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Quotes from Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms — Stephen Jay Gould

1941–2002 United States

← All quotes by Stephen Jay Gould

23 quotes

If the neck of the giraffe elongates an inch at a time, then the full panoply of supporting structures need not arise at every step. The coordinated adaptation can be built piecemeal. Some animals may slightly elongate the neck, others the legs; still others may develop stronger neck muscles. By sexual reproduction, the favorable features of different organisms may be combined in offspring.

Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

We might better read the entire life cycle as a division of labor, with larvae as feeding and growing stages, and the adult as a short-lived reproductive machine. In this sense, we could well view the adult fly's day as the larva's clever and transient device for making a new generation of truly fundamental feeders.

Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

If we choose a weak and foolish speculation as a primary textbook illustration (falsely assuming that the tale possesses a weight of history and a sanction of evidence), then we are in for trouble - as critics properly nail the particular weakness, and then assume that the whole theory must be in danger if supporters choose such a fatuous case as a primary illustration.

Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Stephen Jay Gould (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.