It was natural selection—indifferent, but infinitely patient—that had given rise to life’s astonishing diversity. In the final, oft-quoted paragraph of On the Origin of Species, Darwin conjures an “entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth.” All of these “elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner,” had been produced by the same mindless, inhuman force.
“It’s just absolute hubris and so arrogant to think that we can survive without everything else. We come from this planet."
--- Paul Hardisty, head of the Institute that runs SeaSim in Australia
