Masters of the Planet Quotes

“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, Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins

“Hominids typically haven't so much adapted to change, as they have accommodated to it.”
― Ian Tattersall, Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins

“And we can’t take absence of evidence as evidence of absence.”
― Ian Tattersall, Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins

“technologies (reflecting new and more complex behaviors) do not tend to be associated with the appearance of new kinds of hominid. It was old kinds of hominid that started to do new things, even though those new things always seem to indicate a step up in cognitive complexity.”
― Ian Tattersall, Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins

“the chimpanzee can’t articulate his state of mind to us, or answer our questions about it. But then, for all of his physical differences, if he could talk he would be one of us. Nothing else he could do would place him more emphatically in the human camp, for it has been recognized since ancient times that language defines us as nothing else does.”
― Ian Tattersall, Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins

“some current controversies are caused, or at least stoked, by a reluctance to abandon received ideas that may well have outlived their usefulness.”
― Ian Tattersall, Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins