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 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
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