The contingency of history (both for life in general and for the cultures of Homo sapiens ) and … - Stephen Jay Gould

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Native plants give us a sense of where we are in this great land of ours. I want Texas to look like Texas and Vermont to look like Vermont.

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.

Culture, Different, Environment, Homo, Solutions, Theological

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If genius has any common denominator, I would propose breadth of interest and the ability to construct fruitful analogies between fields.

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Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism--and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency.

Agents, Decency, Evolution, Keys, Organized, Skepticism

Human life is the result of a glorious evolutionary accident.

Accident, Atheism, Human, Life Is, Religion, Result

Nature is what she is - amoral and persistent.

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Darwin's principle of natural selection leads to the prediction that the proper way to analyze any evolutionary development is to see the new features as adaptive to environments. And that's a perfectly good principle. The problem is that there are many evolutionary biologists who view everything that happens in evolution as directly evolved for adaptive benefit. And that just doesn't work. Whenever you build a structure for adaptive reasons, the structure is going to exhibit properties that have nothing to do with adaptation. They're just side consequences.

Benefit, Development, Environment, Evolution, Happens, Problem