Knows Quotes by Stephen Jay Gould

15 Knows quotes by Stephen Jay Gould

All Knows quotes Stephen Jay Gould’s page

Stephen Jay Gould’s 15 reflections blend scientific rigor with literary flair, offering a balanced look at how he perceives the process of knowing.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know.

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

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

Image

Few intellectual tyrannies can be more recalcitrant than the truths that everybody knows and nearly no one can defend with any decent…

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

Organisms [...] are directed and limited by their past. They must remain imperfect in their form and function, and to that extent…

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-whether through design or…

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

Phony psychics like Uri Geller have had particular success in bamboozling scientists with ordinary stage magic, because only scientists are arrogant enough…

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

Since the universe must contain millions of appropriate planets, consciousness in some form - but not with the paired eyes and limbs,…

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

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

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

The human brain became large by natural selection (who knows why, but presumably for good cause). Yet surely most "things" now done…

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

Most impediments to scientific understanding are conceptual locks, not factual lacks. Most difficult to dislodge are those biases that escape our scrutiny…

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

We debase the richness of both nature and our own minds if we view the great pageant of our intellectual history as…

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

The silliest and most tendentious of baseball writing tries to wrest profundity from the spectacle of grown men hitting a ball with…

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

Unfortunately, all life on earth - the only life we know - represents, for all its current variety, the results of a…

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

It is the things we think we know - because they are so elementary or because they surround us - that often…

Stephen Jay Gould

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

Image

Other authors on Knows

More by Stephen Jay Gould

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

Image

History employs evolution to structure biological events in time.

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

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

Image

... 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

Image

Charles Darwin viewed the fossil record more as an embarrassment than as an aid to his theory ...

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

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

Image

The world, unfortunately, rarely matches our hopes and consistently refuses to behave in a reasonable manner.

Stephen Jay Gould

Image

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

Image

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

Image

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

Image

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

Image

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

Image