unprecedented rate. While the changes are largely of our own making, they cannot be ignored. We must adjust and adapt and control, or we perish."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"And despite the insignificance of the instant we have so far occupied in cosmic time, it is clear that what happens on and near Earth at the beginning of thesecond cosmic year will depend very much on the scientific wisdom and the distinctly human sensitivity of mankind."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"So far as I know, childbirth is generally painful in only one of the millions of species on Earth: human beings. This must be a consequence of the recent and continuing increase in cranial volume... Childbirth is painful because the evolution of the human skull has been spectacularly fast and recent."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"Pliny suggested that the ostrich, then newly discovered, was the result of a cross between a giraffe and a gnat. (It would, I suppose, have to be a female giraffe and a male gnat.) In practice there must be many such crosses which have not beenattempted because of a certain understandable lack of motivation."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"at least some paleontologists believe that the demiseof the dinosaurs was accelerated by nocturnal predation on reptilian eggs by the early mammals. Two chicken eggs for breakfast may be all-at least on the surface-that is left of this ancient mammalian cuisine."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"All the explanations proposed seem to beonly partly satisfactory. They range from massive climatic change to mammalian predation to the extinction of a plant with apparent laxative properties, in which case the dinosaurs died of constipation."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"...two chimpanzees were observed maltreating a chicken: One would extend some food to the fowl, encouraging it to approach; whereupon the other would thrust at it with a piece of wire it had concealed behind its back. The chicken would retreat but soon allow itself to approach once again--and be beaten once again. Here is a fine combination of behavior sometimes thought to be uniquely human: cooperation, planning a future course of action, deception and cruelty."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"Much of the difficulty in attempting to restructure American and other societies arises form this resistance by groups with vested interests in the status quo. Significant change might require those who are now high in the hierarchy to move downward many steps. This seems to them undesirable and its resisted."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"Perhaps the most striking aspect of this entire subject is that there are nonhuman primates so close to the edge of language, so willing to learn, so entirely competent in its use and inventive in its application once the language is taught. But this raises a curious question: Why are they all on the edge? Why are there no nonhuman primates with an existing complex gestural language? One possible answer, it seems to me, is that humans have systematically exterminated those other primates who displayed signs of intelligence."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
"Human spoken language seems to beadventitious. The exploitation of organ systems with other functions for communication in humans is also indicative of the comparatively recent evolution of our linguistic abilities."
Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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