Stephen Jay Gould Quotes About Belief

Quotes about: Belief

• Antiessentialist thinking forces us to view the world differently. We must accept shadings and continua as fundamental. We lose criteria for judgment by comparison to some ideal: short people, retarded people, people of other beliefs, colors, and religions are people of full status.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Thinking, Views, Color

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History”, p.161, W. W. Norton & Company

• 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

  Home, Average, Taught Us

  Stephen Jay Gould (1992). “Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History”, p.147, W. W. Norton & Company

• Evolution has encountered no intellectual trouble; no new arguments have been offered. Creationism is a home-grown phenomenon of American sociocultural history-a splinter movement ... who believe that every word in the Bible must be literally true, whatever such a claim might mean.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Believe, Home, Mean

  Stephen Jay Gould (2011). “Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms”, p.270, Harvard University Press

• Some beliefs may be subject to such instant, brutal and unambiguous rejection. For example: no left-coiling periwinkle has ever been found among millions of snails examined. If I happen to find one during my walk on Nobska beach tomorrow morning, a century of well nurtured negative evidence will collapse in an instant.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Beach, Morning, Science

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