26 Quotes by Adam Rutherford

Everyone alive in the tenth century who left descendants is the ancestor of every living European today, including Charlemagne, and his children Drogo, Pippin and, of course, not forgetting Hugh. If.

No one will ever find a gene for “evil,” or for beauty, or for musical genius, or for scientific genius, because they don’t exist. DNA is not destiny. The presence of a particular variant of a particular gene may just have the effect of altering the odds of any particular behavior. More likely, the possession of many slight differences in many genes will have an effect on the likelihood of a particular characteristic, in consort with your environment, which includes all things that are not DNA.

Genetics is messy and mathematical, but powerful if deployed in the right way. People are horny. Lives are complex. A secret history is truly hidden in the mosaics of our genomes, but caveat emptor. No.

Alas, we are no more or less evolved than any creature. Uniqueness is terribly overrated.

This is an absence of evidence, which we scientists like to remind people is not the same as evidence of absence.

Almost all science is done by very normal people.

We look to statistcs for reassurance in these types of situations. Here is one: 100% of mass shootings have been enabled by access to guns. I can guarantee that even if there were a genotype shared by the mass shooters, which there will not be, none of the killings would have happened if they didn’t have guns.

Evolution, blind and slow, has not inched along over billions of years with any intention that it should be decipherable to one or any of its billions of children.

As a species, all the things we do are unique, and are also seen all over the natural world.