Ian Tattersall Quotes & Sayings

It is ... highly probable that from the very beginning, apart from death, the only ironclad rule of human experience has been the Law of Unintended Consequences. — Ian Tattersall

Behavior is ultimately the product of the brain, the most mysterious organ of them all. — Ian Tattersall

Inside our skulls are fish, reptile and shrew brains, as well as the highest centers that allow us to integrate information in our unique way; and some of our newer brain components talk to each other via some very ancient structures indeed. Our brains are makeshift structures, opportunistically assembled by Nature over hundreds of millions of years, and in multiple different ecological contexts. — Ian Tattersall

The alternative to extinction is stagnation, and stagnation is seldom a good thing. — Ian Tattersall

And we can't take absence of evidence as evidence of absence. — Ian Tattersall

Perhaps we will one day be able at least to admit of a God possessing sufficient majesty and expansiveness to transcend the limits of our own imaginations and experience. But meanwhile, ... we might do well to look upon the inadequacy of our concepts of God as the truest mirror of those limitations that define our condition. — Ian Tattersall

Hominids typically haven't so much adapted to change, as they have accommodated to it. — Ian Tattersall

When environments change, they usually do so pretty rapidly, at rates with which adaptation by natural selection would be hard put to keep up. When such change occurs, the quality of your adaptation to your old habitat is irrelevant, and any competitive advantage you might have had may be eliminated at a stroke. — Ian Tattersall