“I assume the same problem exists in Australia as in America of back-biting and jealousy and parochialism among disciplines - there are the scientists, and there are the humanities people, and there are chemists and the physicists and everybody snipes at everybody else and inter-disciplinary communication is rare. But it's very precious and necessary.” PeopleProblemAmericaHumanityCommunicationDisciplineScientistAssumingAustraliaPhysicistBitingChemistParochialism Author:Richard Lewontin
“My general impression about people like Steve Gould and Carl Sagan and so on is that when they disappear as individuals and are no longer appearing on the stage and they are no longer writing, that their lifetime of acknowledgement by the general reading public is not very long... There were many people in the 19th century who were equally famous people who gave working man's lectures, supporters of Darwin, we as scholars know their names but the general public never heard of them.” PeopleKnowsMenWritingLongReadingNamesIndividualHeardCenturyStageLifetimeDisappearImpressionScholarSupporterLectures19th CenturyAppearingAcknowledgementGeneral PublicWorking ManSagan Author:Richard Lewontin
“History has got a lot to do with unique circumstances under certain particular cases and grand theories will always find counter cases. I don't think that people whose expertise lies in one thing should try to make grand theories about something (a) where it's very hard to get the evidence to prove that you're right and (b) where it's much too easy to make up stories that seem right.” PeopleThinkingShouldTryingHardStoriesSeemsLyingCertainEasyCasesOne ThingParticularTheoryCircumstancesProveUniqueEvidenceExpertise Author:Richard Lewontin
“People who have various kinds of politics for whom it is congenial for their apriority politics to say yes, things are getting much worse. They are opposed by people who also have a priori politics saying that this is the best of all possible worlds, capitalism is the greatest thing since sliced bread and you're just alarmists and so on and they can massage the data so it fits them.” PeopleWorldKindFitCapitalismVariousBreadDataMassageAlarmistsSliced Bread Author:Richard Lewontin
“As an American I must say I haven't been very encouraged by the way in which the people who run the government in the United States have been listening to those contrary voices. And so long as the power to run the world lies in the hands of people who are quite happy to see it get warmer, or fuel be used more, then would those people who oppose it are crying in the wilderness - that's the real problem.” PeopleWorldWayLongHas BeensRealStatesProblemHandsGovernmentRunningUsedLyingVoiceUnitedUnited StatesHavensCryListeningContraryFuelWildernessReal Problems Author:Richard Lewontin
“I think people who worry about planetary health on geological scales are totally misguided, that's not the point at all.” PeopleThinkingWorryScalesMisguided Author:Richard Lewontin
“The social scientist is in a difficult, if not impossible position. On the one hand there is the temptation to see all of society as one's autobiography writ large, surely not the path to general truth. On the other hand, there is the attempt to be general and objective by pretending that one knows nothing about the experience of being human, forcing the investigator to pretend that people usually know and tell the truth about important issues, when we all know from our own lives how impossible that is.” PeopleIfsKnowsHumansImportantHandsSocialDifficultPathIssuesImpossiblePositionExperienceScientistObjectivesTemptationTelling The TruthPretendingBeing HumanAutobiographyImportant IssuesInvestigators Author:Richard Lewontin
