Stephen Jay Gould Quotes About Science

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  En ciencia, "hecho" sólo puede significar "confirmado hasta tal punto que sería perverso negar un asentimiento provisional". Supongo que las manzanas podrían empezar a subir mañana, pero esa posibilidad no merece el mismo tiempo en las aulas de física.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Media, Ciencia, Manzanas

  Dientes de gallina y dedos de caballo "Evolution as Fact and Theory" (1983)

• Pocas tragedias pueden ser más extensas que el atrofiamiento de la vida, pocas injusticias más profundas que la negación de una oportunidad de esforzarse o incluso de esperar, por un límite impuesto desde fuera, pero falsamente identificado como si estuviera dentro.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Hope, Fear, Lying

  Stephen Jay Gould (2006). “The Mismeasure of Man (Revised & Expanded)”, p.36, W. W. Norton & Company

• Los hechos y las teorías son cosas distintas, no peldaños en una jerarquía de certeza creciente. Los hechos son los datos del mundo. Las teorías son estructuras de ideas que explican e interpretan los hechos. Los hechos no desaparecen mientras los científicos debaten teorías rivales para explicarlos. La teoría de la gravitación de Einstein sustituyó a la de Newton, pero las manzanas no quedaron suspendidas en el aire a la espera del resultado.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Ciencia, Ideas, Manzanas

  "Dientes de gallina y dedos de caballo: Otras reflexiones sobre historia natural". Libro de Stephen Jay Gould. "Evolution as Fact and Theory", pp. 254 - 55, 1983.

• Todas las revoluciones científicas más importantes incluyen, como único rasgo común, el destronamiento de la arrogancia humana de un pedestal tras otro de convicciones previas sobre nuestra centralidad en el cosmos.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Humildad, Ciencia, Arrogancia

• 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

  Science, Intellectual, Culture

  1990 In The Independent, 24 Jan.

• Las historias más erróneas son las que creemos conocer mejor y, por tanto, nunca escrutamos ni cuestionamos.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Ciencia, Pensamiento, Niebla

  Stephen Jay Gould (2011). "Full House", p.57, Harvard University Press.

• No Geologist worth anything is permanently bound to a desk or laboratory, but the charming notion that true science can only be based on unbiased observation of nature in the raw is mythology. Creative work, in geology and anywhere else, is interaction and synthesis: half-baked ideas from a bar room, rocks in the field, chains of thought from lonely walks, numbers squeezed from rocks in a laboratory, numbers from a calculator riveted to a desk, fancy equipment usually malfunctioning on expensive ships, cheap equipment in the human cranium, arguments before a road cut.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Lonely, Creativity, Science

• Creation science has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectual heritage-good teaching-than a bill forcing our honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise?.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Teacher, Teaching, 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

  Science, Degrees, Would Be

• Without a commitment to science and rationality in its proper domain, there can be no solution to the problems that engulf us. Still, the Yahoos never rest.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Commitment, Science, Problem

• El Homo erectus asiático murió sin problemas y no entra en nuestra ascendencia inmediata (pues evolucionamos a partir de poblaciones africanas); los neandertales eran primos colaterales, quizá ya vivían en Europa mientras nosotros surgíamos en África... En otras palabras, somos una entidad improbable y frágil, afortunadamente exitosa tras unos comienzos precarios como pequeña población en África, no el resultado final predecible de una tendencia global. Somos una cosa, un elemento de la historia, no una encarnación de principios generales.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Cousin, Successful, Science

  "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History".

• Evolution has encountered no intellectual trouble; no new arguments have been offered. Creationism is a home-grown phenomenon of American sociocultural history-a splinter movement ... who believe that every word in the Bible must be literally true, whatever such a claim might mean.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Believe, Home, Mean

  Stephen Jay Gould (2011). “Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms”, p.270, Harvard University Press

• La evolución es una inferencia a partir de miles de fuentes independientes, la única estructura conceptual que puede dar un sentido unificado a toda esta información dispar.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Independent, Science, Information

  Stephen Jay Gould (1999). “Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History”, Three Rivers Press (CA)

• History employs evolution to structure biological events in time.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Time, Science, History

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History”, p.18, W. W. Norton & Company

• The equation of evolution with progress represents our strongest cultural impediment to a proper understanding of this greatest biological revolution in the history of human thought.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Science, Understanding, Progress

  Stephen Jay Gould (2011). “Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms”, p.173, Harvard University Press

• We are the accidental result of an unplanned process ... the fragile result of an enormous concatenation of improbabilities, not the predictable product of any definite process.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Science, Evolution, Process

• Mary Anning [is] probably the most important unsung (or inadequately sung) collecting force in the history of paleontology.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Science, Important, Paleontology

• Biological determinism is, in its essence, a theory of limits. It takes the current status of groups as a measure of where they should and must be ... We inhabit a world of human differences and predilections, but the extrapolation of these facts to theories of rigid limits is ideology.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Science, Essence, Differences

  Stephen Jay Gould (2006). “The Mismeasure of Man (Revised & Expanded)”, p.36, W. W. Norton & Company

• In the great debates of early-nineteenth century geology, catastrophists followed the stereotypical method of objective science-empirical literalism. They believed what they saw, interpolated nothing, and read the record of the rocks directly.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Science, Rocks, Records

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History”, p.105, W. W. Norton & Company

• Theory and fact are equally strong and utterly interdependent; one has no meaning without the other. We need theory to organize and interpret facts, even to know what we can or might observe. And we need facts to validate theories and give them substance.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Strong, Science, Giving

  Stephen Jay Gould (2011). “Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms”, p.155, Harvard University Press

• Some beliefs may be subject to such instant, brutal and unambiguous rejection. For example: no left-coiling periwinkle has ever been found among millions of snails examined. If I happen to find one during my walk on Nobska beach tomorrow morning, a century of well nurtured negative evidence will collapse in an instant.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Beach, Morning, Science

• Surely the mitochondrion that first entered another cell was not thinking about the future benefits of cooperation and integration; it was merely trying to make its own living in a tough Darwinian world

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Future, Science, Thinking

  Stephen Jay Gould (1990). “Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History”, p.310, W. W. Norton & Company

• Always be suspicious of conclusions that reinforce uncritical hope and follow comforting traditions of Western thought.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Hope, Science, Comforting

  Stephen Jay Gould (1987). “The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History”, p.401, W. W. Norton & Company

• It has become, in my view, a bit too trendy to regard the acceptance of death as something tantamount to intrinsic dignity. Of course I agree with the preacher of Ecclesiastes that there is a time to love and a time to die - and when my skein runs out I hope to face the end calmly and in my own way. For most situations, however, I prefer the more martial view that death is the ultimate enemy - and I find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Running, Science, Acceptance

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History”, p.478, W. W. Norton & Company

• A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Science, Men, Doe

  1977 Ever Since Darwin.

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