The meaning that we are seeking in evolution is its meaning to us, to man. The ethics of evolution must be human ethics. It is one of the many unique qualities of man, the new sort of animal, that he… — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
The science of systematics has long been affected by profound philosophical preconceptions, which have been all the more influential for being usually covert, even subconscious. — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
The fact -- not theory -- that evolution has occurred and the Darwinian theory as to how it occurred have become so confused in… — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
“The passion for naming things is an odd human trait. It is strange that men always feel so much more at ease when they have put appellations on the things around them and that a wild, new region almost seems familiar and subdued once enough names have been used on it, even though in fact it is not changed in… — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share
A rill in a barnyard and the Grand Canyon represent, in the main, stages of valley erosion that began some millions of years apart. — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
If a sect does officially insist that its structure of belief demands that evolution be false, then no compromise is possible. An honest and… — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
I have a debt, a loyalty to the museum; the best place for me to do what I wanted to do. — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned. He is a… — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
I don't know where to put whales. I'm sticking them here, but I don't have any reason for it. — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
Almost all paleontologists recognize that the discovery of a complete transition is in any case unlikely. — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
To put it crudely but graphically, the monkey who did not have a realistic perception of the tree branch he jumped for was soon… — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
Man has risen, not fallen. He can choose to develop his capacities as the highest animal and to try to rise still farther, or he can choose otherwise. The choice is his responsibility, and his alone. There is no automatism that will carry him upward without choice or effort and there is no trend solely in the right direction. Evolution… — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share
...the argument from absence of transitional types boils down to the striking fact that such types are always lacking unless they have been found. — George Gaylord Simpson Copy Share Image
