Sean Carroll Quotations

With vacuum fluctuations, we have to distinguish between evidence for the existence of the fluctuations, and for their energy.

It is hard to distinguish these events, even with boatloads of data. As you go into deep time, origins are much harder to pick out. And given that there is so much data, you have to ask: why aren't you getting any resolution?

I rubbed his face (and said,) 'Please don't die,'

There are many, many cases where DNA has told us about species' relationships that we never would have guessed based on appearances or other characteristics. We need this tree to understand the great story of animal evolution.

The wing spot on the fruit fly is a particularly good model because we know it constitutes a new feature that is gained or lost by evolution in different species. And, since it is a spatial pattern, it gives us a chance to analyze the evolution of a physical trait.

The way he was peering up and down the block, it would appear to me that he slinked back into the vestibule,

At best it was a negligent act in the circumstances.

As you go into deep time, these bursts of evolutionary origins become harder to resolve.

I told him, 'Don't die, don't die, keep breathing,'

It turns out that early in the origin of many types of animals, there were a lot of branching events in a short period of time.

In general, we'd like to know who's related to whom, and the pattern of the branches of the tree of life.

I'm saying, 'Police, show me your hands, show me your hands,'

Before I fired my weapon, Eddie McMellon, who (was) slightly closer than I was, started backing out and saying, 'What are you doing? What are you doing?' I just thought he pulled and drew a weapon on my partner -- I fired my weapon,

But instead of a tree, we got a bush where many branches sprout close together.

The mechanisms that make the small differences between species are the same ones that make the big differences between kingdoms,