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Quote by Clifford Geertz

“Meaning is socially, historically, and rhetorically constructed.”

Quote by Clifford Geertz

Author

Clifford Geertz

Clifford Geertz, born on August 23, 1926 in the United States, was a renowned American anthropologist. His research focused on the field of cultural anthropology, particularly known for his in-depth studies of Java, Indonesia. Geertz's work has had a profound impact on cultural studies and social theory. more

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“Before Kuhn, most scientists followed the place-a-stone-in-the-bright-temple-of-knowledge tradition, and would have told you that they hoped, above all, to lay many of the bricks, perhaps even the keystone, of truth's temple. Now most scientists of vision hope to foment revolution. We are, therefore, awash in revolutions, most self-proclaimed.”

Self Vision Revolution Tradition Stones Scientist Lays Temples Bricks Keystones

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“An old paleontological in joke proclaims that mammalian evolution is a tale told by teeth mating to produce slightly altered descendant teeth.”

Produce Evolution Jokes Tales Teeth Altered Descendants Mating

Book:Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

Source: Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

“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.”

Source: Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History

“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.”

Source: The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History

“I like to summarize what I regard as the pedestal-smashing messages of Darwin's revolution in the following statement, which might be chanted several times a day, like a Hare Krishna mantra, to encourage penetration into the soul: Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought, a tiny little twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life, which, if replanted from seed, would almost surely not grow this twig again, or perhaps any twig with any property that we would care to call consciousness.”

“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.”

Natural Mistake Records Written Episodes Fossils Natural Science Juicy Natural History Informative Emmanuel

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“The intricate and different life cycles of both male and female root-heads, and the great behavioral sophistication shown by the female in reconfiguring a host crab as a support system, all underscore the myopia of our conventional wisdom in regarding rhizocephalans as degenerate parasites because the adult anatomy of internal roots and external sac seem so simple.”

Source: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

“Ordinary speciation remains fully adequate to explain the causes and phenomenology of punctuation.”

Causes Ordinary Remains Adequate Punctuation Phenomenology Speciation

Book:The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

Source: The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

“Knowledge and wonder are the dyad of our worthy lives as intellectual beings. Voyager did wonders for our knowledge, but performed just as mightily in the service of wonder and the two elements are complementary, not independent or opposed. The thought fills me with awe - a mechanical contraption that could fit in the back of a pickup truck, traveling through space for twelve years, dodging around four giant bodies and their associated moons, and finally sending exquisite photos across more than four light-hours of space from the farthest planet in our solar system.”

Years Two Body Light Hours Space Wonder Four Planets Fit Moon Elements Intellectual Independent Worthy Giants Awe Twelve Truck Exquisite Solar System Complementary Pickups Pickup Trucks

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“Evolution is an obstacle course not a freeway; the correct analogue for long-term success is a distant punt receiver evading legions of would-be tacklers in an oddly zigzagged path toward a goal, not a horse thundering down the flat.”

Long Would Be Courses Goal Term Path Evolution Horse Obstacles Long Term Flats Receiver Legion Freeways Analogue Long Term Success

Book:Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history

Source: Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history