Natural selection is a theory of local adaptation to changing environments. It proposes no perfecting principles, no guarantee of general improvement — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
...we must be wary of granting too much power to natural selection by viewing all basic capacities of our brain as direct… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
What an odd time to be a fundamentalist about adaptation and natural selection - when each major subdiscipline of evolutionary biology has… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Darwinian natural selection only yields adaptation to changing local environments, and better function in an immediate habitat might just as well be… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Natural selection may lead to benefits for species, but these 'higher' advantages can only arise as sequelae, or side consequences, of natural… — 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
Our world is not an optimal place, fine tuned by omnipotent forces of selection. It is a quirky mass of imperfections, working… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
There is no gene "for" such unambiguous bits of morphology as your left kneecap or your fingernail. [...] Hundreds of genes contribute… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Paleontologists [fossil experts] have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history,… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
My own field of paleontology has strongly challenged the Darwinian premise that life's major transformations can be explained by adding up, through… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share 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 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… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Natural selection is just three factors - over-production, variation, and inheritance combined to produce adaptation to changing local environments. It's not a… — 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
Throughout his last half-dozen books, for example, Arthur Koestler has been conducting a campaign against his own misunderstanding of Darwinism. He hopes… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Speciation does not necessarily promote evolutionary change; rather, speciation 'gathers in' and guards evolutionary change by locking and stabilization for sufficient geological… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
A complete theory of evolution must acknowledge a balance between "external" forces of environment imposing selection for local adaptation and "internal" forces… — 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
![“There is no gene "for" such unambiguous bits of morphology as your left kneecap or your fingernail. [...] Hundreds of genes contribute to the building of most body parts and their action is channeled through a kaleidoscopic series of environmental influences: embryonic and postnatal, internal and…” quote by Stephen Jay Gould](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/13d/stephen-jay-gould-885_action_there-is-no-gene-for-such-unambiguous-bi_511416.jpg)
![“Paleontologists [fossil experts] have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we…” quote by Stephen Jay Gould](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/345/stephen-jay-gould-885_accounts_paleontologists-fossil-experts-have-paid_1303150.jpg)
![“Throughout his last half-dozen books, for example, Arthur Koestler has been conducting a campaign against his own misunderstanding of Darwinism. He hopes to find some ordering force, constraining evolution to certain directions and overriding the influence of natural selection. [...] Darwinism is…” quote by Stephen Jay Gould](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/523/stephen-jay-gould-885_accepting_throughout-his-last-half-dozen-books-for_1536434.jpg)
