“Evolution is not just "chance caught on the wing". It is not just a tinkering of the ad hoc, of bricolage, of contraption. It is emergent order honored and honed by selection.”

Evolution and tinkering (1977)

Source: John Maynard Keynes: The Return of the Master (2009), Ch. 8 : Keynes for Today

Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. 75

Source: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Source: 1960s, Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs (1966), p. 307

Source: Differential Psychology: Towards Consensus (1987), pp. 430-1
Context: The key theme in Gordon’s chapter, that lends it theoretical coherence, is his clear perception that the guiding force in my own work in mental measurement arises principally from my constant search for construct validity that can embrace the widest range of phenomena in differential psychology. In my philosophy, science is an unrelenting battle against ad hoc explanation. No other field in psychology with which I have been acquainted has been so infested by ad hoc theories as the attempts to explain social class, racial, and ethnic group differences on various tests of mental ability. My pursuit of what I have called the Spearman hypothesis (Jensen, 1985a), which is nicely explicated by Gordon, represents an effort to displace various ad hoc views of the black-white differences on psychometric tests by pointing out the relationship of the differences to the g loadings of tests, thereby bringing the black-white difference into the whole nomothetic network of the g construct. It is within this framework, I believe, that the black-white difference in psychometric tests and all their correlates, will ultimately have to be understood. Understanding the black-white difference is part and parcel of understanding the nature of g itself. My thoughts about researching the nature of g have been expounded in a recent book chapter (Jensen, 1986b). Enough said. Gordon’s chapter speaks for itself, and, with his three commentaries on the chapters by Osterlind, Shepard, and Scheuneman, leaves little else for me to add to this topic.

Preface, opening sentence, p. vii.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930)

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

Source: The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981), Chapter 6, A New Understanding Of Ethics, p. 172