A Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion.

Stephen Jay Gould

Quote Topics

Constant Evolution Expansion Process

Quote Author

Stephen Jay Gould
American - Scientist
September 10, 1941 - May 20, 2002

The vigorous branching of life's tree, and not the accumulating valor of mythical marches to progress, lies behind the persistence and expansion of organic diversity in our tough and constantly stressful world. And if we do not grasp the fundamental nature of branching as the key to life's passage across the geological stage, we will never understand evolution aright.

Stephen Jay Gould

It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.

Thomas Huxley

We may... have to relinquish the notion, explicit or implicit, that changes of paradigm carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth... The developmental process described in this essay has been a process of evolution from primitive beginnings-a process whose successive stages are characterized by an increasingly detailed and refined understanding of nature. But nothing that has been or will be said makes it a process of evolution toward anything.

Thomas Kuhn

Marriage has been in a constant state of evolution since the dawn of the Stone Age. In the process, it has become more flexible - but also more optional.

Stephanie Coontz

By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature--for instance in a biological survey of evolution--we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.

Owen Barfield

I just understand that life is a constant change and a constant evolution.

Matt Hardy

All change is change for the better. There is no such thing as "change for the worse." Change is the process of Life Itself, and that process could be called by the name 'evolution.' And evolution moves in only one direction: forward, and toward improvement.

Neale Donald Walsch

Change itself is changing. The process of evolution itself is evolving. There is a meta-evolution, or a metachange that is taking place. And in that process what you see is actually an increasing contrast between change and the eternal or the unchanging.

Yasuhiko Kimura

As a bio-philosopher - as someone who draws upon the scriptures of nature, recognizing that we are the product of the process of evolution, and in a sense, we have become the process itself - through the emergence and evolution of our consciousness, our awareness, our capacity to imagine and to anticipate the future and to choose from amongst alternatives.

Jonas Salk

Evolution of mankind is paralleled by the increase and expansion of consciousness.

Albert Hofmann

Taste is an evolution and refinement of one’s personal likes and dislikes. This evolution takes place with a constant curiosity and interest in everything. The editing consequently refines the choices and defines taste.

Norma Kamali

Life is a process of evolution and anyone who thinks the current world order is OK does not get what evolution is all about.

Leroy Hood

I speak about universal evolution and teleological evolution, because I think the process of evolution reflects the wisdom of nature. I see the need for wisdom to become operative. We need to try to put all of these things together in what I call an evolutionary philosophy of our time.

Jonas Salk

Praise requires constant renewal and expansion.

Doris Grumbach

Evolution is a process of creating patterns of increasing order....I believe that it's the evolution of patterns that constitutes the ultimate story of our world. Evolution works through indirection: each stage or epoch uses the information-processing methods of the previous epoch to create the next.