“With copious evidence ranging from Plato's haughtiness to Beethoven's tirades, we may conclude that the most brilliant people of history tend to be a prickly lot.”
Stephen Jay Gould“Constrained optimization is the art of compromise between conflicting objectives. This is what design is all about. To find fault with biological design - as Stephen Jay Gould regularly does - because it misses some idealized optimum is therefore gratuitous. Not knowing the objectives of the designer, Gould is in no position to say whether the designer has proposed a faulty compromise among those objectives.”
William A. Dembski, Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design“We reveal ourselves in the metaphors we choose for depicting the cosmos in miniature.”
Stephen Jay Gould, Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin“Cultural change works orders of magnitude faster then genetic change. Stephen Jay Gould”
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion“We pass through this world but once.”
Stephen Jay Gould“If I don't make it, I'll be very sad that there are things I didn't do, but I'm happy that I've done what I have.”
Stephen Jay Gould“What you see is that the most outstanding feature of life's history is a constant domination by bacteria.”
Stephen Jay Gould“With copious evidence ranging from Plato's haughtiness to Beethoven's tirades, we may conclude that the most brilliant people of history tend to be a prickly lot.”
Stephen Jay Gould“Death is the ultimate enemy - and I find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.”
Stephen Jay Gould“Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.”
Stephen Jay Gould“People, as curious primates, dote on concrete objects that can be seen and fondled. God dwells among the details, not in the realm of pure generality. We must tackle and grasp the larger, encompassing themes of our universe, but we make our best approach through small curiosities that rivet our attention - all those pretty pebbles on the shoreline of knowledge. For the ocean of truth washes over the pebbles with every wave, and they rattle and clink with the most wondrous din.”
Stephen Jay Gould