Stephen Jay Gould Quotes About Debate

Quotes about: Debate

• Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Science, Ideas, Apples

  "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History". Book by Stephen Jay Gould. "Evolution as Fact and Theory", pp. 254 - 55, 1983.

• In the great debates of early-nineteenth century geology, catastrophists followed the stereotypical method of objective science-empirical literalism. They believed what they saw, interpolated nothing, and read the record of the rocks directly.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Science, Rocks, Records

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History”, p.105, W. W. Norton & Company

• Even the standard example of ancient nonsense - the debate about angels on pinheads - makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Angel, Numbers, House

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History”, p.149, W. W. Norton & Company

• I despair of persuading people to drop the familiar and comforting tactic of dichotomy. Perhaps, instead, we might expand the framework of debates by seeking other dichotomies more appropriate than, or simply different from, the conventional divisions. All dichotomies are simplifications, but the rendition of a conflict along differing axes of several orthogonal dichotomies might provide an amplitude of proper intellectual space without forcing us to forgo our most comforting tool of thought.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Axes, Space, People

  "Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time". Book by Stephen Jay Gould, p. 8, 1987.

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