All George Gaylord Simpson Quotes
- 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… Alone
- 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… Alone
- If a sect does officially insist that its structure of belief demands that evolution be false, then no compromise is possible. An honest and competent… Belief
- It remains true, as every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families, appear… All
- I have a debt, a loyalty to the museum; the best place for me to do what I wanted to do. Best
- It is inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really saying anything or at least they… Any
- The search for historical laws is, I maintain, mistaken in principle. Historical
- 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. Affected
- To put it crudely but graphically, the monkey who did not have a realistic perception of the tree branch he jumped for was soon a… Ancestor
- Human judgment is notoriously fallible and perhaps seldom more so than in facile decisions that a character has no adaptive significance because we do not… Adaptive
- Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind Him
- Species evolve exactly as if they were adapting as best they could to a changing world, and not at all as if they were moving… Adapting
- The fact -- not theory -- that evolution has occurred and the Darwinian theory as to how it occurred have become so confused in popular… Confused
- The earliest and most primitive known members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous sequence… Approximately
- Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned. He is a state… Akin
- Almost all paleontologists recognize that the discovery of a complete transition is in any case unlikely. All
- A rill in a barnyard and the Grand Canyon represent, in the main, stages of valley erosion that began some millions of years apart. Apart
- Recognition of this kinship with the rest of the universe is necessary for understanding him, but his essential nature is defined by qualities found nowhere… Ape
- I don't know where to put whales. I'm sticking them here, but I don't have any reason for it. Any
- Splitting and gradual divergence of genera is exemplified very well and in a large variety of organisms. Divergence
- Certainly paleontologists have found samples of an extremely small fraction, only, of the earth's extinct species, and even for groups that are most readily preserved… Certainly Paleontologists
- Most of the dogmatic religions have exhibited a perverse talent for taking the wrong side on the most important concepts in the material universe, from… Concepts
- It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny Doe
- Every paleontologist knows that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of family appear in the record suddenly… All
- Darwin recognized the fact that paleontology then seemed to provide evidence against rather for evolution in general or the gradual origin of taxonomic categories in… Categories