“A complete theory of evolution must acknowledge a balance between “external” forces of environment imposing selection for local adaptation and “internal” forces representing constraints of inheritance and development. Vavilov placed too much emphasis on internal constraints and downgraded the power of selection. But Western Darwinians have erred equally in practically ignoring (while acknowledging in theory) the limits placed on selection by structure and development—what Vavilov and the older biologists would have called “laws of form.””

—  Stephen Jay Gould, book Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes

"A Hearing for Vavilov", p. 144
Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (1983)

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Stephen Jay Gould274
American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002

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