"The problem goes back to the 19th century, when German naturalist Ludwig Edinger did the first careful studies of avian neuroanatomy and labeled the myriad parts of the bird brain. He had a good eye for detail, [...b]ut he was trapped in the political and religious thinking of his day, which presumed that evolution is a process that goes from simplest to more complicated and from dumber to smarter, all culminating in the appearance of humans, who were seen as closest to God."

"To some biologists, the main question about these animal personalities is why natural selection keeps such a wide range of them. "Why hasn't one personality become the standard in the population?" asked Dr. Drent. If being extroverted offers the best odds for a hyena to reproduce, you might expect that over time, all hyenas would wind up as extroverts."

Mile 000174: For the first time you see how ugly possums really are.
Mile 000174.1: You swerve anyway.