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Steve Stewart-Williams
149 quotes
“Evolutionary theory answers one of the most profound and fundamental questions human beings have ever asked themselves, a question that has plagued reflective minds for as long as reflective minds have existed in the universe: why are we here?”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why would the omnipotent creator of the entire universe be so deeply attached to a bipedal, tropical ape? Why would He take on the bodily form of one of these peculiar tailless primates? Why would such a magnificent being be so obsessively, nit-pickingly preoccupied with trivial matters such as the dress code and sexual behaviour of one mammalian species, especially its female members?”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The idea that the Biblical stories are symbolic is charitable to the point of absurdity. What would we think of a university professor who, happening upon unambiguous errors in a favourite student’s work, concluded that the student was speaking symbolically and awarded top marks?”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some claim that life, the universe, and mind are miraculous. My conclusion is that these things are really, really amazing, but that they’re not miraculous (unless by miraculous, you just mean ‘really, really amazing’).”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Viewed from an evolutionary perspective, mind is not the cause of the order in nature; mind is an example of the order in nature - something to be explained rather than the explanation for everything else.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People kill nonhuman animals for food, for their skins, and sometimes just for fun. We enslave animals and force them to work for us. We experiment on them and justify their suffering in terms of our advantage. Because most of us want to be able to view ourselves as good people (and, perhaps more importantly, because we want others to view us as good people), we may be motivated to view nonhumans in such a way that these activities are rendered morally unproblematic. One way to do this is to view other animals as utterly different from us.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bertrand Russell once pointed out that ‘People are more unwilling to give up the word “God” than to give up the idea for which the word has hitherto stood’. Evolutionary theory may not persuade everyone to give up the word. However, to the extent that it encourages people to alter its meaning beyond recognition, it could be argued that God has nonetheless been a casualty of Darwin’s theory.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems that the evolutionist must conclude, along with the writer Vladimir Nabokov, that ‘our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness’. Brains that think otherwise – brains that deny they are brains and believe instead that they are eternal souls - are brains that hold false beliefs about themselves.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To a hypothetical alien with a vastly superior intellect to our own, human minds would be classed as intermediate forms between the mindless and the fully minded.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you contemplate the universe, part of the universe becomes conscious of itself.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It may be the fate of the universe to spend an eternity in darkness, save one brief flash of self-awareness in the middle of nowhere.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Certainly, the human-animal distinction is still workable; after all, we rarely make errors in assigning entities to one category or the other. But after Darwin, the distinction suddenly seems arbitrary – as arbitrary as the equally workable distinction between, say, turtles and non-turtles.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not clear that people have fully taken on board the idea that humans are animals. If they had, then perhaps academic disciplines such as sociology and anthropology would be viewed as specialist branches of zoology; medical doctors would be viewed as a subtype of veterinarians (one that specializes in tending to the health needs of just one species); human rights would be viewed as a subset of animal rights; and the socialization of children would be viewed as one example of the training or domestication of animals (making parents and teachers a subtype of animal trainers).”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A Ku Klux Klan member would be mortified to learn that he was actually a Black man. Many people’s reaction to learning that they are actually animals, or actually apes, is the same.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some people worry that to say we are nothing but matter is to deny that we think or feel. It’s not. The strange fact is that, when suitably arranged, matter thinks and feels.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Changes in the inhabitants of the earth do not reflect a constant process of improvement in the design of organisms, any more than changes in fashion over the years reflect a constant process of improvement in the quality of clothing.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One could even argue that our creative endeavours and achievements and small acts of kindness are all the more impressive against the backdrop of a purposeless universe.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The claim that women have a stronger average parental urge than men is sometimes viewed as a sexist generalization. But it’s only sexist if we take a dim view of the trait in question: the parental urge. One could turn the accusation on its head: Those who view the evolutionist’s claim (that women are more parental than men) as sexist are actually being sexist themselves, because they’re taking a negative view of a trait that’s usually found more strongly in females than males. They are therefore prizing prototypically masculine traits more highly than prototypically feminine ones.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even if we accept the basic logic of the natural law argument against homosexuality, we have to ask just how wicked a sin it could really be. People sometimes use metal coat hangers as impromptu TV aerials, a purpose for which they were not designed. Likewise, children sometimes climb up slides instead of sliding down them. Are these activities heinous infractions of the moral law? Are they an insult to the people who designed the coat hangers or the slides?”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People often assume that anyone who studies evolution thinks that everything should be about the survival of the fittest. However, this makes no more sense than assuming that anyone who studies glaciers thinks that everything should be done really, really slowly.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We like to think that reason is the supreme adaptation; that rational animals deserve preferential treatment; and that nonhumans, because they don’t have reason, have no intrinsic moral value. However, after Darwin, this is no different and no more convincing than, say, an elephant thinking that trunks are the supreme adaptation; that animals with trunks deserve preferential treatment; and that non-elephants, because they don’t have trunks, have no intrinsic moral value.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The amount of suffering and pain caused by the tyranny of human beings over other animals (particularly in food production) far exceeds that caused by sexism, racism, or any other existing form of discrimination, and for this reason, the animal liberation movement is the most important liberation movement on the face of the planet today.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tying morality to religion is a little like transporting a precious cargo on a sinking ship. What happens when the child grows up and starts doubting the factual claims of the religion? The cargo may be lost with the ship.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If religion doesn't make people good, why do people think that it does? Simple: Because religion teaches that it makes people good. It’s part of its sales pitch. But it's also quite possibly untrue.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even in a pointless universe, pointless happiness and pleasures are surely preferable to pointless suffering.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course, nothing can be said to argue that people are morally obliged to accept this ethic, for to do so would be inconsistent with the ideas that inspired it in the first place. It is an ethic that will be adopted – if at all – by those who find a certain stark beauty in kindness without reward, joy without purpose, and progress without lasting achievement.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a result of high levels of male parental investment, humans evolved into a somewhat “androgynous” species - a species in which human females exhibit traits generally found only in males (e.g., competition for mates) and human males exhibit traits generally found only in females (e.g., the provision of parental care; choosiness about mates).”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are a species in which both sexes have their equivalents of the peacock’s tail. Indeed, when it comes to physical beauty, the usual sex difference has arguably been reversed: Females are the “showier” sex.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For much of the 20th century, the blank slate view was the dominant view in the social sciences. With the popularization of sociobiology in the 1970s, however, evolutionary approaches to human behavior became the locus of an academic culture war between biologically minded thinkers and advocates of the traditional social science model.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From a comparative perspective, we are a relatively monomorphic mammal, with relatively monomorphic minds.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human beings are an exception to many general rules in biology. In many species, female mate choice alone is important; in our species, male mate choice is important as well. In many species, males alone are showy and ornamented; in our species, females are as well. In many species, males alone compete for mates; in our species, females compete as well. In many species, males invest nothing other than sperm in their offspring; in our species, men typically invest a great deal. Not only are human beings exceptional in these ways, but they all tie together into a cohesive story.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The idea that humans form pair bonds, and that males often invest in their young, has a long history in biological anthropology. Early incarnations of the idea were criticized for painting an overly simplistic picture, according to which “Man the Hunter” provisioned his dependent wife and children with meat in a stable nuclear family, suspiciously reminiscent of a 1950s-style Western family. However, with appropriate amendments and qualifications, the idea that pair bonding and biparental care are a central part of our evolutionary endowment appears to be viable.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is therefore a curious fact that our dominant mating system is more like the typical mating system of birds than that of most mammals, including our nearest relatives, the Great Apes.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our claim is not that pair bonding is humanity’s singular mating pattern. Our claim instead is simply that the pair bond is the most common setting for sex and reproduction in our species, that it has been for a long time, and that this has left a deep imprint on our evolved nature.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human beings are, by nature, the kind of animal that falls in love. The cross-cultural record also suggests that humans are also the kind of animal that commonly provides biparental care for its young. In 95% to 97% of mammalian species, only the females care for the young. We would no more expect males in these species to invest in their offspring than we would expect them to get pregnant or lactate. Humans are not like that.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If men in our evolutionary past did not invest in offspring, they would not have evolved strict mate preferences and thus women would be as drab as peahens. The fact that women are not as drab as peahens suggests a long history of male mate choice, which in turn suggests a long history of pair bonding and high male parental investment.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most male gorillas either have a harem or do not have a mate; in contrast, most men who have more than zero mates have only one. This means that, whereas only harem-holding male gorillas contribute to the gene pool of the next generation, most human males who contribute to the gene pool do so in the context of a pair bond. Consequently, our evolved sexual nature has been shaped more by pair bonding than by harem polygyny.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“However, the absence of perfect concealment does not imply the presence of active advertisement, and if fertility were advertised in humans, we would presumably not need to employ sophisticated experimental methods to demonstrate its detectability.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To the extent that we accept this view, we effectively mistake ourselves for highly dimorphic animals such as peacocks or deer.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most effects in psychology are relatively unimportant. That is, most variables, considered in isolation, have relatively little impact on behavior. This doesn't mean... that we should all abandon psychology and become plumbers instead. The small magnitude of most effects in psychology is itself a discovery of psychology. One might argue, in fact, that it is one of the great metadiscoveries of the field. Most variables have little impact, and thus most of the phenomena studied by psychologists are products of a multiplicity of variables.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The reproductive benefits of polygyny were so great for genes located in male bodies that the male mind might still have evolved to take advantage of those opportunities, if and when they did arise. As a result, men may harbor strong polygamous desires — much stronger than women’s — even if these desires are frustrated for most men throughout most of their lives.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A similar analysis applies within the realm of mate preferences. Several commentators pointed out that sex differences in human mate preferences are generally quite small... As such, the central claim in EP [evolutionary psychology] should probably be "Human beings evolved to put a fair amount of weight on good looks in a mate" rather than "Men evolved to put more weight on good looks than women." Again, the latter statement is true but potentially misleading. This sounds like a contradiction, but it is not; the statement is misleading if it is given undue weight.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If this is not what springs immediately to mind as soon as the words “on average” are appended to a description of mean differences, then the words “on average” have not rectified the damage done by the use of means to describe populations of varied individuals.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once a suitable mate is located, humans engage in various peculiar mating rituals. The male, for example, may give the female a bundle of plant genitals (or “flowers”), or the pair may take turns making noises at each other while imbibing fermented plant juice." (Quote from an alien scientists report on our species.)”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even in the age of science, we understand the motions of the distant, ancient stars better than we understand the organism observing them: ourselves.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The starting point for evolutionary psychology is the idea that human beings are animals, and that like all animals, we’re products of natural selection. This is true of our bodies, but it’s also true of our minds.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Humans are as dependent on culture as we are on oxygen; without it, we’re as naked and vulnerable as a crab without a shell.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We’re clusters of chemical reactions that contemplate deep truths about the nature of reality.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The year 1838 represents an important milestone for the planet Earth. For this was the year in which a tiny fragment of the Earth – a fragment known as Charles Darwin – answered an ancient and bewildering question: Why are we here?”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nature isn’t just a bloodbath; it’s also a vast, unending orgy.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source