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Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

“I am glad that the life of pandas is so dull by human standards, for our efforts at conservation have little moral value if we preserve creatures only as human ornaments; I shall be impressed when we show solicitude for warty toads and slithering worms.”

Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

Book:An Urchin in the Storm: Essays about Books and Ideas

Work

An Urchin in the Storm: Essays about Books and Ideas

This book is a compilation of essays that delve into the world of literature and intellectual discourse, offering insights and reflections on the nature of books and the ideas they convey. 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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“As we discern a fine line between crank and genius, so also (and unfortunately) we must acknowledge an equally graded trajectory from crank to demagogue. When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.”

People Political Lines Fine Genius Judgment Tools Seeds Acknowledge Manipulation Fine Lines Trajectory Crank

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“I strongly reject any conceptual scheme that places our options on a line, and holds that the only alternative to a pair of extreme positions lies somewhere between them. More fruitful perspectives often require that we step off the line to a site outside the dichotomy.”

Lying Lines Steps Position Perspective Extremes Alternatives Rejects Pairs Schemes Site Dichotomy

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

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

“The legends of fieldwork locate all important sites deep in inaccessible jungles inhabited by fierce beasts and restless natives, and surrounded by miasmas of putrefaction and swarms of tsetse flies.”

Important Beast Legends Fierce Site Restless Jungle Inaccessible Swarms Fieldwork

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

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

“All interesting issues in natural history are questions of relative frequency, not single examples. Everything happens once amidst the richness of nature. But when an unanticipated phenomenon occurs again and again—finally turning into an expectation—then theories are overturned.”

Happens Natural Interesting Issues Example Theory Expectations Things Happen Phenomenon Relative Again And Again Frequency Richness Natural History

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

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

“God was there when it happened. We were not there.... Therefore, we are completely limited to what God has seen fit to tell us, and this information is in His written Word.”

Written Happened Information Fit Scary Written Word

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.”

Form Levels Groups Species Lacking Fossils Paleontology Infuriating Biological Evolution

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

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

“Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay.”

Humans Play Chance Grace Wind Starting Tape Identical Starting Point Human Intelligence Replay

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

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

“The more important the subject and the closer it cuts to the bone of our hopes and needs, the more we are likely to err in establishing a framework for analysis.”

Thinking Needs Important Cutting Subjects Bones Analysis Framework

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

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

“Skepticism's bad rap arises from the impression that, however necessary the activity, it can only be regarded as a negative removal of false claims. Not so... Proper debunking is done in the interest of an alternate model of explanation, not as a nihilistic exercise. The alternate model is rationality itself, tied to moral decency--the most powerful joint instrument for good that our planet has ever known.”

“People who live together naturally catch the looks and air of one another and without having one feature alike, they contract a something in the whole countenance which strikes one as a resemblance”

People Looks Whole Together Air Strikes Features Contracts Countenance Resemblance

Book:Complete Works of Frances Burney (Delphi Classics)

Source: Complete Works of Frances Burney (Delphi Classics)