The more important the subject and the closer it cuts to the bone of our hopes and needs, the more we are likely to err in establishing a framework for analysis.
Stephen Jay GouldBiological determinism is, in its essence, a theory of limits. It takes the current status of groups as a measure of where they should and must be ... We inhabit a world of human differences and predilections, but the extrapolation of these facts to theories of rigid limits is ideology.
Stephen Jay GouldAll evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is nature's only irreducible essence... I had to place myself amidst the variation.
Stephen Jay GouldHeydrich, Eichmann, and company therefore invoke the usual trick of argument for breaking a true continuum that lacks a compelling point for separation: choose an arbitrary dividing line and then treat it as a self-evident law of nature.
Stephen Jay Gould