The way to understand how different species evolved is to think about the niches that they fill in an ecosystem - basically, how they make a living.
Interpretation
Species evolution is shaped by their roles within ecosystems and how they survive.
In this quote, Steven Pinker emphasizes that to grasp the process of evolution among various species, one must consider the specific roles or 'niches' they occupy within their ecosystems. Understanding how species adapt and thrive based on their ecological functions provides insight into the broader narrative of evolution, illustrating the interconnectedness of life forms and their environments.
In practice
In a biology class discussing evolution and ecosystems, this quote can help illustrate the concept of niches.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
In order to figure out how to make atoms compute, you have to learn how to speak their language and to understand how they process information under normal circumstances.
When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
Every discovery opens a new field for investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories. It has justly been said, that the greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded.
To command their professors of astronomy to refute their own observations is to command them not to see what they do see and not to understand what they do understand.
Some molecules - ammonia, carbon dioxide, water - show up everywhere in the universe, whether life is present or not. But others pop up especially in the presence of life itself. Among the biomarkers in Earth's atmosphere are ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons from aerosol sprays, vapor from mineral solvents, escaped coolants from refrigerators and air conditioners, and smog from the burning of fossil fuels. No other way to read that list: sure signs of the absence of intelligence.
If Mars formed life, then life on Earth could have been seeded by life on Mars, making every life form on Earth descended from Martians.
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