“Perhaps the only thing that saves science from invalid conventional wisdom that becomes effectively permanent is the presence of mavericks in every generation - people who keep challenging convention and thinking up new ideas for the sheer hell of it or from an innate contrariness.” PeopleThinkingIdeasWisdomScienceChallengesHellGenerationsPermanentConventionsConventionalNew IdeasSheerInnateBeing DifferentConventional WisdomMaverick Author:David M. Raup
“Now let me step back from the problem and very generally discuss natural selection and what we know about it. I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a biological process works.” ThinkingKnowsDoeShowsProblemProcessNaturalStepsSafeMountainEvidenceLet MeSelectionGeneticsNatural Selection Author:David M. Raup
“A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks semipopular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general. these have not been found-yet the optimism has died hard and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks.” ThinkingYearsWellsIdeasHardFoundLevelsNumbersFantasyRecordsSourceInvolvedPureLowsOptimismScientistDiedInevitableBiologyArticlesFossilsPredictableProgressionLarge NumbersTextbooksWishful ThinkingEvolutionary BiologyLow LevelPaleontologyOversimplification Author:David M. Raup
