... many folks take them seriously because they just 'know' that evolution can never be seen in the immediate here and now.… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Rifkin's assertions bear no relationship to what I have observed and practiced for 25 years ... Either I am blind or he… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Most books, after all, are ephemeral; their specifics, several years later, inspire about as much interest as daily battle reports from the… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
If we are still here to witness the destruction of our planet some five billion years or more hence, then we will… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Knowledge and wonder are the dyad of our worthy lives as intellectual beings. Voyager did wonders for our knowledge, but performed just… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Life began three and a half billion years ago, necessarily about as simple as it could be, because life arose spontaneously from… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
South America had been an island continent, far bigger and far more diverse than Australia, for tens of millions of years before… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
We can now determine, easily and relatively cheaply, the detailed chemical architecture of genes ; and we can trace the products of… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
It seems the height of antiquated hubris to claim that the universe carried on as it did for billions of years in… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
We build our personalities laboriously and through many years, and we cannot order fundamental changes just because we might value their utility;… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
Memory is a fascinating trickster. Words and images have enormous power and can easily displace actual experience over the years. — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures;… — 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
