Most of the subjects Steve dealt with were meant to be illustrative precisely of the complexity and diversity of the processes and products of evolution. Despite the immense diversity of matters on which he wrote there was, underneath, a unifying theme: that the complexity of the living world cannot be treated as a manifestation of some grand general principle, but that each case must be understood by examining it from the ground up and as the realization of one out of many material paths of causation.

I can't say much about Gould's strengths as a scientist, but for a long time I've regarded him as the second most influential historian of science (next to Tho…

Steve is extremely bright, inventive. He thoroughly understands paleontology; he thoroughly understands evolutionary biology. He has performed an enormous serv…

Now it is not very hard to find out, if you spend a little while reading in evolution, that Gould is the John Kenneth Galbraith of his subject. That is, he is …

... the tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution ...

Raffiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht.

We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.