Top 50 Ed Yong Quotes (2024 Update) [Page 2]

51. “Our planet has entered the Anthropocene – a new geological epoch when humanity’s influence is causing global climate change, the loss of wild spaces, and a drastic decline in the richness of life. Microbes are not exempt. Whether on coral reefs or in human guts, we are disrupting the relationships between microbes and their hosts, often pulling apart species that have been together for millions of years.”

— Ed Yong

52. “They move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear,” wrote the American naturalist Henry Beston. “They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

— Ed Yong

53. “The brutal contract of natural selection ensures that if one partner is unnecessary, it gets dumped.”

— Ed Yong

54. “Then again, Adamo adds, how would you know what an insect’s emotional center looks like? Given how little we know about how human brains work, let alone how those of other animals are wired, it feels premature to make definitive proclamations about whether any neurological feature is necessary for experiencing pain. And some animals seem to overperform the limits of their simple brains.”

— Ed Yong

$Ed Yong Quote: “Here is a strange but critical sentiment to introduce in a book about the benefits of living with microbes: there is no such thing as a “good microbe” or a “bad microbe”. These terms belong in children’s stories. They are ill-suited for describing the messy, fractious, contextual relationships of the natural world.”$

55. “Here is a strange but critical sentiment to introduce in a book about the benefits of living with microbes: there is no such thing as a “good microbe” or a “bad microbe”. These terms belong in children’s stories. They are ill-suited for describing the messy, fractious, contextual relationships of the natural world.”

— Ed Yong