The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning. - Stephen Jay Gould
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The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning.
Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American geologist, paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and popular-science author, who spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He was one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation.
Biography information from
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Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, Lawrence Lipke (Public domain / CC0)
The true beauty of nature is her amplitude; she exists neither for nor because of us, and possesses a staying power that all our nuclear arsenals cannot threaten (much as we can easily destroy our puny selves).
Great theories are expansive; failures mire us in dogmatism and tunnel vision.
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Ever since paleontology established the basic outlines of the fossil record more than a century ago, we have known how poorly the old chain of being matches the history of life. Its persistence as a metaphor and even, in Jastrow’s case, as an imposed “reality” merely reflects our unwillingness to abandon comfort in the face of evidence.
