George Gaylord Simpson Quotes & Sayings

Recognition of this kinship with the rest of the universe is necessary for understanding him, but his essential nature is defined by qualities found nowhere else, not by those he has in common with apes, fishes, trees, fire, or anything other than himself. — George Gaylord Simpson

The passion for naming things is an odd human trait. It is strange that men always feel so much more at ease when they have put appellations on the things around them and that a wild, new region almost seems familiar and subdued once enough names have been used on it, even though in fact it is not changed in the slightest. Or, on second thought, it is perhaps not really strange. The urge to name must be as old as the human race, as old as speech which is one of the really fundamental characteristics by which we rise above the brutes, and thus a basic and essential part of the human spirit or soul. The naming fallacy is common enough even in science. Many a scientist claims to have explained some phenomenon when in truth all he has done is to give it a name. — George Gaylord Simpson

I don't think that evolution is supremely important because it is my specialty; it is my specialty because I think it is supremely important. [In: Edward J. Larson (2004) Evolution, Modern Library. p. 250] — George Gaylord Simpson

Darwin recognized the fact that paleontology then seemed to provide evidence against rather for evolution in general or the gradual origin of taxonomic categories in particular. — George Gaylord Simpson

Species evolve exactly as if they were adapting as best they could to a changing world, and not at all as if they were moving toward a set goal. — George Gaylord Simpson

Certainly paleontologists have found samples of an extremely small fraction, only, of the earth's extinct species, and even for groups that are most readily preserved and found as fossils they can never expect to find more than a fraction. — George Gaylord Simpson

Splitting and gradual divergence of genera is exemplified very well and in a large variety of organisms. — George Gaylord Simpson

Human judgment is notoriously fallible and perhaps seldom more so than in facile decisions that a character has no adaptive significance because we do not know the use of it. — George Gaylord Simpson

The greatest impact of the Darwinian revolution...was that it completed the liberation from superstition and fear that began in the physical sciences a few centuries before. Man, too, is a natural phenomenon. [in "The evolutionary concept of man", 1972, p. 35.] — George Gaylord Simpson

From horses we may learn not only about the horse itself but also about animals in general, indeed about ourselves and about life as a whole. — George Gaylord Simpson

Most of the dogmatic religions have exhibited a perverse talent for taking the wrong side on the most important concepts in the material universe, from the structure of the solar system to the origin of man. — George Gaylord Simpson

[Darwin] gave an answer to the tremendous question that so deeply concerns...What is Man? [He] answered this question to the effect that man is a natural product of the universe;...man is an animal, a vertebrate, a mammal, and a primate....By bringing man into the evolutionary picture, Darwin finally took the last step in our emancipation and finally made our world rational. [Yet] Darwin felt humility and awe that seem to me truly religious. ["Darwin led us into this modern world," 1959, p. 271-272.] — George Gaylord Simpson

Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned. — George Gaylord Simpson

Now we do have many examples of transitional sequences. — George Gaylord Simpson

Among the things most characteristic of organisms--most distinctive of living as opposed to inorganic systems--is a sort of directedness. Their structures and activities have an adaptedness, an evident and vital usefulness to the organism. Darwin's answer and ours is to accept the common sense view...[that] the end ("telos") [is] that the individual and the species may survive. But this end is (usually) unconscious and impersonal. Naive teleology is controverted not by ignoring the obvious existence of such ends but by providing a naturalistic, materialistic explanation of the adaptive characteristics serving them. [Book review in "Science," 1959, p. 673.] — George Gaylord Simpson

Every paleontologist knows that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of family appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences. — George Gaylord Simpson

The earliest and most primitive known members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous sequence from one order to another known. In most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed. — George Gaylord Simpson

Over and over again in the study of the history of life it appears that what can happen does happen. There is little suggestion that what occurs must occur, that it was fated or that it follows some fixed plan, except simply as the expansion of life follows the opportunities that are presented. In this sense, an outstanding characteristic of evolution is its opportunism.["Meaning of Evolution," 1949, p. 160.] — George Gaylord Simpson

The meaning that we are seeking in evolution is its meaning to us, to man. The ethics of evolution must be human ethics. It is one of the many unique qualities of man, the new sort of animal, that he is the only ethical animal. The ethical need and its fulfillment are also products of evolution, but they have been produced in man alone. — George Gaylord Simpson

The opposition to teaching evolution is, of course, almost always given a religious reason. That may usually be its real basis, but I think it is often a mask, perhaps unconscious, for underlying anti-intellectualism or antiscientism. — George Gaylord Simpson

It is obvious that the great majority of humans throughout history have had grossly, even ridiculously, unrealistic concepts of the world. Man is, among many other things, the mistaken animal, the foolish animal. Other species doubtless have much more limited ideas about the world, but what ideas they do have are much less likely to be wrong and are never foolish. White cats do not denigrate black, and dogs do not ask Baal, Jehovah, or other Semitic gods to perform miracles for them. — George Gaylord Simpson

He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal, and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed to all that is material. — George Gaylord Simpson

It is inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really saying anything or at least they are not science. — George Gaylord Simpson

The fact - not theory - that evolution has occurred and the Darwinian theory as to how it occurred have become so confused in popular opinion that the distinction must be stressed. — George Gaylord Simpson

Of course the orders all converge backward in time, to different degrees. — George Gaylord Simpson

The conflict between science and religion has a single and simple cause. It is the designation as religiously canonical of any conception of the material world open to scientific investigation....As a matter of fact, most of the dogmatic religions have exhibited a perverse talent for taking the wrong side on the most important concepts of the material universe, from the structure of the solar system to the origin of man. The result has been constant turmoil for many centuries, and the turmoil will continue as long as religious canons prejudge scientific questions. — George Gaylord Simpson

I have a debt, a loyalty to the museum; the best place for me to do what I wanted to do. — George Gaylord Simpson

Almost all paleontologists recognize that the discovery of a complete transition is in any case unlikely. — George Gaylord Simpson

Man stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long, unconscious, impersonal, material process with unique understanding and potentialities. These he owes to no one but himself, and it is to himself that he is responsible. He is not the creature of uncontrollable and undeterminable forces, but is his own master. He can and must decide and manage his own destiny. — George Gaylord Simpson

Man has risen, not fallen. He can choose to develop his capacities as the highest animal and to try to rise still farther, or he can choose otherwise. The choice is his responsibility, and his alone. There is no automatism that will carry him upward without choice or effort and there is no trend solely in the right direction. Evolution has no purpose; man must supply this for himself. The means to gaining right ends involve both organic evolution and human evolution, but human choice as to what are the right ends must be based on human evolution. — George Gaylord Simpson

If I didn't fear I'd do you harm...I'd try to make you an atheist. I really do think that you are a deluded follower of mistaken and superstitious and cowardly theories. That's as far as I'll go....Everyone who worships a god worships a force back of all nature, no matter what they call him or it and even if they call his aspects by different names & have many "gods." If there really is such a force, then all people who worship any god or gods, worship the same god. I'd just as soon call him Ishtar or Baal or Jehovah. They're merely names for the same idea. (Letter from Simpson to Anne Roe, written ca. 1920-21, when Anne was briefly flirting with fundamentalist Christianity, American Philosophical Society archives.) — George Gaylord Simpson

The argument from absence of transitional types boils down to the striking fact that such types are always lacking unless they have been found. — George Gaylord Simpson

A rill in a barnyard and the Grand Canyon represent, in the main, stages of valley erosion that began some millions of years apart. — George Gaylord Simpson

It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny — George Gaylord Simpson

If a sect does officially insist that its structure of belief demands that evolution be false, then no compromise is possible. An honest and competent biology teacher can only conclude that the sect's beliefs are wrong and that its religion is a false one. — George Gaylord Simpson

Man is a glorious and unique species of animal. The species originated by evolution.... Future evolution could raise man to superb heights as yet hardly glimpsed, but it will not automatically do so. As far as can now be foreseen, evolutionary degeneration is at least as likely in our future as is further progress.The only way to ensure a progressive evolutionary future for mankind is for man himself to take a hand in the process. Although much further knowledge is needed, it is unquestionably possible for man to guide his own evolution (within limits) along desirable lines. But the great weight of the most widespread...beliefs and institutions is against even attempting such guidance. ["Man's evolutionary future," 1960, p. 134.] — George Gaylord Simpson

The search for historical laws is, I maintain, mistaken in principle. — George Gaylord Simpson

To put it crudely but graphically, the monkey who did not have a realistic perception of the tree branch he jumped for was soon a dead monkey-and therefore did not become one of our ancestors. — George Gaylord Simpson

I don't know where to put whales. I'm sticking them here, but I don't have any reason for it. — George Gaylord Simpson

The science of systematics has long been affected by profound philosophical preconceptions, which have been all the more influential for being usually covert, even subconscious. — George Gaylord Simpson