Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic but praise-worthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Creatures that consistently make false conclusions are removed by natural selection.
- In plain terms
- Animals that guess wrong too often die out before passing on their genes.
- What can you take from it?
- Natural selection removes bad reasoning over time.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How does evolution shape thought?
- Why do errors persist?
Another view
Some flawed beliefs can persist for other reasons.
More from Willard van Orman Quine
To be is to be the value of a bound variable.
Permalink to quote #2 Wyman's overpopulated universe is in many ways unlovely. It offends the aesthetic sense of us who have a taste for desert landscapes.
Permalink to quote #4 Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved toug…
Permalink to quote #1
Related quotes
If an organised body is not in the situation and circumstances best adapted to its sustenance and propagation, then, in conceiving an indefinite variety among …
James HuttonJames Hutton quote #1 The jaws' hooked clamp and fangs Not to be changed at this date; A life subdued to its instrument.
Ted HughesTed Hughes quote #4 War has no longer the justification that it makes for the survival of the fittest; it involves the survival of the less fit. The idea that the struggle between…
Norman AngellNorman Angell quote #11