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The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape our history.
Stephen Jay Gould
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Stephen Jay Gould
Age: 60 †
Born: 1941
Born: September 10
Died: 2002
Died: May 20
Evolutionary Biologist
Historian
Paleontologist
Pathologist
Philosopher
University Teacher
Voice Actor
Writer
Queens
New York
Humans
Tragedy
Asymmetry
Real
Shapes
Structural
Events
Meanness
Existence
Nasty
History
Grants
Nature
Cruel
Power
Rare
Human
Shape
More quotes by Stephen Jay Gould
Charles Darwin viewed the fossil record more as an embarrassment than as an aid to his theory.
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.
Stephen Jay Gould
Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.
Stephen Jay Gould
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.
Stephen Jay Gould
No rational order of divine intelligence unites species. The natural ties are genealogical along contingent pathways of history.
Stephen Jay Gould
Why, then, do I continue to claim that creationism isn't science? Simply because these relatively few statements have been tested and conclusively refuted.
Stephen Jay Gould
Current utility and historical origin are different subjects.
Stephen Jay Gould
Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism--and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency.
Stephen Jay Gould
What's important is that all human knowledge be made available to all intelligent people who want to learn it.
Stephen Jay Gould
No more harmful nonsense exists than [the] common supposition that deepest insight into great questions about the meaning of life or the structure of reality emerges most readily when a free, undisciplined, and uncluttered (read, rather, ignorant and uneducated) mind soars above mere earthly knowledge and concern.
Stephen Jay Gould
But we all recognise the primary foible of frail humanity - our propensity for embracing hope and shunning logic, our tendency to believe what we desire rather than what we observe.
Stephen Jay Gould
In our struggle to understand the history of life, we must learn where to place the boundary between contingent and unpredictable events that occur but once and the more repeatable, lawlike phenomenon that may pervade life's history as generalities.
Stephen Jay Gould
Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Stephen Jay Gould
I hardly recognize what I do well. I just do it.
Stephen Jay Gould
We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes—one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.
Stephen Jay Gould
Guessing right for the wrong reason does not merit scientific immortality.
Stephen Jay Gould
Life is a copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of extinction, not a ladder of predictable progress.
Stephen Jay Gould
[Evolution is] one of the best documented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science.
Stephen Jay Gould
Look in the mirror, and don't be tempted to equate transient domination with either intrinsic superiority or prospects for extended survival.
Stephen Jay Gould
I dreamed of becoming a scientist, in general, and a paleontologist, in particular, ever since the Tyrannosaurus skeleton awed and scared me.
Stephen Jay Gould