In his anti-Darwinian book... (and eponymously named The Neck of the Giraffe ), Francis Hitching tells the story... "The need to survive… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
We may need simple and heroic legends for that peculiar genre of literature known as the textbook. But historians must also labor… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
It is so hard for an evolutionary biologist to write about extinction caused by human stupidity. Let me then float an unconventional… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
True majorities, in a TV-dominated and anti-intellectual age, may need sound bites and flashing lights and I am not against supplying such… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
When we look to presumed sources of origin for competing evolutionary explanations of the giraffe's long neck, we find either nothing at… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
Any decent writer writes because there's some deep internal need to keep learning. — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
If you defend a behavior by arguing that people are programmed directly for it, then how do you continue to defend it… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Unfortunately, all life on earth - the only life we know - represents, for all its current variety, the results of a… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
The more important the subject and the closer it cuts to the bone of our hopes and needs, the more we are… — 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
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 Image
History employs evolution to structure biological events in time. — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
Charles Darwin viewed the fossil record more as an embarrassment than as an aid to his theory ... — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
The world, unfortunately, rarely matches our hopes and consistently refuses to behave in a reasonable manner. — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
![“True majorities, in a TV-dominated and anti-intellectual age, may need sound bites and flashing lights and I am not against supplying such lures if they draw children into even a transient concern with science. But every classroom has one [Oliver] Sacks , one [Eric] Korn, or one [Jonathan] Miller…” quote by Stephen Jay Gould](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/28b/stephen-jay-gould-885_age_true-majorities-in-a-tv-dominated-and-an_729797.jpg)
