Richard Leakey
Richard Leakey
Richard Erskine Frere Leakeyis a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician. He is second of the three sons of the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, and is the younger half-brother of Colin Leakey...
NationalityKenyan
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth19 December 1944
CityNairobi, Kenya
CountryKenya
bit capital cattle fertile herds land larger represents
The land is not in the least bit fertile and yet the cattle herds grow larger and larger. A cow represents capital investment here.
might protection should
In the area of species protection, we should concern ourselves with what is right as opposed to what might be easier, or popular in the short term.
intelligence arrogance earth
To have arrived on this earth as a product of a biological accident, only to depart through human arrogance, would be the ultimate irony.
years creative brain
For three million years we were hunter-gatherers, and it was through the evolutionary pressures of that way of life that a brain so adaptable and so creative eventually emerged. Today we stand with the brains of hunter-gatherers in our heads, looking out on a modern world made comfortable for some by the fruits of human inventiveness, and made miserable for others by the scandal of deprivation in the midst of plenty.
doubt atheism stories
The whole story is about change. We are very lucky that the earth's history is recorded in fossilized remains. And we can see the changes. Unfortunately, there will always be gaps in our knowledge, but there is no doubt that we and everything living today has evolved.
goal long firsts
Natural selection operates according to immediate cirumstances and not toward a long-term goal. Homo sapiens did eventually evolve as a descendant of the first humans, but there was nothing inevitable about it.
mind apes problem
The problem of the apes is not a shortage of money, it is a shortage of strategy. Let us devote our minds... the one thing we have more of than other apes... and let's secure their future.
hunting fossils forget
When out fossil hunting, it is very easy to forget that rather than telling you how the creatures lived, the remains you find indicate only where they became fossilized.
west east north-africa
Whether or not all this came to pass in an East African ditch, I wouldn't like to say. Perhaps it happened in North Africa or further west, but Africa was definitely the place.
airplane years legs
Sadly, I am not able to take part in the fieldwork myself so much anymore, as both of my legs were amputated following an airplane crash twelve years ago.
elephants tourists tourism
The elephants were being slaughtered in masses. Some were even killed in the vicinity of big tourist hotels.
discovery long tasks
Paleoanthropology is not a science that ends with the discovery of a bone. One has to have the original to work with. It is a life-long task.
father culture evolution
My father used to say that, through culture, humans effectively domesticated themselves.
numbers race next
It's the next annihilation of vast numbers of species. It is happening now, and we, the human race, are its cause