Each of the major sciences has contributed an essential ingredient in our long retreat from an initial belief in our own cosmic… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Creation science has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it:… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
When we seek a textbook case for the proper operation of science, the correction of certain error offers far more promise than… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Recapitulation provided a convenient focus for the persuasive racism of white scientists; they looked to the activities of their own children for… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
“My potential salvation...must remain an unswerving commitment to treat generality only as it emerges from little things that arrest us and open… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
In the great debates of early-nineteenth century geology, catastrophists followed the stereotypical method of objective science-empirical literalism. They believed what they saw,… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Our creationist detractors charge that evolution is an unproved and unprovable charade-a secular religion masquerading as science. They claim, above all, that… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Science is all those things which are confirmed to such a degree that it would be unreasonable to withhold one's provisional consent. — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
“I had learned that a dexterous, opposable thumb stood among the hallmarks of human success. We had maintained, even exaggerated, this important… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Obsolescence is a fate devoutly to be wished, lest science stagnate and die. — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
“Some fifteen to twenty Burgess species cannot be allied with any known group, and should probably be classified as separate phyla. Magnify… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Guessing right for the wrong reason does not merit scientific immortality. — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive… — 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
