« All Evolution Quotes · Stephen Jay Gould's Page
Best Evolution Quotes by Stephen Jay Gould
- Orchids were not made by an ideal engineer; they are jury-rigged from a limited set of available components.
- Sure we fit. We wouldn't be here if we didn't. But the world wasn't made for us and it will endure without us.
- ... For Dawkins, evolution is a battle among genes, each seeking to make more copies of itself. Bodies are merely the places where genes aggregate…
- Some evolutionists will protest that we are caricaturing their view of adaptation. After all, do they not admit genetic drift, allometry, and a variety of…
- Charles Darwin viewed the fossil record more as an embarrassment than as an aid to his theory ...
- 'Creation science' has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is…
- Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they…
- Humans arose ... as a fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events, any one of which could have occurred differently and sent history…
- Speciation does not necessarily promote evolutionary change; rather, speciation 'gathers in' and guards evolutionary change by locking and stabilization for sufficient geological time within a…
- Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-whether through design or stupidity, I do…
- The literal record was not a hopelessly and imperfect fraction of truly insensible gradation within large populations but an accurate reflection of the actual process…
- I emphatically do not assert the general 'truth' of this philosophy of punctuational change. Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose…
- ... many folks take them seriously because they just 'know' that evolution can never be seen in the immediate here and now. In fact, a…
- Our creationist detractors charge that evolution is an unproved and unprovable charade-a secular religion masquerading as science. They claim, above all, that evolution generates no…
- If evolution almost always occurs by rapid speciation in small, peripheral isolates, then what should the fossil record look like? We are not likely to…
- Sigmund Freud often remarked that great revolutions in the history of science have but one common, and ironic, feature: they knock human arrogance off one…
- Life shows no trend to complexity in the usual sense-only an asymmetrical expansion of diversity around a starting point constrained to be simple.
- The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. It in fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in…
- Evolution has encountered no intellectual trouble; no new arguments have been offered. Creationism is a home-grown phenomenon of American sociocultural history-a splinter movement ... who…
- Evolution is an inference from thousands of independent sources, the only conceptual structure that can make unified sense of all this disparate information.
- History employs evolution to structure biological events in time.
- The equation of evolution with progress represents our strongest cultural impediment to a proper understanding of this greatest biological revolution in the history of human…
- We are the accidental result of an unplanned process ... the fragile result of an enormous concatenation of improbabilities, not the predictable product of any…
- The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material…
More Evolution Quotes
- Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. — Isaac Asimov
- As far as I'm concerned, if there is a supreme being then He chose organic evolution as a way of bringing into… — David Attenborough
- Apart from anything else, I am designed by evolution, like we all are: if we see a little thing like that, big… — David Attenborough
- Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish. — Marcus Aurelius
- There is also work to do in the evolution of a stable family life and values, and in ensuring that the Nigerian… — Ibrahim Babangida
- Rest assured that whatever station of life we are placed, princely or lowly, it contains the lessons and experiences necessary at the… — Edward Bach
- God's first creature, which was light. — Francis Bacon
- Evolution isn't true, because if we evolved from monkeys, how can they still be here? — Stephen Baldwin
- The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin. — Henry Adams
- In art there are only fast or slow developments. Essentially it is a matter of evolution, not revolution. — Bela Bartok
- If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands? — Milton Berle
- Matter is, in its constituent elements, the same as spirit; existence is one, however manifold in its phenomena; life is one, however… — Annie Besant