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Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

“The contingency of history (both for life in general and for the cultures of Homo sapiens ) and human free will (in the factual rather than theological sense) are conjoined concepts, and no better evidence can be produced than the "experimental" production of markedly different solutions in identical environments.”

Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

Book:Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history

Work

Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history

This book offers a series of essays and observations that delve into the intricacies of the natural world, examining the lives of animals, the impact of human activity, and the beauty of the environment. The author uses a unique perspective to explore the connections between nature and human life, providing readers with a deeper understanding of the natural world. more

Author

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

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“I am not [...] asserting that humans are either genial or aggressive by inborn biological necessity. Obviously, both kindness and violence lie within the bounds of our nature because we perpetrate both, in spades. I only advance a structural claim that social stability rules nearly all the time and must be based on an overwhelmingly predominant (but tragically ignored) frequency of genial acts, and that geniality is therefore our usual and preferred response nearly all the time. [...] [T]he center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days.”

Humans Lying Social Kindness Violence Human Nature Thousand Ten Ordinary Claims Response Bounds Stability Aggressive Usual Rooted Ignored Frequency Acts Of Kindness Spades Geniality

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“We should take comfort in two conjoined features of nature: first, that our world is incredibly strange and therefore supremely fascinating, second, that however bizarre and arcane our world might be, nature remains potentially comprehensible to the human mind.”

World Should Mind Firsts Humans Two Might Strange Comfort Remains Features Fascinating Our World Human Mind Bizarre Arcane

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“Nature is objective, and nature is knowable, but we can only view her through a glass darkly and many clouds upon our vision are of our own making: social and cultural biases, psychological preferences, and mental limitations (in universal modes of thought, not just individualized stupidity).”

Social Views Vision Universal Clouds Glasses Stupidity Objectives Psychological Limitation Preference

Book:Full House

Source: Full House

“[T]ruly grand and powerful theories [...] do not and cannot rest upon single observations. Evolution is an inference from thousands of independent sources, the only conceptual structure that can make unified sense of all this disparate information. The failure of a particular claim usually records a local error, not the bankruptcy of a central theory. [...] If I mistakenly identify your father's brother as your own dad, you don't become genealogically rootless and created de novo. You still have a father; we just haven't located him properly.”

Ifs Stills Father Powerful Records Havens Information Particular Brother Theory Source Evolution Dad Claims Independent Structure Errors Locals Observation Bankruptcy Unified Inference

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price of freedom. Add intellectual integrity to the cost basis.”

Integrity Cost Eternal Intellectual Bases Add Vigilance Eternal Vigilance Price Of Freedom

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

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

“We can now determine, easily and relatively cheaply, the detailed chemical architecture of genes ; and we can trace the products of these genes ( enzymes and proteins ) as they influence the course of embryology . In so doing we have made the astounding discovery that all complex animal phyla - arthropods and vertebrates in particular - have retained, despite their half-billion years of evolutionary independence, an extensive set of common genetic blueprints for building bodies.”

Source: Leonardo's Mountain Of Clams

“Evolving life must experience a vast range of possibilities, based on environmental histories so unpredictable that no realized route - the pathway to consciousness in the form of Homo sapiens or Little Green Men, for example - can be construed as a highway to heaven, but must be viewed as a tortuous track rutted with uncountable obstacles and festooned with innumerable alternative branches. Any reasonably precise repetition of our earthly route on another planet therefore becomes wildly improbable even in a trillion cases.”

“The classical argument for why a supposedly decent and moral creature like Homo sapiens can mistreat and even extirpate other species rests upon an extreme position in a continuum. The Cartesian tradition, formulated explicitly in the seventeenth century, but developed in "folk" and other versions throughout human history no doubt, holds that other animals are little more than unfeeling machines, with only humans enjoying "consciousness," however defined.”

“No one should feel at all offended or threatened by the obvious fact that we are not all born entirely blank, or entirely the same, in our mixture of the broad behavioral propensities defining what we call "temperament".”

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Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“[G]enes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of chemical processes. Genes do not make "novelty seeking" or any other complex and overt behavior. Predisposition via a long chain of complex chemical reactions, mediated through a more complex series of life's circumstances, does not equal identification or even causation.”

Long Doe Process Circumstances Equal Behavior Series Complexes Rate Seeking Reactions Chains Chemicals Genes Novelty Identification Causation Chemical Reactions Enzymes

Author:Stephen Jay Gould