Stephen Jay Gould Theory Quotations

A complete theory of evolution must acknowledge a balance between "external" forces of environment imposing selection for local adaptation and "internal" forces representing constraints of inheritance and development. Vavilov placed too much emphasis on internal constraints and downgraded the power of selection. But Western Darwinians have erred equally in practically ignoring (while acknowledging in theory) the limits placed on selection by structure and development what Vavilov and the older biologists would have called "laws of form.

The world is too complex for subsumption under any general theory of change.

Great theories are expansive; failures mire us in dogmatism and tunnel vision.

The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. It in fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil record. It is gradualism that we must reject, not Darwinism.

I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know.

Theory-free science makes about as much sense as value-free politics.