Ofurhetjur Efahyggjunnar - 3. Stephen Jay Gould (1941 - 2002)

"We pass through this world but once."

"Facts do not 'speak for themselves', they are read in the light of theory"

"Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense."

"When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown."

"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."

"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos."

"Look in the mirror, and don't be tempted to equate transient domination with either intrinsic superiority or prospects for extended survival."

"Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty."

Stephen Jay Gould (1941 - 2002)