Evolution Quotes by Stephen Jay Gould
All Evolution quotes Stephen Jay Gould’s page
History employs evolution to structure biological events in time, but the fossil record often feels like an embarrassment to scientists. Some view evolution as a series of accidental, unlikely steps rather than a planned design. Teeth jokes and the lack of single‑gene blueprints highlight its messy nature.
![“[Evolution is] one of the best documented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science.” quote by Stephen Jay Gould](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/23c/stephen-jay-gould-885_atheism_evolution-is-one-of-the-best-documented_614732.png)
![“There is no gene "for" such unambiguous bits of morphology as your left kneecap or your fingernail. [...] Hundreds of genes contribute to the building of most body parts and their action is channeled through a kaleidoscopic series of environmental influences: embryonic and postnatal, internal and…” quote by Stephen Jay Gould](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/13d/stephen-jay-gould-885_action_there-is-no-gene-for-such-unambiguous-bi_511416.jpg)
![“Organisms [...] are directed and limited by their past. They must remain imperfect in their form and function, and to that extent unpredictable since they are not optimal machines. We cannot know their future with certainty, if only because a myriad of quirky functional shifts lie within the…” quote by Stephen Jay Gould](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/92a/stephen-jay-gould-885_adapted_organisms-are-directed-and-limited-by-th_660291.jpg)
![“[T]ruly grand and powerful theories [...] do not and cannot rest upon single observations. Evolution is an inference from thousands of independent sources, the only conceptual structure that can make unified sense of all this disparate information. The failure of a particular claim usually records…” quote by Stephen Jay Gould](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/1aa/stephen-jay-gould-885_bankruptcy_t-ruly-grand-and-powerful-theories-do-no_1770112.png)
