Quotes from Stephen Jay Gould

Creative thought in science is exactly this - not a mechanical collection on of facts and intuition, bias, and insight from other fields. Science, at its best, interposes human judgement and ingenuity upon all proceedings. It is, after all (although we sometimes forget it), practiced by humans.

But how can a series of reasonable intermediate forms be constructed? Of what value could the first tiny step toward an eye be to its possessor? The dung-mimicking insect is well protected, but can there be any edge in looking only 5 percent like a turd?

If Ediacara survivors had been able to evolve internal complexity later on, then the pathways from this radically different starting point would have produced a world worthy of science fiction at its best.

Misunderstanding of probability may be the greatest of all general impediments to scientific literacy.

The idea of decimation as a lottery converts the new iconography of the Burgess Shale into a radical view about the pathways of life and the nature of history. ... May our poor and improbable species find joy in its new-found fragility and good fortune! Wouldn't anyone with the slightest sense of adventure, or the most weakly flickering respect for intellect, gladly exchange the old cosmic comfort for a look at something so weird and wonderful - yet so real - as *Opabinia*?

We are, whatever our glories and accomplishments, a momentary cosmic accident that would never arise again if the tree of life could be replanted from seed and regrown under similar conditions.

As Freud observed, our relationship with science must be paradoxical because we are forced to pay an almost intolerable price for each major gain in knowledge and power—the psychological cost of progressive dethronement from the center of things, and increasing marginality in an uncaring universe.

Thus, physics and astronomy relegated our world to a corner of the cosmos, and biology shifted our status from a simulacrum of God to a naked, upright ape.

Por qué el origen de la vida pluricelular se dio en forma de un corto pulso a través de tres faunas radicalmente diferentes , y no como un aumento lento y continuo de complejidad? La historia de la vida es infinitamente fascinante, infinitamente curiosa, pero ciertamente no es la sustancia de nuestros pensamientos y esperanzas usuales.

Wonder and knowledge are both to be cherished.

Shall we appreciate any less the beauty of nature because its harmony is unplanned? And shall the potential of mind cease to inspire our awe and fear because several billion neurons reside in our skulls?

Matter is the ground of all existence; mind, spirit, and God as well, are just words that express the wondrous results of neuronal complexity.

Yes, the world has been different ever since Darwin. But no less exciting, instructing, or uplifting; for if we cannot find purpose in nature, we will have to define it for ourselves.

The nematode enters the insect's mouth, anus, or spiracle and migrates into the hemocoel. There the nematode injects millions of bacterial symbionts from its own intestine into the insect's circulatory system. These bacteria, though harmless to the nematode, kill the insect within hours.

Environments without oxygen are excellent for the preservation of soft parts: no oxidation, no decay by aerobic bacteria. Such conditions are common on earth, particularly in stagnant basins. But the very conditions that promote preservation also decree that few organisms, if any, make their natural home in such places.

Algunas transformaciones son manifiestas y heroicas; otras son tranquilas y sin acontecimientos notables en su devenir, pero no menos importantes en su resultado.

We do not usually surrender the intellectual system of a lifetime for one bit of information that does not fit.

La nueva interpretación de la fauna de Burguess Shale es una de las transformaciones más invisibles por dos razones básicas, pero su capacidad para modificar nuestra concepción de la vida no puede ser igualada por ningún otro descubrimiento paleontológico.

Single facts almost never slay worldviews, at least not right away.

I suggest that the true Darwinian spirit might salvage our depleted world by denying a favorite theme of Western arrogance—that we are meant to have control and dominion over the earth and its life because we are the loftiest product of a preordained process.

This or that is proclaimed awesome every second sentence - and we have lost a wonderful English word.

The fossils were sublime, but I found as much fascination in the odd paraphernalia of culture that, for various reasons, end up in museum drawers. Late eighteenth century apothecary boxes, thread cases from the mills of Lawrence, Victorian cigar boxes of gaudy Cuban design - all the better to house fossils.

This is a changing world. It changes from day to day, year to year, and from age to age. Rivers deepen their gorges as they carry more land to the sea. Mountains rise, only to be leveled gradually by winds and rain. Continents rise and sink into the sea. Such are the gradual changes of the physical earth as days add into years and years combine to become ages.

Seek with enough conviction aforethought and ye shall find.