Capsid Biology Quotes

We shall have to stop thinking of technology as something invulnerable that is merely used by humans, and view it as part of a greater cybernetic ecology all around us. The key distinction in an environment is not between 'natural' and 'artificial', but between semantic and dynamic: intention and behaviour. Biology has already drawn these lines, and through us, it will integrate the inanimate with the animate in information systems, until we no longer see a pertinent difference between the two. ~ Mark Burgess

I also suspect that many workers in this field [molecular biology] and related fields have been strongly motivated by the desire, rarely actually expressed, to refute vitalism. ~ Francis Crick

No human, no matter how ancient, or how popular, can be above the laws of Nature. ~ Abhijit Naskar

I like problems at the borders of disciplines. One of the reasons that neurobiology of learning and memory appeal to me so much was that I liked the idea of bringing biology and psychology together. ~ Eric Kandel

Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose. ~ Richard Dawkins

Freedom, for him, lay at the heart of all human experience, and this set humans apart from all other kinds of object. Other things merely sit in place, waiting to be pushed or pulled around. Even non-human animals mainly follow the instincts and behaviors that characterise their species, Sartre believed. But as a human being, I have no perceived nature at all. I create that nature through what I choose to do. Of course I may be influenced by my biology, or by aspects of my culture and personal background, but none of this adds to a complete blueprint for producing me. I am always one step ahead of myself, making myself up as I go along... having found myself thrown into the world, I go on to create my own definition (or nature, or essence), in a way that never happens with other objects or life forms. You might think you have defined me by some label, but you are wrong, for I am always a work in progress. I create myself constantly through action, and this is so fundamental to my human condition that, for Sartre, it is the human condition, from the moment of first consciousness to the moment when death wipes it out. I am my own freedom: no more, no less. ~ Sarah Bakewell

I have a Ph.D. in cell biology. And that's really manual labor. I mean, experimental science, you do it with your hands. So it's very different. You're out there in a lab, cleaning test tubes, and it just wasn't that fascinating. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

What motivates Olympic athletes to train for years for one event - in some cases, for just seconds of actual competition? It's the same thing that kept my friend Pete nosing around old bookstores for years. It's the same thing that makes a person venture out of a comfortable job to start a new business. We see it in the artist who spends day after day in a studio chipping away at a block of stone. Look closely and you'll find it in the shopper who passes up the good deal in search of the best deal. It's one of the things that makes us most human. We consciously pursue what we value. It's not simply a matter of being driven by biology or genetics or environmental conditioning to satisfy instinctive cravings. Rather, we perceive something, prize it at a certain value, then pursue it according to that assigned value because we were created that way. This ability to perceive, prize, and pursue is part of our essential humanness, and it's the essence of ambition. ~ Dave Harvey

Unfortunately, I do not find Tegmark's line of reasoning to be extremely compelling. The leap from the existence of an external reality (independent of humans) to the conclusion that, in Tegmark's words, "You must believe in what I call the mathematical universe hypothesis: that our physical reality is a mathematical structure," involves, in my opinion, a sleight of hand. When Tegmark attempts to characterize what mathematics really is, he says: "To a modern logician, a mathematical structure is precisely this: a set of abstract entities with relations between them." But this modern logician is human! In other words, Tegmark never really proves that our mathematics is not invented by humans; he simply assumes it. Furthermore, as the French neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeaux has pointed out in response to a similar assertion: "To claim physical reality for mathematical objects, on a level of the natural phenomena we study in biology, poses a worrisome epistemological problem it seems to me. How can a physical state, internal to our brain, represent another physical state external to it? ~ Mario Livio

But I am not those people. I am just the biologist; I don't require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ~ Jeff VanderMeer

There are no monotone "values" in biology. ~ Gregory Bateson

Are we biology or God or something higher? I know my heart beats and I listen to it. The beat is biology, but what is the song? ~ James Frey

The time has come to link ecology to economic and human development. When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all. What is happening to the rain forests of Madagascar and Brazil will affect us all. ~ E. O. Wilson

Biochemists assume that the three cellular kingdoms evolved from a single common ancestor, because the alternative of supposing an independent origin of life two or more times presents still greater difficulties. The common ancestor is merely hypothetical, as are the numerous transitional intermediate forms that would have to connect such enormously different groups to the ancestor. From a Darwinist viewpoint all these hypothetical creatures are a logical necessity, but there is no empirical confirmation that they existed. ~ Phillip E. Johnson

Our world is built on biology and once we begin to understand it, it then becomes a technology ~ Ryan Bethencourt

No fossil is buried with its birth certificate. That, and the scarcity of fossils, means that it is effectively impossible to link fossils into chains of cause and effect in any valid way ... To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story - amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific. ~ Henry Gee

[L]ife, individual or collective, personal or historic, is the one entity in the universe whose substance is compact of danger, of adventure. It is, in the strict sense of the word, drama ... [T]he primary, radical meaning of life appears when it is employed in the sense not of biology, but of biography. For the very strong reason that the whole of biology is quite definitely only a chapter in certain biographies, it is what biologists do in the portion of their lives open to biography. ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

That enormously complex biological interactions are so flawlessly coordinated as to result in such obvious manifestations as human thought or the electrical activity that dries the heartbeat is as exciting to me
actually more exciting
than such phenomena were when I was a small boy and thought them divinely (in the supernatural sense) driven. ~ Sherwin B. Nuland

The source of man is in man,and when a man dies,millions of men die in him. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

For those scientists who take it seriously, Darwinian evolution has functioned more as a philosophical belief system than as a testable scientific hypothesis. This quasi-religious function of the theory is, I think, what lies behind many of the extreme statements that you have doubtless encountered from some scientists opposing any critical analysis of neo-Darwinism in the classroom. It is also why many scientists make public statements about the theory that they would not defend privately to other scientists like me. ~ James A. Shapiro

When these flies were put together in all-male groups they formed long, moving chains resembling conga lines, with each male attempting (unsuccessfully) to mate with the male in front of it. ~ Simon LeVay

In my own field, I know that solid science can easily be done with ethics and compassion. There's nothing wrong with compassionate or sentimental science or scientists. Studies of animal thought, emotions, and self-awareness, as well as behavioral ecology and conservation biology, can all be compassionate as well as scientifically rigorous. Science and the ethical treatment of animals aren't incompatible. We can do solid science with an open mind and a big heart.
I encourage everyone to go where their hearts take them, with love, not fear. If we all travel this road, the world will be a better place for all beings. Kinder and more humane choices will be made when we let our hearts lead the way. Compassion begets compassion and caring for and loving animals spills over into compassion and caring for humans. The umbrella of compassion is very important to share freely and widely. ~ Marc Bekoff

Any concept of biology is not only sterile and profitless, it is distorted and untrue, if it puts its primary focus on unnatural conditions rather than on those vast forces not of man's making that shape and channel the nature and direction of life. ~ Rachel Carson

The Biology of Hope and the Healing Power of the Human Spirit, ~ Brian L. Weiss

If I may bend your ear for a moment, I like Terry Pratchett. I like footnotes. I like footnotes even when they are not as entertaining as a Pratchett footnote, even when they are in the middle of a book on evolutionary biology and briefly explain the Red Queen hypothesis or the fate of the Stephen's Island Wren or how many bunnies can dance on the back of Australia. Footnotes fill me with a very mild glee. The endnote simply does not compare. ~ Ursula Vernon

Fear or anxiety is a normal part of living. It's the body's way of telling us something isn't right. It keeps us from harm's way and prepares us to act quickly in the face of danger. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Mood reflects the biology of the brain. How you feel is affected by the chemicals in the brain, and these are the same chemicals that form the basis of mood-altering drugs. You may use yoga, meditation, cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) or exercise to alter your mood, or revert to healthy eating, regular exercise and getting enough sleep. ~ Liz Miller

My wife's contractions, labour, and birth was the most intense biology class of my life; it certainly topped Glugger's biology classes where we did nothing but burn litmus paper. My wife's waters just broke! Who cares if it's alkaline or acidic! ~ Jonathan Dunne

I'm an amateur science enthusiast. I'm not even a professional enthusiast. I don't know anything; I never even passed biology in high school. But I read the science section of the newspaper. ~ Dave Eggers

Reply when questioned on the safety of the polio vaccine he developed:
It is safe, and you can't get safer than safe. ~ Jonas Salk

Teilhard merely seems to set the problem of man, as the utopian sees it, on lofty heights; yet, hi terminology, which mixes archeology, sociology, biology, astronomy, and a vulgarized theology, can, in fact, be translated at every turn into the language of collectivism and of totalitarian polices. ~ Thomas Molnar