Even with seemingly simple things like eye color, you can't tell from my genetic code whether I have blue eyes or not. So it's naive to think that complex human behaviors, like risk-seeking, are driven by changes in one or two genes.
Chimps are far too much human to be my favorite animal.
The best aspects of every vampire, with all of their gifts, what makes them really special is just an enhanced version of what they were when they were human.
Why did humans lose their body hair? Why did they start walking on their hind legs? Why did they develop big brains? I think that the answer to all three questions is sexual selection.
Basically we are chimpanzees with about two percent more intelligence and a little less hair.
The animals might embody certain traits. We think of tigers as being ferocious, etc. But to my mind, it was the other way around: the humans embodied certain animal traits.
Are you trying to be as human as you can be?
As a human, you don't have to be too conscious of your movement. I think it's tougher playing a robot than a human, and even tougher playing a robot who begins showing traces of being a human.
I think human nature is eternal and constant.
We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior.
Every social trait labelled masculine or feminine is in truth a human trait. It is our human right to develop and contribute our talents whatever our race, sex, religion, ancestry, age. Human rights are indivisible!
You think we shouldn't anthropomorphize people?
If you list the qualities that we consider feminine, they are patience, understanding, empathy, supportiveness, a desire to nurture. Our culture tells us those are feminine traits, but they're really just human.
Philosophers and scientists confidently offer up traits said to be uniquely human, and the monkeys and apes casually knock them down -- toppling the pretension that humans constitute some sort of biological aristocracy among the beings on Earth.
We do not discuss the anatomical, physiological, and mental characteristics of man considered as an individual; but we are interested in the diversity of these traits in groups of men found in different geographical areas and in different social classes.
Our characters act silly, even totally ridiculous at times, and most of our jokes don't come out of pop cultural references. It seems like we're aiming at a child audience, but everyone can laugh at the basic human traits that are funny. It's playful, the humor is playful, the world is playful. You can kind of let go.
There is a great deal of human nature in man.
It seems that this situation is not restricted to science but is more generally human.
People think genes are an absolute cause of traits. But the notion that the genome is the blueprint for humanity is a very bad metaphor. If you think we're hard-wired and deterministic, there should indeed be a lot more genes.
I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.
Children, they're the same everywhere. Greedy little creatures but the best listeners in the world - any world. The very best of all.
People are people the world over. Some are good, some bad, some greedy and some generous. Nations are like people and act the same way.
We find animals doing things that we, in our arrogance, used to think was "just human".
If the basic human nature was aggressive, we would have been born with animal claws & huge teeth -- but ours are very short, very pretty, very weak! That means we are not well equipped to be aggressive beings. Even the size of our mouth is very small. So I think the basic nature of human beings should be gentle.
What is amazing to me as an archaeologist is that the more and more I study, I realize we are resilient, we are creative, we are brilliant, and this is what makes us human, and that hasn't changed since we've been human.
