Marlene Zuk > Quotes

“There is not a moral to every story in animal behavior. Sometimes a snake is just a snake, and sometimes snake sex is only about sex in snakes, or sex in egg-laying reptiles. Although a biologist’s job in part is to interpret what organisms do in a broader context, that context does not, and should not, need to include a lesson for human beings. This is true regardless of whether the lesson is something we would like to teach, which means that using animals as vehicles for nonsexist thinking is just as out of bounds as using them to keep women barefoot and pregnant. ”
― Marlene Zuk, Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can't Learn about Sex from Animals

“I mean that it is possible to be unselfish without a moral code, sophisticated without and education, and beautiful wearing a skeleton on the outside.”
― Marlene Zuk, Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language from the Insect World

“Other primates get on with their own reproduction relatively soon after weaning, with gorillas having their first baby just seven or so years later.”
― Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

“Suppose you have a village of 100 people. If half of them die at age five, perhaps from such childhood ailments, twenty die at age sixty, and the remaining thirty die at seventy-five, the average life span in the society is thirty-seven, but not a single person actually reached the age of thirty hale and hearty and then suddenly began to senesce.”
― Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

“Travel is said to be broadening because it makes us realize that our way of doing things is not the only one, that people in other cultures live differently and get by just fine. Insects do that, too, only better.”
― Marlene Zuk, Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language from the Insect World

“Even in nonindustrialized societies, girls do not start having children the moment they reach menarche; the average age worldwide for a first baby is nineteen, according to a 2008 article in Science.”
― Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

“When it comes to childhood, therefore, it was reasonable to suggest that a prolonged period before independence was required once humans began to perform difficult tasks, like hunting or making pottery and baskets. Children could spend their time practicing these skills, which would better prepare them for success as adults in a hunter-gatherer society. In effect, this idea would mean that children are schooling themselves, and were doing so long before formal education was invented.”
― Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

“Using information about animal behavior to justify social or political ideology is wrong . . . People need to be able to make decisions about their lives without having to worry about keeping up with the bonobos.”
― Marlene Zuk

“If you held your head the right way and squinted, we could practically pass for marmosets. Well, the lack of fur and the use of indoor plumbing would give us away, but you get the point. Monogamy is rare among animals, as we have seen, but hardly unheard of.”
― Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live