Matt Ridley Quotes

“Anaxagoras’ belief that lying on the right side during sex would produce a boy was so influential that centuries later some French aristocrats had their left test*cles amputated.”

“Far from being laws to protect women, anti-polygamy statutes may really do more to protect men.”

“Genes are biochemical recipes written in a four-letter alphabet called DNA.”

“How much more generous it would be if, instead of writing parables about childhood wounds, psychologists were to accept that some differences between the sexes just are, that they are in the nature of the beasts, because each sex has an evolved tendency to develop that way in response to experience.”

“Life is a Sisyphean race, run ever faster toward a finish line that is merely the start of the next race.”

“Life is a slippery thing to define, but it consists of two very different skills: the ability to replicate, and the ability to create order.”

“Nature is the length of the rectangle, nurture the width. There can be no rectangle without both.”

“People are attracted to people of high reproductive and genetic potential — the healthy, the fit, and the powerful.”

“Sex is merely a genetic joint venture. the process of choosing somebody to have sex with, which used to be known as falling in love, is mysterious, cerebral, and highly selective.”

“Sex is not about reproduction, gender is not about males and females, courtship is not about persuasion, fashion is not about beauty, and love is not about affection. Below the surface of every banality and cliche there lies irony, cynicism, and profundity.”

“The body is merely an evolutionary vehicle for the gene.”

“Time always erodes advantage.”

“Why do human beings have two sexes? Because in mobile animals hermaphrodites are less good at doing two things at once than males and females are at each doing his or her own thing. Therefore, ancestral hermaphroditic animals were outcompeted by ancestral sexed animals.”

“Why has that man fallen in love with that woman? Because she’s pretty.
Why does pretty matter? Because human beings are a mainly monogamous species and so males are choosy about their mates (as male chimpanzees are not); prettiness is an indication of youth and health, which are indications of fertility.
Why does that man care about fertility in his mate? Because if he did not, his genes would be eclipsed by those of men who did.
Why does he care about that? He does not, but his genes act as if they do. Those who choose infertile mates leave no descendants. Therefore, everybody is descended from men who preferred fertile women, and every person inherits from those ancestors the same preference.
Why is that man a slave to his genes? He is not. He has free will.
But you just said he’s in love because it is good for his genes.
He’s free to ignore the dictates of his genes.
Why do his genes want to get together with her genes anyway? Because that’s the only way they can get into the next generation; human beings have two sexes that must breed by mixing their genes.”