Facts Quotes by Stephen Jay Gould

World views are social constructions and they channel the search for facts. But facts are found and knowledge progresses, however fitfully.

— Stephen Jay Gould

Facts do not 'speak for themselves'; they are read in the light of theory.

— Stephen Jay Gould

Theory and fact are equally strong and utterly interdependent; one has no meaning without the other. We need theory to organize and…

— Stephen Jay Gould

Still, our creationist incubi, who would never let facts spoil a favorite argument, refuse to yield, and continue to assert the absence…

— Stephen Jay Gould

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

No one should feel at all offended or threatened by the obvious fact that we are not all born entirely blank, or…

— Stephen Jay Gould

Biological determinism is, in its essence, a theory of limits. It takes the current status of groups as a measure of where…

— Stephen Jay Gould

The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. It in fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what…

— Stephen Jay Gould

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

“The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind…

— Stephen Jay Gould

... many folks take them seriously because they just 'know' that evolution can never be seen in the immediate here and now.…

— Stephen Jay Gould

Each worldview was a cultural product, but evolution is true and separate creation is not. [...] Worldviews are social constructions, and they…

— Stephen Jay Gould

Goethe died in 1832. As you know, Goethe was very active in science. In fact, he did some very good scientific work…

— Stephen Jay Gould

Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures…

— Stephen Jay Gould

South America had been an island continent, far bigger and far more diverse than Australia, for tens of millions of years before…

— Stephen Jay Gould

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