124 quotes
If there is any consistent enemy of science, it is not religion, but irrationalism.
Ever Since Darwin (1977)
Great theories are expansive; failures mire us in dogmatism and tunnel vision.
Eight Little Piggies (1993)
Details are all that matters: God dwells there, and you never get to see Him if you don't struggle to get them right.
Eight Little Piggies (1993)
The world, unfortunately, rarely matches our hopes and consistently refuses to behave in a reasonable manner.
The Panda's Thumb (1980)
The study of social setting does not imply either the irrelevance or nonexistence of a factual world out there.
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)
The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning.
The Mismeasure of Man (1996)
Scientists ignorant of history are not so much condemned to repeat it, as to be confused and unenterprising.
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)
A proper theory of morality depends upon the separation of intentions from results.
Full House (1996)
Guessing right for the wrong reason does not merit scientific immortality.
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)
If genius has any common denominator, I would propose breadth of interest and the ability to construct fruitful analogies between fields.
The Panda's Thumb (1980)
Useful quantification is so often the key to fruitful science.
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)
An old paleontological in joke proclaims that mammalian evolution is a tale told by teeth mating to produce slightly altered descendant teeth.
We cannot overcome obstacles with ignorance.
Full House (1996)
I would rather label the whole enterprise of setting a biological value upon groups for what it is: irrelevant, intellectually unsound, and highly injurious.
The Mismeasure of Man (1996)
Most books, after all, are ephemeral; their specifics, several years later, inspire about as much interest as daily battle reports from the Hundred Years' War.
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)
This new consensus seemed so compelling that Ernst Mayr, the dean of modern Darwinians, opened the ashcan of history for a deposit of Geoffrey's ideas about anatomical unity.
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)
As a word, ecology has been so debased by recent political usage that many people employ it to identify anything good that happens far from cities and without human interference.
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)
Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price of freedom. Add intellectual integrity to the cost basis.
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)
Memory is a fascinating trickster. Words and images have enormous power and can easily displace actual experience over the years.
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)
The enemy is not fundamentalism; it is intolerance. In this case, the intolerance is perverse since it masquerades under the “liberal” rhetoric of “equal time.” But mistake it not.
Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (1983)