“Evolution is the conviction that organisms developed their current forms by an extended history of continual transformation, and that ties of genealogy bind all living things into one nexus. Panselectionism is a denial of history, for perfection covers the tracks of time. A perfect wing may have evolved to its current state, but it may have been created just as we find it. We simply cannot tell if perfection be our only evidence. As Darwin himself understood so well, the primary proofs of evolution are oddities and imperfections that must record pathways of historical descent—the panda's thumb and the flamingo's smile of my book titles”

— Stephen Jay Gould , book Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle

chosen to illustrate this paramount principle of history
Source: Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle (1987), p. 84

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Evolution is the conviction that organisms developed their current forms by an extended history of continual transforma…" by Stephen Jay Gould?

Stephen Jay Gould photo

Stephen Jay Gould 274

American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002

Related quotes

“Our world is not an optimal place, fine tuned by omnipotent forces of selection. It is a quirky mass of imperfections, working well enough (often admirably); a jury-rigged set of adaptations built of curious parts made available by past histories in different contexts. […] A world optimally adapted to current environments is a world without history, and a world without history might have been created as we find it. History matters; it confounds perfection and proves that current life transformed its own past.”

Stephen Jay Gould book The Flamingo's Smile

"Only His Wings Remained", p. 54
The Flamingo's Smile (1985)

“Neither the current state nor the future prospects of this evolving order can be understood without an appreciation of its history.”

Barry Eichengreen Introduction

Source: Globalizing Capital (2008), Chapter 1. Introduction

“The body of scientific evidence supporting creation science is as strong as that supporting evolution. In fact, it may be stronger…. The evidence for evolution is far less compelling than we have been led to believe. Evolution is not a scientific "fact," since it cannot actually be observed in a laboratory. Rather, evolution is merely a scientific theory or "guess."… It is a very bad guess at that. The scientific problems with evolution are so serious that it could accurately be termed a "myth."”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987) (dissenting) http://www.belcherfoundation.org/edwards_v_aguillard_dissent.htm
Has been misleadingly quoted without Scalia's statements attributing the assertions to witness testimony paragraphs earlier, "Before summarizing the testimony of Senator Keith and his supporters, I wish to make clear that I by no means intend to endorse its accuracy... Senator Keith and his witnesses testified essentially as set forth in the following numbered paragraphs:", as in Michael Stone, " Scalia Commencement Speech Supports Young Earth Creationism http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2015/06/scalia-commencement-speech-supports-young-earth-creationism/" (), Progressive Secular Humanist, Patheos.
Misattributed

“He stands alone in unapproachable grandeur. Nineteen centuries roll away, and His character so lives that He inspires, millions of men with impassioned love. Other men may seem to be children of their surroundings; He became what He was despite His surroundings, and is the only one who can say in truth and holiness, "Do as I have done." He, the ideal, the perfect one of our race, appears in an age when such an ideal could not have been developed in act — could not have been conceived in thought. In the theory of development the perfection of humanity is the final result of man's history ages hence. Christ therefore is the great miracle which more than any other establishes the fact of miracles. Christ Himself is proof of His own miracles.”

Richard Reynolds (bishop) (1674–1743) Bishop of Lincoln

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 57.

“So remember, we have to find God, that person who is perfect; He is ours and we are His, and we have to find Him … So remember: we are part of Him who has manifested Himself as a Guru and who has come into this earth, and now we have to be one with Him. We have to completely merge and make our souls one with Him because He is perfect, and once we merge with Him we will also be perfect … So if you go to Him, ask. Ask and it shall be given, knock and it shall be opened unto you.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Prem Nagar Ashram, India, 10 December 1971 - quoted on p256 of "Who is Guru Maharaj Ji?" published by Bantam, 1973
1970s

“It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.”

Colson Whitehead book The Intuitionist

Source: The Intuitionist

“But if there has been on this earth no real, perfect human life, no love that never cooled, no faith that never failed, which may shine as a loadstar across the darkness of our experience, a light to light amidst all convictions of our own meanness and all suspicions of other's littleness, why, we may have a religion, but we have not a Christianity. For if we lose Him as a Brother, we cannot feel Him as a Saviour.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 55.

“In Plato’s Republic one finds the proposition: God, being perfect, cannot change (not for the better, since "perfect" means that there can be no better; not for the worse, since ability to change for the worse, to decay, degenerate, or become corrupt, is a weakness, an imperfection). The argument may seem cogent, but it is so only if two assumptions are valid: that it is possible to conceive of a meaning for "perfect" that excludes change in any and every respect and that we must conceive God as perfect in just this sense.”

Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) Philosopher

Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (1984)

“My own principal interest lies in the sphere of industrial organization, which of all major forms of human organization is, in its present magnitude, the most modern. For this the reason is evident. The vast present-day units of industrial organization are products mainly of one creating factor, namely the technology of mass production, and this technology, born of the industrial revolution, has been almost exclusively an evolution of the last century. In contrast other major forms of human organization — the state, the church, the army — are as old as human history itself. Yet if we examine the structure of these forms of organization we shall find that, however diverse their purposes, the underlying principles of organization are ever the same.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: "The principles of organization", 1937, p. 90

“Looking at these men, and realizing how high they stand among humanity, how far they have gone in human evolution, is it not logical to say that we cannot see the bounds of human attainment, and that there may well have been, and even now may be, men far further developed even than they, men great in spirituality as well as knowledge or artistic power, men complete as regards human perfections—men precisely such as the Adepts or Supermen whom some of us have had the inestimable privilege to encounter? This galaxy of human genius that enriches and beautifies the pages of history is at the same time the glory and the hope of all mankind, for we know that these Greater Ones are the forerunners of the rest, and that they flash out as beacons, as veritable light-bearers to show us the path which we must tread if we wish to reach the glory which shall presently be revealed.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Masters and the Path (1925), Ch. 1

Related topics