In science, “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.” I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) American paleontologist, geologist, biologist
“Evolution as Fact and Theory” in Speak Out Against the New Right [ed. Herbert Vetter] (1982)
Full text.
Quotations by:
Gould, Stephen Jay
The fundamentalists, by ‘knowing’ the answers before they start, and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science — or of any honest intellectual inquiry.
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) American paleontologist, geologist, biologist
Bully for Brontosaurus
Elitism is repulsive when based upon external and artificial limitations like race, gender, or social class. Repulsive and utterly false — for that spark of genius is randomly distributed across all cruel barriers of our social prejudice. We therefore must grant access — and encouragement — to everyone; and must be increasingly vigilant, and tirelessly attentive, in providing such opportunities to all children. We will have no justice until this kind of equality can be attained. But if only a small minority respond, and these are our best and brightest of all races, classes, and genders, shall we deny them the pinnacle of their soul’s striving because all their colleagues prefer passivity and flashing lights? Let them lift their eyes to hills of books, and at least a few museums that display the full magic of nature’s variety. What is wrong with this truly democratic form of elitism?
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) American paleontologist, geologist, biologist
Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History, Part 5, ch. 18 “Cabinet Museums: Alive, Alive, O!” (1995)
(Source)
History is complex. It cannot be reproduced in a flask.
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) American paleontologist, geologist, biologist
The Panda’s Thumb
Results rarely specify their causes unambiguously.
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) American paleontologist, geologist, biologist
The Panda’s Thumb
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) American paleontologist, geologist, biologist
The Panda’s Thumb, Part 4, ch. 13 “Wide Hats and Narrow Minds” (1980)
(Source)
The best way to teach that one should be suspicious of everything one holds dear is through the study of brilliant people of the past, who, by modern standards are so wrong, and where it is easy to see that their errors were the result of cultural biases of their day.
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) American paleontologist, geologist, biologist
In Charles Petit, “A Thinker Who Delights in Discredited Theories,” San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle (14 Feb 1993)