Stephen Jay Gould Quotes about Lying

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The human mind delights in finding pattern—so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning. No other habit of thought lies so deeply within the soul of a small creature trying to make

The human mind delights in finding pattern—so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning. No other habit of thought lies so deeply within the soul of a small creature trying to make sense of a complex world not constructed for it.

Stephen Jay Gould

Mistake, Lying, Profound

Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History”, p.199, W. W. Norton & Company

The fundamentalists, by 'knowing' the answers before they start, and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science - or any honest intellectual inquiry.

Stephen Jay Gould

Lying, Knowing, Intellectual

"Bully for Brontosaurus". Book by Stephen Jay Gould. "An Essay on a Pig Roast," p. 437, 1991.

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

Hope, Fear, Lying

Stephen Jay Gould (2006). “The Mismeasure of Man (Revised & Expanded)”, p.36, W. W. Norton & Company

Organisms [...] are directed and limited by their past. They must remain imperfect in their form and function, and to that extent unpredictable since they are not optimal machines. We cannot know their future with certainty, if only because a myriad of quirky functional shifts lie within the capacity of any feature, however well adapted to a present role.

Stephen Jay Gould

Lying, Past, Quirky

Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History”, p.65, W. W. Norton & Company

The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. When we are caught in conceptual traps, the best exit is often a change in metaphor not because the new guideline will be truer to nature (for neither the old nor the new metaphor lies "out there" in the woods), but because we need a shift to more fruitful perspectives, and metaphor is often the best agent of conceptual transition.

Stephen Jay Gould

Lying, Views, Perspective

Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History”, p.264, W. W. Norton & Company

As in 1925, creationists are not battling for religion. They have been disowned by leading church men of all persuasions, for they debase religion even more than they misconstrue science. They are a motley collection to be sure, but their core of practical support lies with the evangelical right, and creationism is a mere stalking horse or subsidiary issue in a political program...The enemy is not fundamentalism; it is intolerance. In this case, the intolerance is perverse since it masquerades under the 'liberal' rhetoric of 'equal time'.

Stephen Jay Gould

Horse, Lying, Men

The proof of evolution lies in those adaptations that arise from improbable foundations.

Stephen Jay Gould

Lying, Foundation, Evolution

The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.

Stephen Jay Gould

Lying, Essence, Raw Materials

Stephen Jay Gould (1992). “Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History”, p.44, W. W. Norton & Company

I am not [...] asserting that humans are either genial or aggressive by inborn biological necessity. Obviously, both kindness and violence lie within the bounds of our nature because we perpetrate both, in spades. I only advance a structural claim that social stability rules nearly all the time and must be based on an overwhelmingly predominant (but tragically ignored) frequency of genial acts, and that geniality is therefore our usual and preferred response nearly all the time. [...] [T]he center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days.

Stephen Jay Gould

Kindness, Lying, Usual

"Eight Little Piggies". Book by Stephen Jay Gould, "Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness", p. 282, 1993.

But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions.

Stephen Jay Gould

Lying, Knowledge, Intelligent

Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History”, p.149, W. W. Norton & Company

I am willing to believe that my unobtainable sixty seconds within a sponge or a flatworm might not reveal any mental acuity that I would care to call consciousness. But I am also confident [...] that vultures and sloths, as close evolutionary relatives with the same basic set of organs, lie on our side of any meaningful (and necessarily fuzzy) border and that we are therefore not mistaken when we look them in the eye and see a glimmer of emotional and conceptual affinity.

Stephen Jay Gould

Meaningful, Lying, Believe

The truly awesome intellectuals in our history have not merely made discoveries; they have woven variegated, but firm, tapestries of comprehensive coverage. The tapestries have various fates: Most burn or unravel in the footsteps of time and the fires of later discovery. But their glory lies in their integrity as unified structures of great complexity and broad implication.

Stephen Jay Gould

Lying, Integrity, Fate

Stephen Jay Gould (1993). “Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history”, Vintage

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.

Stephen Jay Gould

Lying, Perspective, Alternatives

Stephen Jay Gould (1990). “Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History”, p.51, W. W. Norton & Company

The vigorous branching of life's tree, and not the accumulating valor of mythical marches to progress, lies behind the persistence and expansion of organic diversity in our tough and constantly stressful world. And if we do not grasp the fundamental nature of branching as the key to life's passage across the geological stage, we will never understand evolution aright.

Stephen Jay Gould

Lying, Persistence, Keys

Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “I Have Landed: Splashes and Reflections in Natural History”, p.396, Random House