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Comments: [On adaptation, evolution and personal preparation.]

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative. H. G. Wells
[We live in a perpetual race between our functioning habits solving our problems and clashing with new situations where our preëxisting habits are not working very well. That interface with a new reality is where the ability to think when one should be terrified is what makes successful seekers seem like geniuses.]

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live. Marcus Aurelius
[It's the Law of Propinquity to love what is closest and distrust things the further they are from your personal experience.]

Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work – the world acts as its own simulator in the case of natural selection. Vernor Vinge
[If a living being can survive in an environment and reproduce then its offspring will be able to survive in that environment as well. The problem is that the environment isn't always the same, so those offspring which just happen to be a little different in some way which fits the slightly different new environment will reproduce a little better. There are always individuals who are on the periphery of the environmental envelope who occasionally do better, but in general the ones nearest the center do best most of the time. In the center the competition is with one's own species; at the periphery it's more with an unfamiliar environment poorly adapted to by the whole breeding group's genes.]

But in practice master plans fail – because they create totalitarian order, not organic order. They are too rigid; they cannot easily adapt to the natural and unpredictable changes that inevitably arise in the life of a community. Christopher Alexander
[Master plans can be devised to fit an existing situation, but unless they have built into them easy experiments into things outside of the master plan they will not adapt. At first planned economies will grow powerful and then big but if they can not adapt to changing circumstances, which big successful things have trouble doing, then they will go extinct.]

Enjoying success requires the ability to adapt. Only by being open to change will you have a true opportunity to get the most from your talent. Nolan Ryan
[Success breeds contempt for change. Why change when what has happened has brought success? That is true enough until something basic changes, then the little and nimble and quick breeding will adapt faster and eat the food off the big slow evolving individual's table.]

I have never come across a technology that doesn’t change. This is inevitable. You have to adapt your systems as technology develops. Gijs de Vries
[Technology is a species of adaptive being living within a special environment. It obeys the same general laws of survival of the fittest, and in new situations that means those quickest to adapt to the changing environment. And generally that means the smallest, nimblest, and fastest breeding. That was Adam Smith's contention in the Wealth of Nations 83 years before Darwin's publication of Origin of Species which was published sixty years after Malthus's observations. Why the delay?]

I’m too old to adapt to somebody else’s ways. Claudia Christian
[Too old to adapt is another way of saying moribund and ready to die.]

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. Stephen Hawking
[It doesn't take intelligence. Everything is always adapting to its environment and the environment to everything else. Even rocks and stars are constantly adapting to their environment. But they are not reproducing themselves so there is only a one time mechanical adaptation and no improvement in the overall adaptation. It's just changing in response to the sum of various pressures.]

Life does more than adapt to the Earth. It changes the Earth to its own purposes. James Lovelock [Everything is adapting to everything. It is like gravity with every mass no matter how small or how remote affecting every other mass in the entire universe.]

Organisms by their design are not made to adapt too far. Kevin Kelly
[Penguins can't fly in thin air but they fly quite well within water. However, if there were no birds in the air occupying that niche, given time penguins would learn to fly in the air, but then they would no longer be penguins.]

Rather than be asked to abandon one’s own heritage and to adapt to the mores of the new country, one was expected to possess a treasure of foreign skills and customs that would enrich the resources of American living. Rudolf Arnheim
[This is fine, and everyone adapts but all do suffer some from the adaptations; America and its form of laws has been particularly successful at assimilating and profiting from foreign influences. We should continue welcoming foreign wisdom.]

Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men. Edwin Louis Cole
[The goal for success is to reach far - but not too far. It takes all kinds of skills to form a species or a civilization and most of the individuals should be reasonable, but there should be room for explorers too. The explorers and unreasonable risk takers suffer the most but their suffering helps humanity find a better life.]

The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Stephen Bayley
[We all end up doing what we think will work. Tradition is like a majestic ship which most of the time is beautiful and safe. But, the very security leads the captains to become complacent and to take unnecessary risks and occasionally run aground for no good reason. In hindsight the captain just looks stupid, but the hour before he was a jolly good hero.]

The free trade movement in the middle of the last century represents the first conscious recognition of these new circumstances and of the necessity to adapt to them. Christian Lous Lange
[The circumstances are always new, even in the most quiet of times. Opportunity is always knocking but one must listen and respond to the needs of the knocker.]

The only way to create a foundational document that could stand the test of time was to build in enough flexibility that later generations would be able to adapt it to their own needs and uses. Diane Wood
[The generalities of a constitution are easy to state but it is the good will of the future people who must apply them which is critical. Write a constitution which fosters goodwill and cooperation. Also, make the constitution with watchdogs selected by the independent public, but at a different time and in a different way than the bulldog administrators are selected by this same independent public.]

The presentations and conceptions of the average man of the world are formed and dominated, not by the full and pure desire for knowledge as an end in itself, but by the struggle to adapt himself favourably to the conditions of life. Ernst Mach
[Even a philosopher of adaptation must himself continually adapt to his conditions of life.]

Then, as the day progresses, depending on how the product is coming in – for instance, the fish man will fax us and say black bass is great – throughout the day, we’ll also make judgment calls and adapt to what’s available. Thomas Keller
[Even the fisherman's luck is adaptation to circumstance but the fishmonger can now have some warning as to what is soon to be in his store.]

There are rumors that we want to move back to the U.K., but we’re so happy in America I actually can’t see us ever leaving… People ask me how long it took to adapt. Twenty minutes. Victoria Beckham
[It is easy to adapt to a better situation.]

They tried to get me to use a pick when I first joined the band. They had certain things they thought were appropriate. I tried to adapt as much as I could. Lindsey Buckingham
[We may try to adapt but as we go along our adaptations simply become adjustments to changing circumstances and well within our flexing abilities.]

We are a party of innovation. We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future. Barbara Jordan
[The more we accept the challenges to change the way we are, that are within our abilities, the happier we will be. The goal should be to know ourselves and our limits of ability and then reach to just to our limit and occasionally a bit beyond into the unknown.]

We have to adapt and overcome, that’s all we can do. Frank Knight
[Sometimes we will fail, but we can prepare for our failures and confront them in such a way as to turn failure into a new victory.]

We may come to Jesus and ask Him; He will know all about it; if He comes to a little child, he will adapt himself to the language and capacity of a little child. Joseph Smith, Jr.
[We can intentionally adapt ourselves to the easiest things and then explore the new found delicacies and nuances that reside within what we thought we understood.]

We need to do a lot more thinking about how the regime is going to evolve, how the bad guys are going to adapt their tactics, and what measures we’re going to need in order to go forward. Mitchell Reiss
[We can cultivate our ways of coping with things and other people who do not behave as we hope that they would. Generally just standing our ground and owning it will suffice, but while standing prepare for alternate actions.]

We recognize the need to adapt to a changing competitive environment. Sumner Redstone
[The ability to recognize a challenge we can contend with and overcome is a critical ability to cultivate. Start early and practice often and when in your game mode play like you are in the real combat.]

We talk of our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourselves, first, to her ways. Clarence Day
[We humans pretend that we are masters of Nature, in fact we are only adapting some aspect of her prodigality to our use. When Nature says we will change our ways, we will change or be defeated. At first it may only be in part, but if we still fail to recognize nature's ultimate power we will simply go extinct. We do adapt to Nature and live and die by her laws. We master nature by obeying her.]

We’re the only creature God ever created that doesn’t want to adapt. We want to make it stand still. And one thing that’s constant is nature is constantly changing. Don Young
[Nature itself is compelled by natural laws, and these are laws we can find and obey to our advantage. But, when we see her laws and do not obey them trouble is certain to come our way. All other creatures besides humans cope with their present circumstance, and perhaps to some degree migrating animals do adapt to anticipated situations, although the migration is triggered by current events and not forethought. Some humans can do a little better by using their executive powers, but few use these powers of analysis very much or very wisely. Generally we are forced to go to school to learn the skills of pre-adaptation, and often that is a school of trial and error with a few adequate habits forming along the way.]]

When I was rising eighteen I persuaded my parents to let me return to Australia and at least see whether I could adapt myself to life on the land before going up to Cambridge. Patrick White
[Take challenges which will help you grow in your ability to face the challenges which will probably come your way.]

You get elected, often, if you’re a woman, on the strength of the women’s vote; then you get into office, and you have to adapt to an overwhelmingly male environment. Eleanor Clift
[Everyone who gets into a new position is at first an outsider but when they compete and are able to prove themselves an able competitor in some aspect of their job then they become accepted in that job and then when new people come along these former entrants become old timers.]

You must constantly change and adapt to a new environment. Jong-yong Yun
[You have no choice but to adapt to the environment within which fate has placed you. If you can foresee where that will lead you it becomes possible to pre-adapt to what's coming. You can also move the coming scene as it will appear to others who are not practiced at pre-adapting and thereby gain an additional advantage.]

We recognize the need to adapt to a changing competitive environment. Sumner Redstone
[Adaptation to previously existing conditions is what Natural Selection is all about. Sexual Selection is adapting to present vigour conditions, which of course is dependent on preexisting conditions but it is measured in the now and is therefore quicker in its adaptations to present conditions. However, with human beings and our ability to predict the future, to some extent, it becomes possible to pre-adapt to the coming years. Some humans are now choosing artificial insemination as a strategy for pre-adapting their children to be superior in some anticipated activity. The ability to recognize a challenge we can contend with and overcome is a critical ability to cultivate. Start early and practice often and when in your game mode play like you are in the real combat.]

We’re the only creature God ever created that doesn’t want to adapt. We want to make it stand still. And one thing that’s constant is nature is constantly changing. Don Young
[All other creatures besides humans cope with their present circumstance, and perhaps to some degree migrating animals do adapt to anticipated situations, although the migration is triggered by current events and not forethought. Some humans can do a little better by using their executive powers, but few use these powers of analysis very much or very wisely. Generally we are forced to go to school to learn the skills of pre-adaptation, and often that is a school of trial and error with a few adequate habits forming along the way.]

As a consequence, geneticists described evolution simply as a change in gene frequencies in populations, totally ignoring the fact that evolution consists of the two simultaneous but quite separate phenomena of adaptation and diversification. Ernst Mayr
[Adaptation to environment includes exploring new ones and diversifying one's abilities to move profitably into strange new lands and learning to thrive there. If one can survive a new location their offspring can learn to thrive there. First arrival adaptation is conscious and slow, like a pidgin language but their children and children's children learn the new things like a new language from their first day. These new living things people included are intellectually pre-adapted and after time these adaptations find their way into their epigenetic adaptations and then eventually in their chromosomal adaptations.]

Agricultural practice served Darwin as the material basis for the elaboration of his theory of Evolution, which explained the natural causation of the adaptation we see in the structure of the organic world. That was a great advance in the knowledge of living nature. Trofim Lysenko
[It is strange that the ideas of Artificial Selection were so slow in coming to human awareness considering it was Artificial Selection as practiced by women for one hundred thousand years, that is some five thousand generations, which created humanity itself. I have named this form of selection - Evish Selection.]

Both of these branches of evolutionary science, are, in my opinion, in the closest causal connection; this arises from the reciprocal action of the laws of heredity and adaptation. Ernst Haeckel
[In Natural Selection it is the reciprocal, call it cyclic interaction, between the genes and the environment and the additional interaction between the phenotype and the environment which it changes by its interaction with that environment. There are more of these interactions the closer we look - these fleas of ideas and interactions have their own fleas, but of course some have more impact. We can still find important ones which can be brought into humanities encyclopedia of Natures laws.]

For the source of any characteristic so widespread and uniform as this adaptation to environment we must go back to the very beginning of the human race. Ellsworth Huntington
[The beginning of the human race, as we know it can thought of as one of two distinct things. If we pursue it as Donald Johanson has done, finding the precursor to some found ancestral thing then the pursuit will go all the way to the Big Bang and beyond. If we search for the event which created humanity as we know it then we must look at Evish Evolution and the beginnings of that process about one hundred thousand years ago.]

I think, then, that man, after having satisfied his first longing for facts, wanted something fuller – some grouping, some adaptation to his capacity and experience, of the links of this vast chain of events which his sight could not take in. Alfred de Vigny
[After our gathering of facts it sometimes becomes possible to make arrangements of these facts which form a perfect parable can be created to satisfy peoples deep longing for comprehensible answers.]

In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found. Alfred Russel Wallace
[Wallace was always several intellectual steps ahead of Darwin on all of the basics of Natural Selection. The now obvious observation in the quote was probably from Wallace's letter to Darwin from Sarawak and filled Darwin with so much anxiety that he was vomiting for a week. Even so Darwin didn't start to write Origin of Species. It wasn't until Wallace explained in detail how natural selection worked that Darwin began popularizing that idea with his rush to publication of Origin of Species while Wallace was still abroad on an expedition. He did give Wallace a dribble of credit for coming up with the idea which "he" had been thinking about for years. But, Darwin didn't really understand it and Huxley, the defender of Darwinism was usually quoting Wallace not Darwin.]

It is a miracle of harmony, of the adaptation of the free inner life to the outward necessity of things. John C. Ransom
[The inner life of people is just as subject to the varieties of inner environmental turbulence as is the outer world, and it is just as visible to the person experiences it, if they choose to look and observe.]

My mother came from St. Thomas. I heard that melody and all I did was actually adapt it. I made my adaptation of sort of an island traditional melody. It did become sort of my trademark tune. Sonny Rollins
[We are a blend of our natural genetic being and all of the experiences and challenges to our being that come our way internally as well as externally.]

Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health. Lord Chesterfield
[Many adaptations we make to our outer and inner environments are easy and obvious, but some of the subtle ones may have just as great an impact. Make a point of cultivating good habits and avoiding bad ones.]

Remember that in every single case in history the process of adaptation has been one of exceeding slowness. Do not look for the impossible, but do not let your path deviate from the quiet and steadfast insistence on full opportunities for your powers. Franz Boas
[Progress is usually a slow accumulation of little things but sometimes it can be sudden. I have observed that horrible tragedies in a persons life, if they are survived, usually are over-ridden in a few months by the huge amount of past habits they have built into their personality and those habits are every-ready to reassert themselves and people return to their former selves. Missing a leg perhaps, but still their old selves.]

Science always has its origin in the adaptation of thought to some definite field of experience. Ernst Mach
[Science progresses on published ideas which are testable and tested and found to provisionally explain observed phenomena. Our technology is based on scientific discoveries because they work.]

They give me the money, I give them the book. Having input into the adaptation would be kind of like selling a house and coming back three years later and saying, ‘Paint it this color!’ Robert B. Parker
[Paying for an unseen pig in a bag without even knowing if it's a pig or some pig shit seems overly optimistic.]

Thus, races arose from an original coding which God pulled out as needed for adaptation to the environment. Walter Lang
[There was once upon a time an original group of women who began to select for those qualities in their husbands which the women felt best suited their needs. At no time was another supernatural being needed to create humans as we know them, women and their gossip were supernatural enough.]

Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring. Henry Miller
[Reaching into the unknown void beyond what is know is always an act of daring. There might be a bear trap or a pot of gold, or something much better, but most often there is just another opaque wall of un-penetrated unknowing.]

When you talk to crews that went to Mir or have gone up to International Space Station, they say that you go through different phases of adaptation or getting used to the space environment. Laurel Clark
[We have what feels like steps to our learning to live in a new environment, but these steps are little more than habits which work well enough to settle us in well enough to function. Pre-thinking the situations which will be coming along will permit us to create more useful habits than the ones we first happen upon by chance.]

Talent alone won’t make you a success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready. The most important question is: “Are your ready?” Johnny Carson
[Be prepared! Even modest abilities well prepared will carry the day over great natural talent which is ill prepared.]