#mammal

We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts. ↗

— Barbara Kingsolver

#around #born #disguised #every #like

Dolphins are social mammals, capable of enjoying their lives. They form close bonds with other members of their group. ↗

— Peter Singer

#capable #close #dolphins #enjoying #form

There's no particular evidence that any of the lower mammals or any of the other animals have any interest in aesthetics at all. But Homo sapiens does, always has and always will. ↗

— Jock Sturges

#any #does #evidence #homo #homo sapiens

We live in a dancing matrix of viruses; they dart, rather like bees, from organism to organism, from plant to insect to mammal to me and back again, and into the sea, tugging along pieces of this genome, strings of genes from that, transplanting grafts of DNA, passing around heredity as though at a great party. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#along #around #back #bees #dancing

Thousands of years ago, humans domesticated every possible large wild mammal species fulfilling all those criteria and worth domesticating, with the result that there have been no valuable additions of domestic animals in recent times, despite the efforts of modern science. ↗

— Jared Diamond

#ago #been #criteria #despite #domestic

We haven't been able yet to determine in terms of genes what makes a human being a human and not another mammal. ↗

— Walter Gilbert

#another #been #being #determine #genes

However, further research has shown that it is the normal condition for humans and for most other mammals. It seems pretty clear why this is the case for most mammals and for most human beings. ↗

— Marvin Harris

#case #clear #condition #further #however

I am really a sea creature. Just a mammal that lost its fins. ↗

— Kathleen Quinlan

#creature #fins #i #i am #just

Camels can go many weeks without drinking anything at all. The notion that they cache water in their humps is pure myth—their humps are made of fat, and water is stored in their body tissues. While other mammals draw water from bloodstreams when faced with dehydration, leading to death by volume shock, camels tap the water in their tissues, keeping their blood volume stable. Though this reduces the camel’s bulk, they can lose up to a third of their body weight with no ill effects, which they can replace astonishingly quickly, as they are able to drink up to forty gallons in a single watering.” (pp.69-70) ↗

— Michael Benanav

#bloodstream #body-tissues #body-weight #camels #death

Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. ... Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#atheism #faith #mammals #religion #virtue