TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Dangerous... to take shelter under a tree, during a thunder-gust. It has been fatal to many, both men and beasts.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index M > Category: Milieu

Milieu Quotes (5 quotes)

Anybody who looks at living organisms knows perfectly well that they can produce other organisms like themselves. This is their normal function, they wouldn’t exist if they didn’t do this, and it’s not plausible that this is the reason why they abound in the world. In other words, living organisms are very complicated aggregations of elementary parts, and by any reasonable theory of probability or thermodynamics highly improbable. That they should occur in the world at all is a miracle of the first magnitude; the only thing which removes, or mitigates, this miracle is that they reproduce themselves. Therefore, if by any peculiar accident there should ever be one of them, from there on the rules of probability do not apply, and there will be many of them, at least if the milieu is reasonable. But a reasonable milieu is already a thermodynamically much less improbable thing. So, the operations of probability somehow leave a loophole at this point, and it is by the process of self-reproduction that they are pierced.
From lecture series on self-replicating machines at the University of Illinois, Lecture 5 (Dec 1949), 'Re-evaluation of the Problems of Complicated Automata—Problems of Hierarchy and Evolution', Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata (1966).
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Accident (92)  |  Aggregation (6)  |  Already (226)  |  Anybody (42)  |  Apply (170)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Do (1905)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Exist (458)  |  First (1302)  |  Function (235)  |  Improbable (15)  |  In Other Words (9)  |  Know (1538)  |  Living (492)  |  Look (584)  |  Loophole (2)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Mitigate (5)  |  Normal (29)  |  Occur (151)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pierce (4)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Point (584)  |  Probability (135)  |  Process (439)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remove (50)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Rule (307)  |  Self (268)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

Furthermore, it’s equally evident that what goes on is actually one degree better than self-reproduction, for organisms appear to have gotten more elaborate in the course of time. Today's organisms are phylogenetically descended from others which were vastly simpler than they are, so much simpler, in fact, that it’s inconceivable, how any kind of description of the latter, complex organism could have existed in the earlier one. It’s not easy to imagine in what sense a gene, which is probably a low order affair, can contain a description of the human being which will come from it. But in this case you can say that since the gene has its effect only within another human organism, it probably need not contain a complete description of what is to happen, but only a few cues for a few alternatives. However, this is not so in phylogenetic evolution. That starts from simple entities, surrounded by an unliving amorphous milieu, and produce, something more complicated. Evidently, these organisms have the ability to produce something more complicated than themselves.
From lecture series on self-replicating machines at the University of Illinois, Lecture 5 (Dec 1949), 'Re-evaluation of the Problems of Complicated Automata—Problems of Hierarchy and Evolution', Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata (1966).
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Alternative (32)  |  Amorphous (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Course (413)  |  Degree (277)  |  Descend (49)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evident (92)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Gene (105)  |  Happen (282)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Kind (564)  |  Low (86)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phylogenetic (3)  |  Produce (117)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Say (989)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Will (2350)

Human societies are glued together with conversation and friendship. Conversation is the natural and characteristic activity of human beings. Friendship is the milieu within which we function.
In From Eros to Gaia (1992), 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Being (1276)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Function (235)  |  Glue (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Natural (810)  |  Society (350)  |  Together (392)

Iron and coal dominated everywhere, from grey to black: the black boots, the black stove-pipe hat, the black coach or carriage, the black iron frame of the hearth, the black cooking pots and pans and stoves. Was it a mourning? Was it protective coloration? Was it mere depression of the senses? No matter what the original color of the paleotechnic milieu might be it was soon reduced by reason of the soot and cinders that accompanied its activities, to its characteristic tones, grey, dirty-brown, black.
Technics and Civilisation (1934), 163.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Black (46)  |  Boot (5)  |  Brown (23)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Cinder (6)  |  Coal (64)  |  Color (155)  |  Cooking (12)  |  Depression (26)  |  Dirty (17)  |  Domination (12)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Grey (10)  |  Hat (9)  |  Iron (99)  |  Matter (821)  |  Paleotechnic (2)  |  Protection (41)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soon (187)  |  Soot (11)  |  Tone (22)

It is tautological to say that an organism is adapted to its environment. It is even tautological to say that an organism is physiologically adapted to its environment. However, just as in the case of many morphological characters, it is unwarranted to conclude that all aspects of the physiology of an organism have evolved in reference to a specific milieu. It is equally gratuitous to assume that an organism will inevitably show physiological specializations in its adaptation to a particular set of conditions. All that can be concluded is that the functional capacities of an organism are sufficient to have allowed persistence within its environment. On one hand, the history of an evolutionary line may place serious constraints upon the types of further physiological changes that are readily feasible. Some changes might require excessive restructuring of the genome or might involve maladaptive changes in related functions. On the other hand, a taxon which is successful in occupying a variety of environments may be less impressive in individual physiological capacities than one with a far more limited distribution.
In W.R. Dawson, G.A. Bartholomew, and A.F. Bennett, 'A Reappraisal of the Aquatic Specializations of the Galapagos Marine Iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus)', Evolution (1977), 31, 891.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Allow (51)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Assume (43)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Case (102)  |  Change (639)  |  Character (259)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constraint (13)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Environment (239)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Excessive (24)  |  Far (158)  |  Feasible (3)  |  Function (235)  |  Functional (10)  |  Genome (15)  |  Gratuitous (2)  |  Hand (149)  |  History (716)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inevitably (6)  |  Involve (93)  |  Less (105)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Line (100)  |  More (2558)  |  Morphological (3)  |  Occupy (27)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particular (80)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Place (192)  |  Readily (10)  |  Reference (33)  |  Relate (26)  |  Require (229)  |  Restructuring (2)  |  Say (989)  |  Serious (98)  |  Set (400)  |  Show (353)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Specific (98)  |  Successful (134)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Tautological (2)  |  Type (171)  |  Unwarranted (2)  |  Variety (138)  |  Will (2350)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.