Genetics Quotes

“We all know interspecies romance is weird.”
― Tim Burton

“At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.”
― Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

“I have all these great genes, but they're recessive. That's the problem here.”
― Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

“Don't tell me from genetics. What've they got to do with it?" said Crowley. "Look at Satan. Created as an angel, grows up to be the Great Adversary. Hey, if you're going to go on about genetics, you might as well say the kid will grow up to be an angel. After all, his father was really big in Heaven in the old days. Saying he'll grow up to be a demon just because his dad _became_ one is like saying a mouse with its tail cut off will give birth to tailless mice. No. Upbringing is everything. Take it from me.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Human beings are ultimately nothing but carriers-passageways- for genes. They ride us into the ground like racehorses from generation to generation. Genes don't think about what constitutes good or evil. They don't care whether we are happy or unhappy. We're just means to an end for them. The only thing they think about is what is most efficient for them.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“I was drawn to horses as if they were magnets. It was in my blood. I must have inherited from my grandfather a genetic proclivity toward the equine species. Perhaps there's a quirk in the DNA that makes horse people different from everyone else, that instantly divides humanity into those who love horses and the others, who simply don't know.”
― Allan J. Hamilton, Zen Mind, Zen Horse: The Science and Spirituality of Working with Horses

“Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. . . .”
― James D. Watson

“Seeing someone with their parents is a tangible reminder that we're all composites.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree. It completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are.”
― Matthieu Ricard

“At sixteen, you still think you can escape from your father. You aren't listening to his voice speaking through your mouth, you don't see how your gestures already mirror his; you don't see him in the way you hold your body, in the way you sign your name. You don't hear his whisper in your blood.”
― Salman Rushdie, East, West

“When you have only ever experienced privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
― Adam Rutherford, How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race and Reality

“I've always been a pretty good researcher," said Bronwyn modestly.
Oh, so that we share, thought Myfanwy, but you didn't inherit the power to make people shit themselves. You've got to love the randomness of genetics.”
― Daniel O'Malley, The Rook

“If there's any interaction between genes and languages, it is often languages that influence genes, since linguistic differences between populations lessen the chance of genetic exchange between them.”
― Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

“Oral myths are closer to the genetic conclusions than the often ambiguous scientific evidence of archaeology.”
― Bryan Sykes, Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland

“Longevity-and sanity. Eccentric old ladies on Harleys I can deal with.”
― Alison Larkin, The English American

“Illness might progressively vanish so might identity. Grief might be diminished, but so might tenderness. Traumas might be erased but so might history. Infirmities might disappear, but so might vulnerability. Chance would become mitigated, but so, inevitably, would choice.”
― Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History

“The laws of genetics apply even if you refuse to learn them.”
― Allison Plowden

“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.”
― John B. Haldane

“Ultimately, what really matters is not just the experiences you have at a young age, but whether or not you are equipped-by your parents, by your genetics, by your education-to survive and deal with them.”
― Jenna Jameson, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale

“A four-letter alphabet called DNA.”
― Matt Ridley, The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

“Diabetes is passed that way -- over and down, like a knight in chess.”
― Maile Meloy, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

“Cono felt embarrassed by the thought that he might have been just another pitiful orphan trying to turn his friends into family, and that he might be blinded by this need, a need that colored his whole life, that ache to offer worth to someone.”
― Victor Robert Lee, Performance Anomalies

“I placed some of the DNA on the ends of my fingers and rubbed them together. The stuff was sticky. It began to dissolve on my skin. 'It's melting -- like cotton candy.'
'Sure. That's the sugar in the DNA,' Smith said.
'Would it taste sweet?'
'No. DNA is an acid, and it's got salts in it. Actually, I've never tasted it.'
Later, I got some dried calf DNA. I placed a bit of the fluff on my tongue. It melted into a gluey ooze that stuck to the roof of my mouth in a blob. The blob felt slippery on my tongue, and the taste of pure DNA appeared. It had a soft taste, unsweet, rather bland, with a touch of acid and a hint of salt. Perhaps like the earth's primordial sea. It faded away.

Page 67, in Richard Preston's biographical essay on Craig Venter, "The Genome Warrior" (originally published in The New Yorker in 2000).”
― Timothy Ferris, The Best American Science Writing 2001

“The scientific knowledge derived from genetics, epigenetics, and neuroscience, should be used to enhance the power of meditation and to eliminate the sufferings of humanity.”
― Amit Ray, Yoga The Science of Well-Being

“Осьминог ничем не похож на мышь, а оба они сильно отличаются от дуба. Между тем по основному химическому составу они довольно сходны; в частности, имеющиеся у них репликаторы, т. е. гены, представлены молекулами, которые в своей основе одинаковы у всех живых существ — от бактерий до слонов. Все мы служим машинами выживания для репликаторов одного и того же типа — молекул вещества, называемого ДНК, но существует много различных способов жить в этом мире, и репликаторы создали целый спектр машин выживания, позволяющих воспользоваться этими способами. Обезьяна служит машиной для сохранения генов на деревьях, рыба — для сохранения их в воде; существует даже маленький червячок, сохраняющий гены в кружочках, подставляемых в Германии под кружки с пивом. Пути ДНК неисповедимы.”
― Richard Dawkins, Эгоистичный ген

“Soon after Harris’s HeLa-chicken study, a pair of researchers at New York University discovered that human-mouse hybrids lost their human chromosomes over time, leaving only the mouse chromosomes. This allowed scientists to begin mapping human genes to specific chromosomes by tracking the order in which genetic traits vanished. If a chromosome disappeared and production of a certain enzyme stopped, researchers knew the gene for that enzyme must be on the most recently vanished chromosome. Scientists in laboratories throughout North America and Europe began fusing cells and using them to map genetic traits to specific chromosomes, creating a precursor to the human genome map we have today.”
― Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“Uniqueness is the commodity of glut.”
― Matt Ridley, Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

“The human genome is made up of some 20,300 genes. Out of which 736 genes are associated with temperament, a total of 709 related to general cognitive functions, 148 genes are related to higher cognitive functions and 48 genes are associated with deep meditation and 8 genes are related to witnessing consciousness.”
― Amit Ray, Yoga The Science of Well-Being

“Twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73%[6] with the most recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%.[7] IQ goes from being weakly correlated with genetics, for children, to being strongly correlated with genetics for late teens and adults. The heritability of IQ increases with age and reaches an asymptote at 18–20 years of age and continues at that level well into adulthood. This phenomenon is known as the Wilson Effect”
― Wikipedia: Heritability of IQ