A Quote by Michael Crichton

Human beings never think for themselves. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

Michael Crichton

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Any Awareness Become Beings Characteristic Conformity Delusion Destructive Different Different View Exposed Human Human Being Human Beings Just Members Most Never Other Our Part Repeat Self Self-Destructive Simply Species Stubborn Themselves Think Trait Upset View

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Michael Crichton
American - Author
October 23, 1942 - November 4, 2008

The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

Michael Crichton

Human beings never think for themselves; they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view.

Michael Crichton

We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

Michael Crichton

Most of us human beings tend to be parochial in our perceptions. What happens is that we have a very limited and narrow view of our self interest and do not adequately weight the price that has to be paid on the other side for any of these measures we are promoting.

Alan Borovoy

We are one of only three species on our planet that can claim to be self-aware, yet self-delusion may be a more significant characteristic of our kind.

Michael Crichton

We are all members of the same flawed species. Putting our moral vision into practice means imposing our will on others. The human lust for power and esteem, coupled with its vulnerability to self-deception and self-righteousness, makes that an invitation to a calamity, all the worse when the power is directed at a goal as quixotic as eradicating human self-interest.

Steven Pinker

My aim is to advocate that we make this mental switch in respect of our attitudes and practices towards a very large group of beings: members of species other than our own - or, as we popularly though misleadingly call them, animals. In other words, I am urging that we extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species.

Peter Singer

When biological technology becomes further advanced, human beings as we know them, will become a modified species. If we as human beings fail to include the possibility of this development in our overall, social evolution we will witness the decline of our species

Jacque Fresco

The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare.

Michael Crichton

Looking at the world from other species' points of view is a cure for the disease of human self-importance. You suddenly realize that consciousness - which we value and we consider the crowning achievement of nature, human consciousness - is really just another set of tools for getting along in the world.

Michael Pollan

...we sacrifice other species to our own not because our own has any objective metaphysical privilege over others, but simply because it is ours. It may be very natural to have this loyalty to our own species, but let us hear no more from the naturalists about the "sentimentality" of anti-vivisectionists. If loyalty to our own species - preference for man simply because we are men - is not sentiment, then what is?

C. S. Lewis

Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for self-delusion. We can justify any amount of sadness if it fits our own particular standard of reality.

John Twelve Hawks

The core of ethics runs deep in our species and is common to human beings everywhere. It survives the most appalling hardships and the most ruthless attempts to deprive human beings of their humanity. Nevertheless, some people resist the idea that his core has a biological basis which we have inherited from our pre-human ancestors.

Peter Singer

The human species is no more unsuited to give birth than any other of the 5,000 or so species of mammals on the planet. We are merely the most confused.

Ina May Gaskin

From the point of view of the species, death is part of this whole process. You could say that species have evolved in such a way that individual members last a certain time. Perhaps a certain kind of species would be better able to survive if the individuals didn't last too long. Other kinds could last longer.

David Bohm

A Quote by Michael Crichton

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