A Quote by Matt Ridley

Simple determinism, whether of the genetic or environmental kind, is a depressing prospect for those with a fondness for free will.

Matt Ridley

Quote Topics

Depressing Determinism Environmental Fondness Free Free Will Genetic Kind Prospect Simple Those Whether Will

Quote Author

Matt Ridley
British - Scientist
Born: February 7, 1958

For anyone inclined to caricature environmental history as 'environmental determinism,' the contrasting histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti provide a useful antidote. Yes, environmental problems do constrain human societies, but the societies' responses also make a difference.

Jared Diamond

No endeavor that is worthwhile is simple in prospect; if it is right, it will be simple in retrospect.

Edward Teller

In fact, if you are faced with the prospect of running across an open field in which lightning bolts are going to be a problem, you are much better off if their timing and location are determined by something, since then they may be predictable by you, and hence avoidable. Determinism is the friend, not the foe, of those who dislike inevitability.

Daniel Dennett

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will, necessitation, and the like. Nowadays, we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and, repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom; for freedom is only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.

William James

Real Understanding manifests itself as spontaneous natural and simple action, free of the depressing process of choice, pure without indecisions of any type.

Samael Aun Weor

The very genetic determinism I posited in World's End as a way of shaking off my inherited demons is being proven in fact as we map out the human genome.

T.C. Boyle

History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads.

Charles de Gaulle

A review of the science suggests that uncertainty is so high as to raise a good prospect that mandatory green house gas reductions will produce little or no environmental benefit.

Kenneth P. Green

My view is, in between environmental determinism and personal responsibility, we say, "where there's a will there's a way." It's not true. You really need both and they're somewhat independent. We must both cultivate will and pave the way. If you inspire an impassioned people so that they have the will but there's no way, all around them are walls with no doors or windows. It's terribly frustrating. On the other hand, if you put a very nice way at their feet and they have no will to follow it, that doesn't produce anything very good either. Will is not way. You need both.

David Katz

I have free will, but not of my own choice. I have never freely chosen to have free will. I have to have free will, whether I like it or not!

Raymond Smullyan

One good reason for the popularity of "reductionism" among the philosophical outposts of the Western Establishment is that it can be, and is, used as a device for trying to take the wind, so to speak, out of the sails of Marxism. . . . In essence reductionism is a kind of anti-Marxist caricature of Marxist determinism. It is what anti-Marxists pretend that Marxist determinism is.

Claud Cockburn

I will not sleep fine if Donald Trump wins and I will not sleep fine is Hillary Clinton wins. Whether you are looking at nuclear weapons, whether you are looking at expanding wars and their blowback, which will not stop as long as those wars continue to expand, or whether you're looking at the climate, in my view, we have no choice. This is an existential moment. We are deciding not only what kind of world we will have, but whether we will have a world or not. I think it's very important to get outside this box that tells us we are powerless, when in fact, we are powerful.

Jill Stein

Environmental justice, for those of you who may not be familiar with the term, goes something like this: no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.

Majora Carter

My game plan is very simple. If something good comes up, I will check if those required dates are free and I will do the film. Regardless of the language and the scope of the project.

Priyanshu Chatterjee

A Quote by Matt Ridley

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors