Don't assume that a species is intelligent because it produces intelligent individuals.
Jack McDevittThe real problem has to do with the inability by people to admit that a position they've held a long time might be wrong. That's all. Not that it is. Just that it might be. I don't know why it is, but we tend to fall in love with things we believe, Threaten them, and you threaten us.
Jack McDevitt... the truth is that when your people don't tell you what you need to know, it's a failure of leadership.
Jack McDevittThe cultures we can look at had already grasped the essential unity of nature. No board of gods can survive that knowledge.
Jack McDevittI'm prepared to concede that stupidity does not help survival. One must after all understand not to poke a tiger with a stick. But intelligence leads to curiosity, and curiosity has never been a quality that helps one pour his or her genes into the pool. The truth must lie somewhere between. Whatever the reason, it is clearly mediocrity, at best, that lives and breeds.
Jack McDevitt