“When we look to presumed sources of origin for competing evolutionary explanations of the giraffe's long neck, we find either nothing at all, or only the shortest of speculative conjectures. Length, of course, need not correspond with importance. Garrulous old Polonius, in a rare moment of clarity, reminded us that "brevity is the soul of wit" (and then immediately vitiated his wise observation with a flood of woolly words about Hamlet's Madness.)”

— Stephen Jay Gould, book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"The Tallest Tale", p. 304
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

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Stephen Jay Gould274

American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"The Tallest Tale", p. 317
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

“A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

A Tryst With Destiny (1947) Source: Quicktime excerpt http://www.harappa.com/wall/nehru.html and in: Rediscovery of India, The: A New Subcontinent http://books.google.com/books?id=XRpFol4AnO0C&pg=PA191, Orient Blackswan, 1 January 1999, p. 191 Excerpts from his speech delivered on the eve of declaration of Independence, on 14 August 1947, at the midnight hour declaring Independence of India on 15 August 1947. Context: Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment, we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

“Lord Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“POLONIUS: What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET: Words, words, words.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“There is of course no extraordinary fact resting on testimony only, of which it is not possible to presume some error in the observation or reporting, if we be set upon finding one.”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) (1802–1871) Scottish publisher and writer

Source: Testimony: its Posture in the Scientific World (1859), p. 2

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“In science, conjecture drives both experiment and theory for it is only by forming conjectures (hypotheses) that we can make the direction of our experiments and theories informed. If such and such is true, then I should be able to do this experiment and look for this particular result or I should be able to find this theoretical formulation. Conversely, experiment and theory drive conjecture. One makes a startling observation or has a sudden insight and begins to speculate on its significance and implications and to draw possible conclusions”

Robert Curl (1933) American chemist

conjecture in his Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1996/curl-lecture.html, December 7, 1996, Dawn of the Fullerenes: Experiment and Conjecture

“Lamarck, when speculating on the origin of the long neck of the giraffe, imagined that quadruped to have stretched himself up in order to reach the boughs of lofty trees, until by continued efforts, and longing to reach higher, he obtained an elongated neck. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace simply suppose that, in a season of scarcity, a longer-necked variety, having the advantage in this respect over most of the herd, as being able to browse on foliage out of their reach, survived them, and transmitted its peculiarity of cervical conformation to its successors.”

Charles Lyell (1797–1875) British lawyer and geologist

Source: The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Ch.21, p. 410-411

“The question of origins can’t be proven through experimentation—indeed, there is no absolute proof for either evolution or creation! But a creation geologist looks at the layers of rock and the fossil record and finds that much of it fits in the biblical framework of a catastrophic global Flood, not in the evolutionary model of slow erosion over millions of years.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"It is a Fearful Thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God" http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/06/01/a-fearful-thing-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-the-living-god/, Around the World with Ken Ham (June 1, 2014) Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

“None of us are either all good or all bad – we’re all somewhere in between – but there comes a moment in each life when we take an important step, either toward the light or toward the dark…”

Joseph Delaney (1945) British writer

Source: Attack of the Fiend

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