J.B.S. Haldane Quotes

There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god.

The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, but queerer than we can imagine.

Wright's theory certainly supports the view taken in this book that the evolution in large random-mating populations, which is recorded by palaeontology, is not representative of evolution in general, and perhaps gives a false impression of the events occurring in less numerous species. It is a striking fact that none of the extinct species, which, from the abundance of their fossil remains, are well known to us, appear to have been in our own ancestral line. Our ancestors were mostly rather rare creatures. " Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth."

An inordinate fondness for beetles.

I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.

Evolution must have involved the simultaneous change in many genes, which doubtless accounts for its slowness. Here matters would have been easier if heritable variations really formed a continuum, as Darwin apparently thought, i.e. if there were no limit to the possible smallness of a variation. But this is clearly not the case when we are considering meristic characters. ...the atomic nature of Mendelian inheritance suggests very strongly that even where variation is apparently continuous this appearance is deceptive.

The conservative has little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires.

An ounce of algebra is worth a ton of verbal argument.

If human evolution is to continue along the same lines as in the past, it will probably involve a still greater prolongation of childhood and retardation of maturity. Some of the characters distinguishing adult man will be lost. It was not an embryologist or palaeontologist who said, "Except ye . . . become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

I do not propose to argue the case for evolution, which I regard as being quite as well proven as most other historical facts, but to discuss its possible causes, which are certainly debatable.

Darwin believed that the crossing of two types generally led to a blend, and that consequently bisexual reproduction tended to make a species uniform. He therefore had to postulate some cause constantly at work to keep up the inheritable variation within a species. He very naturally looked to the effects of differences of environment. ...It was shown that Darwin had been wrong in supposing that variations due to environment were inheritable. Selection merely picked out the best available line from a given population, and would not, as Darwin had believed, give rise to an unlimited amount of change.

These huge reservoirs of liquified gasses will enable wind energy to be stored, so that it can be expended for industry, transportation, heating and lighting, as desired. The initial costs will be very considerable, but the running expenses less than those of our present system. Among its more obvious advantages will be the fact that energy will be as cheap in one part of the country as another, so that industry will be greatly decentralized; and that no smoke or ash will be produced.

I am quite sure that our views on evolution would be very different had biologists studied genetics and natural selection before and not after most of them were convinced that evolution had occurred.

If the only available genes produce rather large changes, disadvantageous one at a time, then it seems to me probable that evolution will not occur in a random mating population. In a self-fertilised or highly inbred species it may do so if several mutations useful in conjunction, but separately harmful, occur simultaneously. Such an event is rare, but must happen reasonably often in wheat...

My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.