We who revel in nature's diversity and feel instructed by every animal tend to brand Homo sapiens as … - Stephen Jay Gould

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

The public man needs but one patron, namely, the lucky moment.

Stephen Jay Gould

We who revel in nature's diversity and feel instructed by every animal tend to brand Homo sapiens as the greatest catastrophe since the Cretaceous extinction.

Nature, Animal, Diversity, Catastrophe, Instructed, Extinction

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

Similar Quotes

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The public man needs but one patron, namely, the lucky moment.

Lucky, Men, Moment, Namely, Needs, Public

Sherrod Brown

There`s a great difference of running for president and being president. I think that deer in the headlights look in President-elect`s Trump face when he was going in and out of a meeting with our president said that, that he does see it`s different now, but he doesn`t seem to think it`s different enough.

Difference, Face, President, Running, Think, Thinking

Ernest Borgnine

I think you have to keep going. Otherwise, you know these fellas that say, "Boy I can't wait to retire. Boy, I'm going to be 65 years old, and I'm retiring and I'm quitting and that's it. " Well, two weeks later they're saying to themselves, "What the hell am I gonna do?" And first thing you know they find themselves in a wheelchair or in a rocking chair going back and forth, back and forth, and that's the end of it. And suddenly you're dead.

Boys, Chair, Rocking, Thinking, Waiting, Wheelchair

Frances Wright

Of the thousands who have paid homage to virtue, barely one has thought to inspect the pedestal on which it stands.

Barely, Paid, Pedestal, Thought, Virtue

Booker T. Washington

There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

Business, Class, Jobs, Public, Race