Brian Switek · 320 pages
Rating: (575 votes)
“This area produces a protein given the whimsical name Sonic Hedgehog,”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“If an organised body is not in the situation and circumstances best adapted to its sustenance and propagation, then, in conceiving an indefinite variety among the individuals of that species, we must be assured, that, on the one hand, those which depart most from the best adapted constitution, will be most liable to perish, while, on the other hand, those organised bodies, which most approach to the best constitution for the present circumstances, will be best adapted to continue, in preserving themselves and multiplying the individuals of their race.”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“In order to approximate dinosaurian physiology, the trio of scientists carried out the unenviable task of sticking thermometers in the cloacae of American alligators.”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“the difficulties of making temperature experiments [on fully grown alligators] would be great and can be best left to the imagination.”)”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“Distinguishing the first true birds from their feathered dinosaur relations has become increasingly difficult. If we define birds as warm-blooded, feathered, bipedal animals that lay eggs, then many coelurosaurs are birds, so we have to take another approach.”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“As new discoveries continued to accumulate it became apparent that almost every group of coelurosaurs had feathered representatives, from the weird secondarily herbivorous forms such as Beipiaosaurus to Dilong, an early relative of Tyrannosaurus. It is even possible that, during its early life, the most famous of the flesh-tearing dinosaurs may have been covered in a coat of dino-fuzz.”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“The places paleontologists looked for fossils and how those fossils have been interpreted have been influenced by politics and culture, reminding us that while there is a reality that science allows us to approach the process of science is a human endeavor.”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
Brian Switek
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“that's what God does. He moves the wind across the water or leaves it still. He can do all that. That's God doing that and He can do it on any lake that He wants to.”
― quote from Life is So Good
“For reincarnation is neither a dogma, i.e. a truth necessary for salvation, nor a heresy, i.e. contrary to a truth necessary for salvation. It is simply a fact of experience, just as sleep and heredity are. As such, it is neutral. Everything depends on its interpretation. One can interpret it in such a manner as to make it a hymn to the glory of God—and one can interpret it in such a way as to make it a blasphemy. When one says: to forgive is to grant the opportunity to begin again; God forgives more than seventy-times-seven times, always granting us opportunities anew—what infinite goodness of God! Here is an interpretation to the glory of God.”
― quote from Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism
“Even in lies there are sometimes truths revealed.”
― Terry Brooks, quote from The Gypsy Morph
“Girls should certainly be heard. It was their voices that the world was missing.”
― Shelley Adina, quote from Lady of Devices
“Paranormalists, however, insist that our minds are transmitters that, with special effort, can focus like lasers to communicate across great distances, and even make things happen. That may seem far-fetched, but it's also a definition of prayer.”
― Alan Weisman, quote from The World Without Us
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