Quotes from book
Ever Since Darwin

Stephen Jay Gould

Ever Since Darwin is a 1977 book by the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Gould's first book of collected essays, it originated from his monthly column "This View of Life," published in Natural History magazine. Edwin Barber—who was then the editorial director for W. W. Norton & Company— encouraged Gould to produce a book. He soon commissioned Gould to write The Mismeasure of Man, but it was not until three years later, when Gould accumulated 33 columns, that it occurred to either of them that the Natural History columns should be published in a single volume. The collection of essays, written between 1973–1977, became a best-seller and propelled Gould to national prominence.

“If you defend a behavior by arguing that people are programmed directly for it, then how do you continue to defend it if your speculation is wrong, for the behavior then becomes unnatural and worthy of condemnation. Better to stick resolutely to a philosophical position on human liberty: what free adults do with each other in their own private lives is their business alone. It need not be vindicated — and must not be condemned—by genetic speculation.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"So Cleverly Kind an Animal", p. 267
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

“But here I stop—short of any deterministic speculation that attributes specific behaviors to the possession of specific altruist or opportunist genes. Our genetic makeup permits a wide range of behaviors—from Ebenezer Scrooge before to Ebenezer Scrooge after. I do not believe that the miser hoards through opportunist genes or that the philanthropist gives because nature endowed him with more than the normal complement of altruist genes. Upbringing, culture, class, status, and all the intangibles that we call “free will,” determine how we restrict our behaviors from the wide spectrum—extreme altruism to extreme selfishness—that our genes permit.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"So Cleverly Kind an Animal", p. 266
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

“I contend that the continued racial classification of Homo sapiens represents an outmoded approach to the general problem of differentiation within a species. In other words, I reject a racial classification of humans for the same reasons that I prefer not to divide into subspecies the prodigiously variable West Indian land snails that form the subject of my own research.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"Why We Should Not Name Human Races—A Biological View", p. 231
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

“If there is any consistent enemy of science, it is not religion, but irrationalism.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"The Reverent Thomas' Dirty Little Planet", p. 141
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

“Each of the major sciences has contributed an essential ingredient in our long retreat from an initial belief in our own cosmic importance. Astronomy defined our home as a small planet tucked away in one corner of an average galaxy among millions; biology took away our status as paragons created in the image of God; geology gave us the immensity of time and taught us how little of it our own species has occupied.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"Uniformity and Catastrophe", p. 147
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

“I do not claim that intelligence, however defined, has no genetic basis—I regard it as trivially true, uninteresting, and unimportant that it does. The expression of any trait represents a complex interaction of heredity and environment. [… A] specific claim purporting to demonstrate a mean genetic deficiency in the intelligence of American blacks rests upon no new facts whatever and can cite no valid data in its support. It is just as likely that blacks have a genetic advantage over whites. And, either way, it doesn't matter a damn. An individual can't be judged by his group mean.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"Racist Arguments and IQ", pp. 246–47
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

“For Linnaeus, Homo sapiens was both special and not special. […] Special and not special have come to mean nonbiological and biological, or nurture and nature. These later polarizations are nonsensical. Humans are animals and everything we do lies within our biological potential. […] [T]he statement that humans are animals does not imply that our specific patterns of behavior and social arrangements are in any way directly determined by our genes. Potentiality and determination are different concepts.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"Biological Potentiality vs. Biological Determinism", p. 251
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

“I want to argue that the “sudden” appearance of species in the fossil record and our failure to note subsequent evolutionary change within them is the proper prediction of evolutionary theory as we understand it. […] Evolutionary “sequences” are not rungs on a ladder, but our retrospective reconstruction of a circuitous path running like a labyrinth, branch to branch, from the base of the bush to a lineage now surviving at its top.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"Bushes and Ladders in Human Evolution", p. 61
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

“[A]s a graduate student at Columbia University, I remember the a priori derision of my distinguished stratigraphy professor toward a visiting Australian drifter [a supporter of the theory of continental drift]. […] Today […] my own students would dismiss with even more derision anyone who denied the evident truth of continental drift—a prophetic madman is at least amusing; a superannuated fuddy-duddy is merely pitiful.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"The Validation of Continental Drift", pp. 160–61
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

“I am not unmindful of the journalist's quip that yesterday's paper wraps today's garbage. I am also not unmindful of the outrages visited upon our forests to publish redundant and incoherent collections of essays; for, like Dr. Seuss' Lorax, I like to think that I speak for the trees. Beyond vanity, my only excuses for a collection of these essays lie in the observation that many people like (and as many people despise) them, and that they seem to cohere about a common theme—Darwin's evolutionary perspective as an antidote to our cosmic arrogance.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

Prologue, p. 14
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

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