J. L. HUDSON, SEEDSMAN, BOX 337, LA HONDA, CALIFORNIA 94020-0337 USA
Quote of the Week
Week of January 11- 17
"The Theodoropoulos Principle: All computer hardware and all computer
software will be 'upgraded' until it no longer works."
�D. Theodoropoulos, biologist, 2001, applying to computers the "Peter
Principle"�"In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level
of incompetence."
Week of January 4 - 10
"In nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read."
—William Shakespeare, author.
Weeks between August and December 2008 - yep, I missed 'em! Just too busy - please don't
forget to send me your spare time! Thanks!
Week of August 10 - 16
"It is clear that the degradation of the position of the scientist as an independent thinker
to that of a morally irresponsible stooge in a science factory has proceeded more rapidly and
devastatingly than I expected."
—Norbert Wiener, mathematician, 1948.
Week of August 3 - 9
"Misinterpretations of reality and other kinds of misconceptions play a much bigger role in
determining the course of events than generally recognized."
—George Soros, financier, philanthropist, author, and failed philosopher, "The New Paradigm
for Financial Markets", 2008.
Week of July 28 - August 2
"Every damn thing is your own fault, if you're any good."
—Ernest Hemingway, writer.
Week of July 21 - 27
"I have finished my work here."
—Albert Einstein, physicist, his last words.
Week of July 14 - 20
"The mind is a powerful and often unreliable machine."
—Stephen King, author.
Week of July 7 - 13
"Electricity and chemistry are forces enough, so there is no need for a system of special
spirits to animate us."
—David Bainbridge, veterinary anatomist.
Week of June 30 - July 6
"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it
deliberately."
—George Carlin, (1937 - 2008) author, comedian, commentator on the human condition.
Week of June 23 - 29
"As a poet and mathematician, he would reason well; as mere mathematician, he could not
have reasoned at all..."
—Edgar Allan Poe, author, 'The Purloined Letter'.
Week of June 16 - 22
"Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see."
—Edgar Allan Poe, author, 'The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether'.
Week of June 9 - 15
"The principle of mutual aid which is seen throughout nature and in all human societies is
ignored by all authoritarian theorists, whether capitalist, fascist or socialist; but it is
fundamental to anarchism."
—John Hewetson.
Week of June 2 - 8
"The largest land animal is the elephant, and it is nearest to man in intelligence: it
understands the language of its country and obeys orders, remembers duties that it has been taught,
is pleased by affection and marks of honour, nay more it possesses virtues rare even in man,
honesty, wisdom, justice, also respect for the stars and reverence for the sun and moon."
—Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), naturalist, c. 23 - 79 C.E.
Week of May 26 - June 1
"The evolutionary future of humanity is in sub-Saharan Africa."
—J. L. Hudson, seedsman.
Week of May 19 - 25
"The truth about lying is that politicians will do it as long as it works. Political language
is a language of lies. All the big political cults wrap themselves in partial truths."
—Vasily Grossman, author, Soviet dissident.
Week of May 12 - 18
"What is strange is that while Muslim extremists now fly planes into our buildings, atheists
are really the most reviled minority in this country."
—Sam Harris, author.
Week of May 5 - 11
"No one should ever do anything to help the police."
—George Carlin, author, comedian, commentator on the human condition.
Week of April 28 - May 4
"Above all, the system thrives when it can deflect social contestation into squabbles over
privileged positions within it."
—Ken Knabb, anarchist.
Week of April 21 - 27
"The hours stolen from you now are not returnable in the future."
—Peter Good, anarchist.
Week of April 14 - 20
"I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the
business of these [Third World] nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at
a solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because
the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at
least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above
all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans."
—General David Sharp [Former United States Marine Commandant 1966]
Week of April 7 - 13
"We never respect stupidity in our society unless it is religious stupidity."
—Sam Harris, author.
Week of March 31 - April 6
"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not
understanding it."
—Upton Sinclair
Week of March 23 - 30
"For the world to live, religion must die."
—David Theodoropoulos, biologist.
Week of March 16 - 22
"In general, institutions tend to do the opposite of what they claim to do. Banks make people
poor, schools make people ignorant, hospitals make people ill. And churches make people evil."
—Thomas Cahill, author. Dallas Morning News, April 8, 2001.
Week of March 9 - 15
"Return to base immediately!
Ride music beam back to base!
Stay out of that time flak!
All pilots!
Ride pan pipes back to base!"
—William S. Burroughs, author.
Week of March 2 - 8
"Being an atheist is nothing to be apologetic about. On the contrary, it is something to be
proud of, standing tall to face the far horizon, for atheism nearly always indicates a healthy
independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind."
—Richard Dawkins, biologist, in "The God Delusion", 2006.
Week of February 24 - March 1
"Murderers are always punished, unless they kill in large numbers, and to the sound of
trumpets."
—Voltaire (attributed).
Week of February 17 - 23
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is
the action of the thinking power called an idea...that ideas should freely spread from one to
another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his
condition seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature".
—Thomas Jefferson, 1813
Week of February 10 - 16
"If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for
the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
—Albert Einstein, physicist.
Week of February 3 - 9
"So as sure as the sun will shine
I'm gonna get my share now what is mine
And then the harder they come
The harder they fall
One and all"
—Jimmy Cliff, musician.
Week of January 28 - February 2
"Dreams age faster than dreamers."
—Stephen King, author, "Dreamcatcher".
Week of January 21 - 27
"Popular disregard, even disdain, for demonstrable truth is the most dangerous thing that can
happen to a democracy. And it is happening here."
—Gordy Slack, author, "The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent
Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA", a book about the attempted insertion of religion into
America's public schools.
Week of January 14 - 20
"I don't try to imagine a personal god; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the
world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it."
—Albert Einstein, physicist.
Week of January 7 - 13
"Is there a design in the events of our lives? Or do things just happen, much like a junk yard
falling down a staircase? If it's the latter, how do you deal with it?"
—James Lee Burke, author, "The Tin Roof Blowdown".
Week of December 31 - January 6, 2008
"Let your shadow grow before you."
—Stephen King, author, "The Gunslinger".
Week of December 24 - 30
"God and country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for
oppression and bloodshed."
—Luis Buñuel, Spanish film director.
Week of December 17 - 23
"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and
had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
—Mark Twain, author.
Week of December 10 - 16
"There is no bandit so powerful as Nature."
—Chuang Tzu, philospher, about 369 - 286 BCE.
Week of December 3 - 9
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is a ridiculous fiction."
—Pierre Pochet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, in The Universe: The Infinitely Great and the
Infinitely Small, 1872.
Week of November 26 - December 2
"I believe that there is no god. Believing there is no god gives me more room for belief in
family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O, and all the other things I can prove and that make
this life the best life I will ever have."
—Penn Jillette, magician.
Week of November 19 - 25
"Tell the president we found the weapon of mass destruction in Iraq... Religion."
—David Fitzsimmons, cartoonist.
Week of November 12 - 18
"Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to moral rectitude have the slightest
notion of what is actually written in it?"
—Richard Dawkins, biologist.
Week of November 5 - 11
"The less you knew, the more you could believe."
—Stephen King, author, "Hearts in Atlantis".
Week of October 29 - November 4
"There are also books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes
for the story, Bobby, don't be like the book snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words,
the language, don't be like the play-it-safers who won't do that. But when you find a book that has
both, a good story and great words, treasure that book."
—Stephen King, author, "Hearts in Atlantis".
Week of October 22 - 28
"Let's teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its
incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome - and even
comforting - than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know."
—Carolyn Porco, senior research scientist, Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado.
Week of October 15 - 21
"Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through performance, not through reciting a
pledge."
—Jason Ball, student, winner of the Thomas Jefferson Freethought Award.
Week of October 8 - 14
"It's when they trust you that it's bad—bad for you, for your soul. You never want to be on
that side."
—Philip K. Dick, author, "Radio Free Albemuth".
Week of September 30 - October 7
"And it is always one's stance upon uncertain ground that invites the attentions of one's
enemies. Or discourages it."
—Cormac McCarthy, author, "No Country for Old Men".
Week of September 24 - 30
"For here now is the age of iron. Never by daytime will there be an end to hard work and pain,
nor in the night to weariness, when the gods will send anxieties to trouble us."
—Hesiod, Greek poet, 8th century B.C.E., The Works and Days, line 178.
Week of September 17 - 23
"Language is not water. Philosophers who don't dig real wells die of thirst."
Edward Summer, educator, Skeptical Inquirer, September/October 2007.
Week of September 10 - 16
"Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's
not really compassionate."
—Elton John, musician.
Week of September 3 - 9
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked
for me."
—Hunter S. Thompson, journalist.
Week of August 27 - September 2
"Do not tell lies for the sake of talking."
—Hesiod, Greek poet, 8th century B.C.E., The Works and Days, line 709.
Week of August 20 - 26
"Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport, but in
earnest."
—Bion, Greek poet, circa 100 B.C.E.
Week of August 13 - 19
"Listen to justice; do not try to practice violence; violence is bad for a weak man; even a
noble cannot lightly carry the burden of her, but she weighs him down when he loses his way in
delusions; that other road is better which leads towards just dealings. For Justice wins over
violence as they come out in the end."
—Hesiod, Greek poet, 8th century B.C.E., The Works and Days, lines 213 - 218.
Week of August 6 - 12
"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself
to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."
—Franz Kafka, author.
Week of July 30 - August 5
"Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself."
—Yogi Berra, baseball player, after being told he looked 'cool'.
Week of July 23 - 29
"I get déjà vu every time I brush my teeth."
—J.L. Hudson, seedsman.
Week of July 16 - 22
"Are you sure it's safe?"
—William Palmer, poisoner. His last words as he mounted the gallows.
Week of July 9 - 15
"A nickel isn't worth a dime today."
—Yogi Berra, baseball player.
Week of July 2 - 8
"If Lincoln was alive today, he'd roll over in his grave."
—Gerald Ford, US President.
Week of June 25 - July 1
"The church has it all backwards when it comes to mystery. In fact, it trivializes the very
thing it claims to represent: the awe-inspiring grandeur of true, deep mystery."
—Julia Sweeney, author, playwright, actress.
Week of June 18 - 24
"...no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of Truth... and to see the
errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below."
—Francis Bacon, "Essays: Of Truth, 1625.
Week of June 11 - 17
Rock 'n roll is the music of protest and life, it's everybody's. I mean, what's youth? When does it
start and when does it stop, who's got it and who hasn't? I know middle-aged people under
twenty."
—Vi Subversa, then 42 year old member of the British punk rock group Poison Girls, in 1980,
refuting the statement that she's too old to rock and roll.
Week of June 4 - 10
"Infinite patience produces immediate results."
—Fortune cookie saying, found 21 May 2007.
Week of May 28 - June 3
"Everyone is nice... until you get to know them."
—Jack Mullins, musician.
Week of May 21 - 27
"It's a life's work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you
might be wrong."
—Cormac McCarthy, author, "No Country for Old Men".
Week of May 14 - 20
"There is one intelligence community, and one only. And we are all its victims, wherever we
live."
—Philip K. Dick, author, "Radio Free Albemuth".
Week of May 7 - 13
"If you think there's a solution, you're part of the problem."
—George Carlin, author, comedian, commentator on the human condition.
Week of April 30 - May 6
"Yet despite a tremendous increase in available facts, there were remarkably few
insights."
—Stephen King, author, "The Gunslinger".
Week of April 23 - 29
"To pass prohibitory laws to govern localities where the sentiment does not sustain them is
simply equivalent to allowing free liquor, plus lawlessness."
—Theodore Roosevelt, statesman.
Week of April 16 - 22
"He understood very little about this strange situation, and to act in a situation one does not
understand is to invite the most terrible consequences."
—Stephen King, author, "Drawing of the Three".
Week of April 9 - 15
"The world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief. Anything that we
scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in the end be our greatest
contribution to civilization."
—Steven Weinberg, Nobel laureate in physics.
Week of April 2 - 8
"Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate."
—Richard Dawkins, biologist.
Week of March 26 - April 1
"Utility costs are skyrocketing and the time machine uses unbelievable
amounts of electricity..."
—"Doc Wonmug", in Alley Oop, by Dave Graue and Jack Bender, cartoonists.
Week of March 19 - 25
"The death of men, I thought, is a dreadful thing. The death of good men is worse still. The
tragedy of the world. Especially when it is needless."
—Philip K. Dick, author, "Radio Free Albemuth".
Week of March 12 - 18
"I don't know the answer to the mystery of life,
But a woman sure helps pass the time."
—Johnny Cash, musician, "The Mystery of Life".
Week of March 5 - 11
"They're afraid of us because they know what's inside us."
—Philip K. Dick, author, "Radio Free Albemuth".
Week of February 26 - March 4
"Prohibition...goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control man's appetite
by legislation and makes a crime out of things which are not crimes...A prohibition law strikes a
blow at the very laws upon which our government was founded."
—Abraham Lincoln, statesman, December 1840.
Week of February 19 - 25
"The prosaic fact of the universe's existence alone, defeats both the pragmatist and the
romantic."
—Stephen King, author, "The Gunslinger".
Week of February 12 - 18
"For I felt that no man has a right to decree so much suffering, and that science, in providing
and sharpening the knife, and in upholding the ram, had incurred a guilt of which it will never get
rid. It was at that time that the nexus between science and murder became clear to me."
—Erwin Chargaff, biochemist, 1905 - 2002, speaking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Week of February 5 - 11
"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it."
—Arundhati Roy
Week of January 29 - February 4
"There is no question in my mind that we live in one of the truly bestial centuries in human
history. There are plenty of signposts for the future historian, and what do they say? They say
'Auschwitz' and 'Dresden' and 'Hiroshima' and 'Vietnam' and 'Napalm'. For many years we all woke up
to the daily body count on the radio. And if there were a way to kill people with the B Minor mass, the
Pentagon-Madison Avenue axis would have found it."
—Erwin Chargaff, biochemist, 1905 - 2002, "Voices in the Labyrinth: Nature, Man, and
Science", 1979, page 2.
Week of January 21 - 28
"Analogy cannot serve as proof."
—Louis Pasteur, microbiologist, 1822 - 1895.
Week of January 14 - 20
"[O]ne cannot present a science without at the same time defining its terms."
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, mathematician and philosopher, 1646 - 1716.
Week of January 7 - 13
"The President... shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons for
offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."
—Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section II, (1). [In other words, the pardon of
mass-murderer Richard M. Nixon, by his hand-picked and un-elected successor Gerald Ford, was
illegal.]
Week of January 1 - 7
"So as sure as the sun will shine,
I'm gonna get my share now, what's mine,
And then the harder they come,
The harder they fall,
One and all."
—Jimmy Cliff, musician, "The harder they come."
Week of December 25 - 31
"The most disgraceful cause of the scarcity [of remedies] is that even those who know them do
not want to point them out, as if they were going to lose what they pass on to others."
—Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) circa 23 - 79, naturalist.
Week of December 18 - 24
"It is not a sentimental but a grimly literal fact that unless we share this terrestrial globe
with creatures other than ourselves, we shall not be able to live on it for long."
—Joseph Wood Krutch, naturalist, 1893 - 1979.
Week of December 11 - 17
"I want to know who the men in the shadows are, I want to hear somebody asking them why they
can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are but they're never the ones to fight or to
die..."
—Jackson Browne, musician.
Week of December 4 - 10
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the
light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is
familiar with it."
—Max Planck, physicist, 1858 - 1947.
Week of November 27 - December 3
"Time for jumpin' overboard,
Transportation is here."
—David Byrne, musician, "Burning down the house."
Week of November 20 - 26
"Science knows no country because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which
illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will
remain first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence."
—Louis Pasteur, microbiologist, 1822 - 1895.
Week of November 13 - 19
"I was born in a cross-fire hurricane,
And I howled at my ma in the driving rain,
But it's all right now, in fact its a gas!"
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, musicians, "Jumpin' Jack Flash."
Week of November 6 - 12
"Molecular biology is essentially the practice of biochemistry without a license."
—Erwin Chargaff, biochemist, 1905 - 2002, "Essays on Nucleic Acids", 1963.
Week of October 30 - November 5
"I've seen their ways too often for my liking."
—Grace Slick, musician, "Crown of Creation."
Week of October 23 - 29
"One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority'. (Scientists,
being primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of course do not always follow this
commandment.)"
—Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer, 1934 - 1996.
Week of October 16 - 22
"Always keep a diamond in your mind."
—Tom Waits, musician, "Get Behind the Mule."
Week of October 9 - 15
"There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is
national is no longer science."
—Anton Chekhov, physician and playwright, 1860 - 1904.
Week of October 2 - 8
"I wouldn't live there if you paid me to."
—David Byrne, musician, "Big Country."
Week of September 25 - October 1
"One of the most insidious and nefarious properties of scientific models is their tendency to
take over, and sometimes supplant, reality."
—Erwin Chargaff, biochemist, 1905 - 2002.
Week of September 18 - 24
"And when they split those atoms, it's hotter than the sun..."
—David Byrne, musician, "Swamp."
Week of September 11 - 17
"To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself."
—Albert Einstein, physicist.
Week of September 4 - 10
"As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property."
—Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, philosopher, 1686.
Week of August 28 - September 3
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious
conviction."
—Blaise Pascal, mathematician and philosopher, 1623 - 1662.
Week of August 21 - 27
"Believing is easier than thinking. Hence so many more believers than thinkers."
—Bruce Calvert, publisher.
Week of August 14 - 20
"The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes."
—Paul K. Feyerabend, philosopher of science, in "Against Method: Outline of an
Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge", 1975, page 9.
Week of August 7 - 13
"Torture numbers, and they will confess to anything."
—Gregg Easterbrook, author, 1999.
Week of July 31 - August 6
"Infectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world."
—Hans Zinsser, bacteriologist, "Rats, Lice, and History", 1934.
Week of July 24 - 30
"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
—Albert Einstein, physicist, 1930.
Week of July 17 - 23
"The human tendency prefers familiar horrors to unknown delights."
—Fred Woodworth, anarchist.
Week of July 10 - 16
"I've seen the future, and it's much like the present, only longer."
—Dan Quisenberry, baseball player, 1990.
Week of July 3 - 9 (a two-for-one)
"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."
—Ernest Rutherford, physicist.
"Physics is to biology as counting on one's fingers is to the calculus."
—David Theodoropoulos, biologist.
Week of June 26 - July 2
"Where observation is concerned, chance favors only the prepared mind."
—Louis Pasteur, 1822 - 1895, Microbiologist.
Week of June 19 - 25
"I'm at another conference, so I'll miss this week's quote, too!"
—J.L.H.
Week of June 12 - 18
"I'm out of town!"
—J.L.H.
Week of June 5 - 11
"Last fall, the Organic Trade Association, which represents corporations like Kraft, Dole, and
Dean Foods, lobbied to attach a rider to the 2006 Agricultural Appropriations Bill that would weaken
the nation's organic food standards by allowing certain synthetic food substances in the
preparation, processing, and packaging of organic foods. That sparked outrage from organic
activists. Nevertheless, the bill passed into law in November, and the new standards will go into
effect later this year."
—Business Week
Week of May 29 - June 4
"I missed it!"
—J.L.H.
Week of May 22 - 28
"Wait a decade or two and every potato coming out of the state of Idaho will be labeled
'organic', a word already under very serious stress. The process will be entirely predictable. The
big food companies will buy federal and state legislation designed to put the small producers out of
business, the same way the meat companies finished off the small packers and processors years ago,
by insisting on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stainless steel and other 'sanitary'
equipment, all intended to bankrupt the local sausage or ham maker. Wall-Mart's buying power will
drive down organic food prices and start to drive small farmers to the wall."
—Alexander Cockburn, "Wall-Mart's Coming Lunge into Organic Food", an article on the
corporate takeover of organic and the weakening of organic standards.
Week of May 15 - 21
"To destroy the Western tradition of independent thought, it is not necessary to burn books.
All we have to do is leave them unread for a couple of generations."
—Robert Maynard Hutchens.
Week of May 8 - 14
"A new theory is guilty until proven innocent, and the pre-existing theory is innocent until
proven guilty... Continental drift was guilty until proven innocent."
—David Malcolm Raup, geophysicist and paleontologist.
Week of May 1 - 7
"War is a racket; possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious...
Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. Nations acquire additional territory (which is promptly
exploited by the few for their own benefit), and the general public shoulders the bill—a bill that
renders a horrible accounting of newly placed gravestones, mangled bodies, shattered minds, broken
hearts and homes, economic instability, and back-breaking taxation of the many for generations and
generations."
—General Smedley Butler, 1881 - 1940, U.S. Marine Corps major general and commandant.
Week of April 24 - 30
"The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which
stands at the cradle of true science. He who knows it not, and can no longer wonder, no longer feel
amazement, is as good as dead.... The true scientist never loses the faculty of amazement. It is the
essence of his being."
—Hans Selye, physician and endocrinologist, 1958.
Week of April 17 - 23
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they
are certain, they do not refer to reality."
—Albert Einstein, physicist, in "Sidelights on Relativity", 1920, page 28.
Week of April 10 - 16
"Profound study of nature is the most fertile source of mathematical discoveries."
—Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier, mathematician and physicist, in "Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur",
1822.
Week of April 3 - 9
"Evolution has no purpose; man must supply this for himself."
—George G. Simpson, paleontologist, in "The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of
Life and of its Significance for Man", 1949, page 310.
Week of March 27 - April 2
"Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more
humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives."
—Paul K. Feyerabend, philosopher of science, in "Against Method: Outline of an
Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge", 1975, page 9.
Week of March 20 - 26
"In New England they once thought blackbirds useless, and mischievous to corn. They made
efforts to destroy them. The consequence was, the blackbirds were diminished; but a kind of worm,
which devoured their grass, and which the blackbirds used to feed on, increased prodigiously; then,
finding their loss in grass much greater than their saving in corn, they wished again for their
blackbirds."
—Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Richard Jackson, 5 May 1753.