We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes—one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way. Stephen Jay Gould More Quotes by Stephen Jay Gould More Quotes From Stephen Jay Gould Science simply cannot adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. Stephen Jay Gould issues god science Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution - paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce. Stephen Jay Gould atheism path religion Precise adaptation, with each part finely honed to perform a definite function in an optimal way, can only lead to blind alleys, dead ends, and extinction. Stephen Jay Gould extinction blind way We must [it has been arued] go beyond reductionism to a holistic recognition that biology and culture interpenetrate in an inextricable manner. Stephen Jay Gould biology recognition culture [Evolution is] one of the best documented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science. Stephen Jay Gould atheism evolution religion The world is too complex for subsumption under any general theory of change. Stephen Jay Gould complexes theory world Still, our creationist incubi, who would never let facts spoil a favorite argument, refuse to yield, and continue to assert the absence of all transitional forms by ignoring those that have been found, and continuing to taunt us with admittedly frequent examples of absence. Stephen Jay Gould yield example facts The pathways that have led to our evolution are quirky, improbable, unrepeatable and utterly unpredictable. Stephen Jay Gould pathways quirky evolution If new species arise very rapidly in small, peripherally isolated local populations, then the great expectation of insensibly graded fossil sequences is a chimera. A new species does not evolve in the area of its ancestors; it does not arise from the slow transformation of all its forbears. Stephen Jay Gould population expectations doe We are the accidental result of an unplanned process ... the fragile result of an enormous concatenation of improbabilities, not the predictable product of any definite process. Stephen Jay Gould evolution process science Mass extinctions may not threaten distant futures, but they are decidedly unpleasant for species caught up in the throes of their power. Stephen Jay Gould mass-extinction caught may I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know. Stephen Jay Gould observation evolution theory 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 predictions, never exposes itself to test, and therefore stands as dogma rather than disprovable science. This claim is nonsense. Stephen Jay Gould dogma tests evolution A complete theory of evolution must acknowledge a balance between "external" forces of environment imposing selection for local adaptation and "internal" forces representing constraints of inheritance and development. Vavilov placed too much emphasis on internal constraints and downgraded the power of selection. But Western Darwinians have erred equally in practically ignoring (while acknowledging in theory) the limits placed on selection by structure and development what Vavilov and the older biologists would have called "laws of form. Stephen Jay Gould theory-of-evolution balance law I have often been amused by our vulgar tendency to take complex issues, with solutions at neither extreme of a continuum of possibilities, and break them into dichotomies, assigning one group to one pole and the other to an opposite end, with no acknowledgment of subtleties and intermediate positions and nearly always with moral opprobrium attached to opponents. Stephen Jay Gould opponents issues opposites If a man dies of cancer in fear and despair, then cry for his pain and celebrate his life. The other man, who fought like hell and laughed in the end, but also died, may have had an easier time in his final months, but took his leave with no more humanity. Stephen Jay Gould cancer pain men An old paleontological in joke proclaims that mammalian evolution is a tale told by teeth mating to produce slightly altered descendant teeth. Stephen Jay Gould tales teeth evolution Each worldview was a cultural product, but evolution is true and separate creation is not. [...] Worldviews are social constructions, and they channel the search for facts. But facts are found and knowledge progresses, however fitfully. Fact and theory are intertwined, and all great scientists understand the interaction. Stephen Jay Gould progress evolution facts I am particularly fond of [Emmanuel Mendes da Costa's] Natural History of Fossils because this treatise, more than any other work written in English, records a short episode expressing one of the grand false starts in the history of natural science and nothing can be quite so informative and instructive as a juicy mistake. Stephen Jay Gould emmanuel fossils mistake The truly awesome intellectuals in our history have not merely made discoveries; they have woven variegated, but firm, tapestries of comprehensive coverage. The tapestries have various fates: Most burn or unravel in the footsteps of time and the fires of later discovery. But their glory lies in their integrity as unified structures of great complexity and broad implication. Stephen Jay Gould fate integrity lying
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