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Every Mutation Through A New Combination Of Genetic Factors That Provides The Organism With A New Opportunity For Coming To Terms With The Conditions Of Its Environment Signifies No More And No Less Than That New Information About This Environment Has Got Into That Organic System. Adaptation Is Essentially A Cognitive Process.

-Konrad Lorenz

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Every Mutation Through A

Konrad Lorenz

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Every Mutation Through A New Combination Of Genetic Factors That Provides The Organism With A New Opportunity For Coming To Terms With The Conditions Of Its Environment Signifies No More And No Less Than That New Information About This Environment Has Got Into That Organic System. Adaptation Is Essentially A Cognitive Process.

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The Attitude Of The True Scientist Towards The Real Limits Of Human Understanding Was Unforgettably Impressed On Me In Early Youth By The Obviously Unpremeditated Words Of A Great Biologist; Alfred Kuhn Finished A Lecture To The Austrian Academy Of Science With Goethe 's Words, "it Is The Greatest Joy Of The Man Of Thought To Have Explored The Explorable And Then Calmly To Revere The Inexplorable." After The Last Word He Hesitated, Raised His Hand In Repudiation And Cried, Above The Applause, "no, Not Calmly, Gentlemen; Not Calmly!

All Living Beings Have Received Their Weapons Through The Same Process Of Evolution That Moulded Their Impulses And Inhibitions; For The Structural Plan Of The Body And The System Of Behaviour Of A Species Are Parts Of The Same Whole.... Wordsworth Is Right: There Is Only One Being In Possession Of Weapons Which Do Not Grow On His Body And Of Whose Working Plan, Therefore, The Instincts Of His Species Know Nothing And In The Usage Of Which He Has No Correspondingly Adequate Inhibition.

Most People Have Forgotten How To Live With Living Creatures, With Living Systems And That, In Turn, Is The Reason Why Man, Whenever He Comes Into Contact With Nature, Threatens To Kill The Natural System In Which And From Which He Live.

The Appeal Of The Cat Lies In The Very Fact That She Has Formed No Close Bond With [man], That She Has The Uncompromising Independence Of A Tiger Or A Leopard While She Is Hunting In His Stables And Barns: That She Still Remains Mysterious And Remote When She Is Rubbing Herself Gently Against The Legs Of Her Mistress Or Purring Contentedly In Front Of The Fire.

The Rushed Existence Into Which Industrialized, Commercialized Man Has Precipitated Himself Is Actually A Good Example Of An Inexpedient Development Caused Entirely By Competition Between Members Of The Same Species. Human Beings Of Today Are Attacked By So-called Manager Diseases, High Blood Pressure, Renal Atrophy, Gastric Ulcers, And Torturing Neuroses: They Succumb To Barbarism Because They Have No More Time For Cultural Interests.

Barking Dogs May Occasionally Bite, But Laughing Men Hardly Ever Shoot!

A Man Sufficiently Gifted With Humor Is In Small Danger Of Succumbing To Flattering Delusions About Himself, Because He Cannot Help Perceiving What A Pompous Ass He Would Become If He Did.

I Believe That Both Art And The Human Striving For Cognitive Comprehension Are Manifest Forms Of The Grand Game In Which Nothing More Is Stipulated Than The Game's Rules; Both Art And Actively Solicited Perceptions Are But Special Cases Of The Recurring Creative Act To Which We Owe Our Existence.

Humor And Knowledge Are The Two Great Hopes Of Our Culture.

The Competition Between Human Beings Destroys With Cold And Diabolic Brutality... Under The Pressure Of This Competitive Fury We Have Not Only Forgotten What Is Useful To Humanity As A Whole, But Even That Which Is Good And Advantageous To The Individual. [...] One Asks, Which Is More Damaging To Modern Humanity: The Thirst For Money Or Consuming Haste... In Either Case, Fear Plays A Very Important Role: The Fear Of Being Overtaken By One's Competitors, The Fear Of Becoming Poor, The Fear Of Making Wrong Decisions Or The Fear Of Not Being Up To Snuff...

Scientific Truth Is Universal, Because It Is Only Discovered By The Human Brain And Not Made By It, As Art Is.

The Truth About An Animal Is Far More Exciting And Altogether More Beautiful Than All The Myths Woven About It.

I Am Convinced That Of All The People On The Two Sides Of The Great Curtain, The Space Pilots Are The Least Likely To Hate Each Other. Like The Late Erich Von Holst, I Believe That The Tremendous And Otherwise Not Quite Explicable Public Interest In Space Flight Arises From The Subconscious Realization That It Helps To Preserve Peace. May It Continue To Do So!

It Ought To Be Realized By All Dog Owners That Obesity Shortens A Dog's Life Quite Considerably, A Life Which Is Much Too Short Anyhow.

I Have Found The Missing Link Between The Higher Ape And Civilized Man; It Is We.

I Believe-and Human Psychologists, Particularly Psychoanalysts Should Test This-that Present-day Civilized Man Suffers From Insufficient Discharge Of His Aggressive Drive. It Is More Than Probable That The Evil Effects Of The Human Aggressive Drives, Explained By Sigmund Freud As The Results Of A Special Death Wish, Simply Derive From The Fact That In Prehistoric Times Intra-specific Selection Bred Into Man A Measure Of Aggression Drive For Which In The Social Order Today He Finds No Adequate Outlet.

If You Confine Yourself To This Skinnerian Technique, You Study Nothing But The Learning Apparatus And You Leave Out Everything That Is Different In Octopi, Crustaceans, Insects And Vertebrates. In Other Words, You Leave Out Everything That Makes A Pigeon A Pigeon, A Rat A Rat, A Man A Man, And, Above All, A Healthy Man Healthy And A Sick Man Sick.

Truth In Science Can Be Defined As The Working Hypothesis Best Suited To Open The Way To The Next Better One.

The Human Soul Is Very Much Older Than The Human Mind.

Historians Will Have To Face The Fact That Natural Selection Determined The Evolution Of Cultures In The Same Manner As It Did That Of Species.

The Human Mind, In Taking Us Down The Path Of Technocracy, Has Become The Adversary Of Life Itself And Collaterally The Adversary Of The Human Soul.

I Believe That Present Day Civilized Man Suffers From Insufficient Discharge Of His Aggressive Drive

Just Thinking That My Dog Loves Me More Than I Love Him, I Feel Shame.

We Do Not Take Humor Seriously Enough.

One Could Not Be A Successful Scientist Without Realizing That, A Goodly Number Of Scientists Are Not Only Narrow-minded And Dull, But Also Just Stupid.

Man Appears To Be The Missing Link Between Anthropoid Apes And Human Beings.

Most Of The Vices And Mortal Sins Condemned Today Correspond To Inclinations That Were Purely Adaptive Or At Least Harmless In Primitive Man

Evil, By Definition, Is That Which Endangers The Good, And The Good Is That Which We Perceive As A Value.

All Too Willingly Man Sees Himself As The Centre Of The Universe, As Something Not Belonging To The Rest Of Nature But Standing Apart As A Different And Higher Being. Many People Cling To This Error And Remain Deaf To The Wisest Command Ever Given By A Sage, The Famous "know Thyself" Inscribed In The Temple Of Delphi.

Nothing Can Better Express The Feelings Of The Scientist Towards The Great Unity Of The Laws Of Nature Than In Immanuel Kant's Words: "two Things Fill The Mind With Ever New And Increasing Awe: The Stars Above Me And The Moral Law Within Me."... Would He, Who Did Not Yet Know Of The Evolution Of The World Of Organisms, Be Shocked That We Consider The Moral Law Within Us Not As Something Given, A Priori, But As Something Which Has Arisen By Natural Evolution, Just Like The Laws Of The Heavens?

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More Than Any Other Product Of Human Scientific Culture Scientific Knowledge Is The Collective Property Of All Mankind.

The Fidelity Of A Dog Is A Precious Gift.

The Bond With A Dog Is As Lasting As The Ties Of This Earth Can Ever Be.

Every Man Gets A Narrower And Narrower Field Of Knowledge In Which He Must Be An Expert In Order To Compete With Other People. The Specialist Knows More And More About Less And Less And Finally Knows Everything About Nothing.

It Is A Good Morning Exercise For A Research Scientist To Discard A Pet Hypothesis Every Day Before Breakfast. It Keeps Him Young.

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All Scientific Knowledge To Which Man Owes His Role As Master Of The World Arose From Playful Activities.

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I Would Rather Have A Scot Come From Scotland Togovern The People Of This Kingdom Well And Justly, Than That You Should Govern Them Ill In The Sight Of All The World.

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The Distance At Which All Shooting Weapons Take Effect Screens The Killer Against The Stimulus Sensation Which Would Otherwise Activate His Killing Inhibitions. The Deep, Emotional Layers Of Our Personality Simply Do Not Register The Fact That The Crooking Of The Finger To Release A Shot Tears The Entrails Of Another Man.

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