Evolution is an obstacle course not a freeway; the correct analogue for long-term success is a distant punt … - Stephen Jay Gould

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Quote of the day

I came to what I think of as the critical problem: the aging process of a piece of music. I noticed in the '70s that pieces I wrote would sound great the first time I listened to them and then on repeated hearings they sounded older and older until what seemed exciting and vibrant on first listening became stale.

Stephen Jay Gould

Evolution is an obstacle course not a freeway; the correct analogue for long-term success is a distant punt receiver evading legions of would-be tacklers in an oddly zigzagged path toward a goal, not a horse thundering down the flat.

Distant, Goal, Horse, Long, Punt, Zigzagged

Same Author Quotes

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

Ability, Analogies, Fields, Genius

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.

Amoral, Ecology, Nature, Persistent

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