Quotes from Stephen Jay Gould
All evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is nature's only irreducible essence... I had to place myself amidst the variation.
- Stephen Jay Gould
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.
- Stephen Jay Gould
The equation of evolution with progress represents our strongest cultural impediment to a proper understanding of this greatest biological revolution in the history of human thought.
- Stephen Jay Gould
Always be suspicious of conclusions that reinforce uncritical hope and follow comforting traditions of Western thought.
- Stephen Jay Gould
Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense.
- Stephen Jay Gould
Science is all those things which are confirmed to such a degree that it would be unreasonable to withhold one's provisional consent.
- Stephen Jay Gould
The enemy of knowledge and science is irrationalism, not religion
- Stephen Jay Gould
I don't think academic writing ever was wonderful. However, science used to be much less specialized.
- Stephen Jay Gould
A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right.
- Stephen Jay Gould
People perceive me as a commodity. They just don't think anything of asking for five minutes of my time. It never occurs to them that if they're asking for it and another thousand people are asking, I don't have 1,000 five minutes to give.
- Stephen Jay Gould
The causes of life's history [cannot] resolve the riddle of life's meaning.
- Stephen Jay Gould
The Darwinian revolution is about essence. The Darwinian revolution is about who we are, it's what we're made of, it's what our life means insofar as science can answer that question.
- Stephen Jay Gould