Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Stephen Jay Gould (American Paleontologist)

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) was an American paleontologist who contributed to the nature of life and evolutionary science. An educator and a renowned popularizer of science, he investigated modifications of Darwinian evolutionary theory, suggested the concept of punctuated equilibrium, and expounded on the social context of the scientific approach.

Born in Queens, New York, Gould qualified as a geologist at Antioch College, Ohio, took a doctorate in paleontology at Columbia University, and spent a brief period at Leeds University. He was based for most of his life at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Gould was best known to the public through his unbroken sequence of 300 monthly essays in Natural History magazine (1974–2001.) They were republished in a stream of popular books such as Ever Since Darwin (1977,) The Panda’s Thumb (1980,) Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes (1983,) and In Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (1999,) all translated into dozens of languages.

Gould analyzed the pseudoscience of claims regarding the inheritance of intelligence. He developed his arguments in one of his best-known books, The Mismeasure of Man (1981,) which became an influential reference for anti-racist campaigners. Gould’s other bestsellers include Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1977,) Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle (1987,) and Wonderful Life (1989.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by 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
Topics: Criticism, Evolution

Details are all that matters; God dwells in these and you never get to see Him if you don’t struggle to get them right.
—Stephen Jay Gould
Topics: God

Science is an integral part of culture. It’s not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It’s one of the glories of the human intellectual tradition.
—Stephen Jay Gould
Topics: Scientists, Science

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
Topics: Science

I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s rain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and ied in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould
Topics: Justice

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and therefore never scrutinize or question.
—Stephen Jay Gould
Topics: Storytelling

The center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days.
—Stephen Jay Gould
Topics: Kindness

The more important the subject and the closer it cuts to the bone of our hopes and needs, the more we are likely to err in establishing a framework for analysis.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny — and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they usually do).
—Stephen Jay Gould

We pass through this world but once. 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
Topics: Civilization

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