The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy Quotes

“Whenever there is a conflict of interest (or a potential conflict of interest) between two animals making their own decisions to maximize their own fitness, then an evolutionary game is in play. Each individual is trying to outmaneuver the other, or perhaps cooperate with the other, but for selfish reasons. In the log run, the best gaming strategy is the one that is likely to evolve.”
― Arik Kershenbaum, The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves

“One of the most fundamental rules of natural selection, on Earth and across the universe, is that there is always a cost-benefit trade-off. Improving your abilities in one field must reduce your capabilities in another.”
― Arik Kershenbaum, The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves

“The possibility – likelihood, even – of such robotic life has implications for our predictions about life on alien planets. If, as some astrobiologists believe, alien life is likely to be artificial – i.e. ‘manufactured’ – would the rules and constraints that we have discussed in the last nine chapters still apply?* Or perhaps there are different rules, and different constraints when life is the product of clear, intentional design?”
― Arik Kershenbaum, The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves