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Both [P. T.] Barnum and H. L. Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence...more

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She had to fight against developing too combative a personality or becoming altogether a misanthrope. She suddenly caught herself. "Misanthrope" is so...more

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Sometimes she would be engaged in a laboratory exercise or a seminar when the instructor would say, "Gentlemen, let's proceed," and sensing Ellie's fr...more

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No question; language can free us of feeling, or almost. Maybe that's one of its functions - so we can understand the world without becoming entirely ...more

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But the male lexicographers had somehow neglected to coin a word for the dislike of men. They were almost entirely men themselves, she thought, and ha...more

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Lashley also reported no apparent change in the general behavior of a rat when significant fractions—say 10 percent—of its brain were removed. But no ...more

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Evolution is adventitious and not foresighted. Only through the deaths of an immense number of slightly maladapted organisms are we, brains and all, h...more

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Human spoken language seems to beadventitious. The exploitation of organ systems with other functions for communication in humans is also indicative o...more

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Why are there no nonhuman primates with an existing complex gestural language? One possible answer, it seems to me, is that humans have systematically...more

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I would expect a significant development and elaboration of language in only a few generations if all the chimps unable to communicate were to die or ...more

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Somewhere in the steaming jungles of the Carboniferous Period there emerged an organism that for the first time in the history of the world had more i...more

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a typical chromosomal DNA molecule in a human being is composed of about five billion pairs of nucleotides… But since there are four different kinds o...more

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As in all such technological nightmares, the principal task is to foresee what is possible; to educate use and misuse; and to prevent its organization...more

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This sort of information gathering is precisely what we call play. And the important function of play is thus revealed: it permits us to gain, without...more

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with rare exceptions (chiefly the social insects), mammals and birds are the only organisms to devote substantial attention to the care of their young...more