It seemed to him that a society in which the most common prescription drug was Valium was, by definition, a society with unsolved problems.
I have great respect for the corrosive influence of bias, systematic distortions of thought, the power of rationalization, the guises of self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended consequences.
The very concept of time travel makes no sense, since time doesn’t flow. The fact that we think time passes is just an accident of our nervous systems – of the way things look to us. In reality, time doesn’t pass; we pass. Time itself is invariant. It just is. Therefore, past and future aren’t separate locations, the way New York and Paris are separate locations. And since the past isn’t a location, you can’t travel to it.
That is a transgenic animal. If he escapes he may transmit his genes to other parrots.
Or maybe they’re weird. Maybe dinosaurs are weird.
There is no greater pleasure than to win what everyone desires.
Sometimes agents were so influenced by one another that they lost track of their goal and did something else instead. In that sense, the program was very childlike, unpredictable and easily distracted. As one programmer put it – trying to program distributed intelligence is like telling a five year old kid to go to his room and change his clothes. He may do that, but he is equally likely to do something else and never return.
Save the Earth” and beneath that, “There’s Nowhere Else to Go.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. – MARK TWAIN.
Isla Nublar, Hammond explained, was not a true island. Rather, it was a seamount, a volcanic upthrusting of rock from the ocean floor. “Its volcanic origins can be seen all over the island,” Hammond said. “There are steam vents in many places, and the ground is often hot underfoot. Because of this, and also because of prevailing currents, Isla Nublar lies in a foggy area.
Elena rushed forward, screaming, and the lizards fled into the darkness. But long before she reached the bassinet, she could see what had happened to the infant’s face, and she knew the child must be dead. The lizards scattered into the rainy night, chirping and squealing, leaving behind only bloody three-toed tracks, like birds.
You can make a boat, but you can’t make the ocean. You can make an airplane, but you can’t make the air. Your powers are much less than your dreams of reason would have you believe.
It’s not a matter of wanting it or not, it’s a matter of what you think you can accomplish. When the hunter goes out in the rain forest to seek food for his family, does he expect to control nature? No. He imagines that nature is beyond him. Beyond his understanding. Beyond his control. Maybe he prays to nature, to the fertility of the forest that provides for him. He prays because he knows he doesn’t control it. He’s at the mercy of it.
The gene,” Dr. Narcejac-Boileau said, “is associated with social dominance and strong control over other people. We have isolated it in sports leaders, CEOs, and heads of state. We believe the gene is found in all dictators throughout history.
The work of the late Heinz Pagels provoked Ian Malcolm.
Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience.
Clearly, Valdez was an apologist for the industrialists and polluters, the big American companies that dominated Costa Rica and other Latin American countries. Not surprising to find such a person here, since the CIA had controlled Costa Rica for decades. This wasn’t a country; it was a subsidiary of American business interests. And American businesses did not give a damn for the environment.
We can talk in here.” Dodgson led him to a glass-walled superintendent’s booth, in the center of the building. The glass cut down the sound of the barking. But through the windows, they could look out at the rows of animals.
And of course we know that social control is best managed through fear.
In his view, a theory was nothing more than a substitute for experience put forth by someone who didn’t know what he was talking about.