Organisms [...] are directed and limited by their past. They must remain imperfect in their form and function, and to that extent… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Taxonomy (the science of classification) is often undervalued as a glorified form of filing-with each species in its folder, like a stamp… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
The basic formulation, or bare-bones mechanics, of natural selection is a disarmingly simple argument, based on three undeniable facts (overproduction of offspring,… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Organisms are not billiard balls, propelled by simple and measurable external forces to predictable new positions on life's pool table. Sufficiently complex… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Complex organisms cannot be construed as the sum of their genes, nor do genes alone build particular items of anatomy or behavior… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Words change their meanings, just as organisms evolve. We would impose an enormous burden on our economy if we insisted on payment… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
All organisms vary, and it's just folk knowledge. You just have to look around a room of people, and everybody knows that… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
You put three facts together - that all organisms produce more offspring that can survive, that there's variation among organisms, and that… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
I strongly reject any conceptual scheme that places our options on a line, and holds that the only alternative to a pair of extreme… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
In his anti-Darwinian book... (and eponymously named The Neck of the Giraffe ), Francis Hitching tells the story... "The need to survive by reaching… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
... many folks take them seriously because they just 'know' that evolution can never be seen in the immediate here and now. In fact,… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
Charles Darwin viewed the fossil record more as an embarrassment than as an aid to his theory ... — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
Zoocentrism is the primary fallacy of human sociobiology, for this view of human behavior rests on the argument that if the actions of "lower"… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
The world, unfortunately, rarely matches our hopes and consistently refuses to behave in a reasonable manner. — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
The true beauty of nature is her amplitude; she exists neither for nor because of us, and possesses a staying power that all our… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
With copious evidence ranging from Plato's haughtiness to Beethoven's tirades, we may conclude that the most brilliant people of history tend to be a… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well (perhaps indispensably)… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
The truly awesome intellectuals in our history have not merely made discoveries; they have woven variegated, but firm, tapestries of comprehensive coverage. The tapestries… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
I believe that we can still have a genre of scientific books suitable for and accessible alike to professionals and interested laypeople. The concepts… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
Science simply cannot adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
We debase the richness of both nature and our own minds if we view the great pageant of our intellectual history as a compendium… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share
![“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)
