JANEWAY: I understand you grew up on Vico Five. No wonder you became a cosmologist.
HARREN: Wildest sky in the Alpha quadrant.
JANEWAY: So they say. I've never been there.
HARREN: Do you really believe that childhood environment is more important than genetically driven behaviour patterns?
JANEWAY: Just making conversation.
HARREN: Conversation filled with unspoken assumptions, which I don't agree with. I'm a product of my nucleic acids. Where and how I was raised are beside the point. So if you're trying to understand me better, questions about my home planet are irrelevant.
---Star Trek: Voyager, "Good Shepherd"
I really dislike the nature versus nurture false dichotomy. It grates on me to see it still taken seriously, even after the premise that our actions are shaped entirely by one or the other has been as scientifically discredited as phlogiston.
A monthly thread for posting rationality-related quotes you've seen recently (or had stored in your quotesfile for ages).
ETA: It would seem that rationality quotes are no longer desired. After several days this thread stands voted into the negatives. Wolud whoever chose to to downvote this below 0 would care to express their disapproval of the regular quotes tradition more explicitly? Or perhaps they may like to browse around for some alternative posts that they could downvote instead of this one? Or, since we're in the business of quotation, they could "come on if they think they're hard enough!"