Accurate Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

The theory of punctuated equilibrium, proposed by Niles Eldredge and myself, is not, as so often misunderstood, a radical claim for truly sudden change,…

— Stephen Jay Gould

The history of life is more adequately represented by a picture of 'punctuated equilibria' than by the notion of phyletic gradualism. The history of…

— Stephen Jay Gould

The major novelty of my theory was its claim that the most rapid evolutionary change does not occur in widespread, populous species, as claimed…

— Ernst Mayr

At a minimum, in explaining evolutionary pathways through time, the constraints imposed by history rise to equal prominence with the immediate advantages of adaptation.

— Stephen Jay Gould

“All disciplines of science are built on the causality of the relationships governing related events. Yet the theory of evolution is built upon the…

— T.H. Janabi

Evolution normally does not come to a halt, but constantly 'tracks' the changing environment.

— Richard Dawkins

Ecology, like genetics, is not about equilibrium states. It is about change, change and change. Nothing stays the same forever.

— Matt Ridley

My own field of paleontology has strongly challenged the Darwinian premise that life's major transformations can be explained by adding up, through the immensity…

— Stephen Jay Gould

The inevitability of gradualness.

— Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield

“improving on the natural course if evolution—which, attendees argued, could be so cruel as to justify some sort of intervention.”

— Jennifer A. Doudna

Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism, confirmed by the work of population genetics, and the actual…

— Ernst Mayr

“He saw that there is a spectrum of variation between species that comes into being slowly, tiny change by tiny change. He realized that…

— Bill Nye