Stephen Jay Gould Doe Quotations

If new species arise very rapidly in small, peripherally isolated local populations, then the great expectation of insensibly graded fossil sequences is a chimera. A new species does not evolve in the area of its ancestors; it does not arise from the slow transformation of all its forbears. co-author with Niles Eldridge

The only universal attribute of scientific statements resides in their potential fallibility. If a claim cannot be disproven, it does not belong to the enterprise of science.

Guessing right for the wrong reason does not merit scientific immortality.

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

History does include aspects of directionality, and the present range of causes and phenomena does not exhaust the realm of past possibilities.

[G]enes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of chemical processes. Genes do not make "novelty seeking" or any other complex and overt behavior. Predisposition via a long chain of complex chemical reactions, mediated through a more complex series of life's circumstances, does not equal identification or even causation.