Jeffrey H. Schwartz Quotes

As was demonstrated as long ago as the 1930s by the German experimental geneticist Hans Grüneberg, neither structural reduction or loss, nor structural addition, is a completely gradual process. Instead, the loss or gain of a structure is developmentally constrained to be more step-wise, or saltational.

The smaller the mammal, the more it is confined to smaller geographic areas. A small mammal is also more susceptible to subtle changes in climate and environment. ...On average, the absence or presence of smaller species provides more precise clues to past conditions in an area than does the information gained from study of the bone assemblages of the larger animals.

The upper and lower ends of a humerus are like the brim and base of an urn. The shaft of the bone is like the belly of the urn. Fragments, even minute ones, of the detailed parts of a bone are like the indicator sherds of a broken urn. Fragments, even large ones, of the shaft of a bone are like the body sherds of a broken urn. Analyzing bones, after all, is very much like analyzing pottery.

Petrie found that certain types of pottery were characteristic of a particular phase of the Bronze Age, whereas other styles were found only a phase of the Iron Age, or only during the Hellenistic or Greek periods.

A micromutation can produce what Goldschmidt would have described as macromutation leading to macroevolution. Since mutations in homeobox genes are inherited in the same way that earlier fruit-fly population geneticists understood the inheritance of the alleles for wing length or bristle number, we can appreciate that evolutionarily significant novelty—which, in turn, could result in the emergence of a new species—can be passed on from parent to child as easily and simply as eye color.

The Bodo skull and the Kaprina and Shanidar Neandertal skeletons raise the possibility that two distinct, non-spaiens species of Homo had had rituals and cultural practices that we have assumed are only within the capacity of members of our own species.

Science, especially evolutionary sciences, can only proceed from learning about theories of hypotheses that do not stand the test of time.

Becoming a rock does not ensure safety. ...The blasting of windblown sands, the pummeling of waves, the corrosive secretions of mosses and lichens, and even the steady rhythm of a stream can, in time, reduce a seemingly indestructible boulder to a grain of sand.

I hope to... provide insights into the interpretation of "evidence" and the application of the "scientific method" so that you... will be more attuned to what scientists are saying, and why they may be saying it, and realize that the problems and issues that they are addressing are matters we can all think about critically.

The corpses of water-dwelling animals often sink to the bottom and become covered with sediment. The sediment tends to protect the dead body and even at times retain an impression of its shape and external anatomical details. This environment then provides the means by which the bones of the skeleton are mineralized. ...most land animals die and fall to the ground, without any chance of a freak flood casting them into an environment more favorable to fossilization.

Greeks and Romans alike engaged openly in a variety of sanctioned atrocities, including adult human sacrifice. ...according to ...Cicero, human sacrifice was not restricted to the western Phoenicians but was widely accepted among Mediterranean societies as a pious act that would please the gods.

Some... resistance also came from the belief that preserved historical writings could provide all anyone needed to know about the habits of past civilizations. ...According to the archeologists, this site was supposed to have had an uninterrupted sequence of Israelite occupation... These archeologists "knew" that there had been a continual occupation of people practicing full-blown Jewish orthodoxy based on their interpretation of the preserved written records. ...But, to the extreme surprise of the dig's staff... one-third of the bones from the floor of the synagogue were pig. Anathema! ...directly beneath the floor of this synagogue... the first piece of bone I picked up was from the skull of a young human. Again, anathema! How could orthodox Jews build anything, much less a synagogue, over a human burial area? ...no reports on the site including my analyses have ever seen the light of day.

If Walter Garstang's suggestion is correct, and chordates did arise from a tunicate-like form by retaining the chordate features of their larval stage of development into adulthood, then the first chordates must have been affected by a regulatory mutation that kept the Manx gene activated for a longer period of time.

More than one hundred years ago, William Bateson suggested that studying the regulation and timing of development was the key to understanding evolutionary change. He was right.

There are always alternative interpretations of the same data. It is often the case, however, that the alternatives that are rejected are treated as if they don't exist. But they do. And we should be aware not only of their existence and potential viability, but of the possibility that the hypotheses that we might embrace so strongly today may very well be the rejects of tomorrow.