Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

“Few intellectual tyrannies can be more recalcitrant than the truths that everybody knows and nearly no one can defend with any decent data (for who needs proof of anything so obvious). And few intellectual activities can be more salutary than attempts to find out whether these rocks of ages might crumble at the slightest tap of an informational hammer.”

Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

Book:Life's Grandeur: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin
Create image

Work

Life's Grandeur: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin

Life's Grandeur examines the concept of excellence through the lens of various historical figures and their contributions to philosophy and science, tracing the development of this idea from Plato to Charles Darwin. more

Author

Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould was a renowned paleontologist, evolutionary theorist, science writer, and academic. He is known for his work in ornithology, paleontology, evolutionary theory, and speciation. Gould's writings and papers have had a profound impact on the scientific community, and he was a long-time contributor to the journal 'Nature'. more

You May Also Like

“When we look to presumed sources of origin for competing evolutionary explanations of the giraffe's long neck, we find either nothing at all, or only the shortest of speculative conjectures. Length, of course, need not correspond with importance. Garrulous old Polonius , in a rare moment of clarity, reminded us that "brevity is the soul of wit" (and then immediately vitiated his wise observation with a flood of woolly words about Hamlet 's Madness.”

NeedsLooksLongSoulMomentsCoursesWiseSourceImportanceMadnessWitClarityObservationExplanationNecksLengthFloodCompetingBrevityConjectureGiraffePoloniusRare MomentsMoments Of Clarity
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
Create image

“A rare book at once of great importance and wonderful to read.... Gould presents a fascinating historical study of scientific racism, tracing it through monogeny and polygeny, phrenology , recapitulation, and hereditarian IQ theory. He stops at each point to illustrate both the logical inconsistencies of the theories and the prejudicially motivated, albeit unintentional, misuse of data in each case.... A major addition to the scientific literature.”

BookLiteratureCasesStudyWonderfulTheoryMajorsRacismImportanceHistoricalDataFascinatingLogicalMotivatedMisuseInconsistencyTracingPhrenologyRecapitulation
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
Create image

“Each of the major sciences has contributed an essential ingredient in our long retreat from an initial belief in our own cosmic importance. Astronomy defined our home as a small planet tucked away in one corner of an average galaxy among millions; biology took away our status as paragons created in the image of God; geology gave us the immensity of time and taught us how little of it our own species has occupied.”

LittlesLongHomeBeliefMillionsTaughtPlanetsEssentialsMajorsImportanceSpeciesAverageCornersAstronomyDefinedBiologyIngredientsCosmicRetreatGalaxyInitialsTaught UsGeologyGod ImageImmensity
Book:Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History
Create image

“Siphonophores do not convey the message a favorite theme of unthinking romanticism that nature is but one gigantic whole, all its parts intimately connected and interacting in some higher, ineffable harmony. Nature revels in boundaries and distinctions; we inhabit a universe of structure. But since our universe of structure has evolved historically, it must present us with fuzzy boundaries, where one kind of thing grades into another.”

KindWholeUniverseHigherMessagesHarmonyStructureConnectedBoundariesThemeDistinctionGradesRomanticismInteractingIneffableFuzzy
Book:The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History
Create image

“Antiessentialist thinking forces us to view the world differently. We must accept shadings and continua as fundamental. We lose criteria for judgment by comparison to some ideal: short people, retarded people, people of other beliefs, colors, and religions are people of full status.”

PeopleThinkingWorldBeliefForceLosesViewsAcceptingColorJudgmentIdealsFundamentalsComparisonCriteriaRetardedShort People
Book:The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History
Create image

“The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. When we are caught in conceptual traps, the best exit is often a change in metaphor not because the new guideline will be truer to nature (for neither the old nor the new metaphor lies "out there" in the woods), but because we need a shift to more fruitful perspectives, and metaphor is often the best agent of conceptual transition.”

NeedsMindFactsLyingViewsPerspectiveLogicMetaphorCaughtWoodsAgentsComparisonTransitionTrapsRelentlessExitGuidelinesSpectacles
Book:Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History
Create image

“Good scholars struggle to understand the world in an integral way (pedants bite off tiny bits and worry them to death). These visions of reality [...] demand our respect, for they are an intellectual's only birthright. They are often entirely wrong and always flawed in serious ways, but they must be understood honorably and not subjected to mayhem by the excision of patches.”

WorldWayRealityBitsVisionWorryStruggleSeriousDemandIntellectualUnderstoodTinyBitesScholarFlawedPatchesBirthrightMayhemPedants
Book:Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history
Create image

“We debase the richness of both nature and our own minds if we view the great pageant of our intellectual history as a compendium of new information leading from primal superstition to final exactitude. We know that the sun is hub of our little corner of the universe, and that ties of genealogy connect all living things on our planet, because these theories assemble and explain so much otherwise disparate and unrelated information not because Galileo trained his telescope on the moons of Jupiter or because Darwin took a ride on a Galápagos tortoise.”

IfsKnowsMindLittlesUniverseViewsSunInformationPlanetsTheoryMoonIntellectualFinalsCornersTiesSuperstitionsOur PlanetLiving ThingsRichnessPrimalTelescopesJupiterPageantGenealogyGalsNew InformationHubTortoisesExactitude
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
Create image