We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well -… — 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
Some beliefs may be subject to such instant, brutal and unambiguous rejection. For example: no left-coiling periwinkle has ever been found among… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
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
Phony psychics like Uri Geller have had particular success in bamboozling scientists with ordinary stage magic, because only scientists are arrogant enough… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
[E]volutionists sometimes take as haughty an attitude toward the next level up the conventional ladder of disciplines: the human sciences. They decry… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Hyper-selectionism has been with us for a long time in various guises; for it represents the late nineteenth century's scientific version of… — 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
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
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
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
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
![“Organisms [...] are directed and limited by their past. They must remain imperfect in their form and function, and to that extent unpredictable since they are not optimal machines. We cannot know their future with certainty, if only because a myriad of quirky functional shifts lie within the…” quote by Stephen Jay Gould](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/92a/stephen-jay-gould-885_adapted_organisms-are-directed-and-limited-by-th_660291.jpg)
![“[E]volutionists sometimes take as haughty an attitude toward the next level up the conventional ladder of disciplines: the human sciences. They decry the supposed atheoretical particularism of their anthropological colleagues and argue that all would be well if only the students of humanity…” quote by Stephen Jay Gould](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/6a8/stephen-jay-gould-885_animal_e-volutionists-sometimes-take-as-haughty_1877088.jpg)
![“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)
