nicknicknicknick reviewed The Panda's Thumb by Stephen Jay Gould
Review of "The Panda's Thumb" on Goodreads
4 stars
1) ''And thus we may pass from the underlying genetic continuity of change---an essential Darwinian postulate---to a potentially episodic alteration in its manifest result---a sequence of complex, adult organisms. Within complex systems, smoothness of input can translate into episodic change in output. Here we encounter a central paradox of our being and of our quest to understand what made us. Without this level of complexity in construction, we could not have evolved the brains to ask such questions. With this complexity, we cannot hope to find solutions in the simple answers that our brains like to devise.''
2) ''The physical structure of the brain must record intelligence in some way, but gross size and external shape are not likely to capture anything of value. 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 …
1) ''And thus we may pass from the underlying genetic continuity of change---an essential Darwinian postulate---to a potentially episodic alteration in its manifest result---a sequence of complex, adult organisms. Within complex systems, smoothness of input can translate into episodic change in output. Here we encounter a central paradox of our being and of our quest to understand what made us. Without this level of complexity in construction, we could not have evolved the brains to ask such questions. With this complexity, we cannot hope to find solutions in the simple answers that our brains like to devise.''
2) ''The physical structure of the brain must record intelligence in some way, but gross size and external shape are not likely to capture anything of value. 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.''
3) ''I am, as several other essays emphasize, an advocate of the position that science is not an objective, truth-directed machine, but a quintessentially human activity, affected by passions, hopes, and cultural biases. Cultural traditions of thought strongly influence scientific theories, often directing lines of speculation, especially [...] when virtually no data exist to constrain either imagination or prejudice.''
