Science must be understood as a social p... by Stephen Jay Gould | We Heart Quotes

Author Science scientist Evolution Paleontologist

Science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of robots programmed to collect pure information.

- Stephen Jay Gould

Other quotes by Stephen Jay Gould

Needs

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

Scientists have power by virtue of the respect commanded by the discipline. We live with poets and politicians, preachers and philosophers. All have their ways of knowing, and all are valid in their proper domain. The world is too complex and interesting for one way to hold all the answers.

- Stephen Jay Gould

People talk about human intelligence as the greatest adaptation in the history of the planet. It is an amazing and marvelous thing, but in evolutionary terms, it is as likely to do us in as to help us along.

- Stephen Jay Gould

Homo sapiens are a tiny twig on an improbable branch of a contingent limb on a fortunate tree.

- Stephen Jay Gould

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and therefore never scrutinize or question.

- Stephen Jay Gould

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

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