Science is all those things which are confirmed to such a degree that it would be unreasonable to withhold one's provisional consent.

Can I pay any higher tribute to a man [George Gaylord Simpson] than to state that his work both established a profession and sowed the seeds for its own revision? If Simpson had reached final truth, he either would have been a priest or would have chosen a dull profession. The history of life cannot be a dull profession.

I was lucky to wander into evolutionary theory, one of the most exciting and important of all scientific fields. I had never heard of it when I started at a rather tender age; I was simply awed by dinosaurs. I thought paleontologists spent their lives digging up bones and putting them together, never venturing beyond the momentous issue of what connects to what. Then I discovered evolutionary theory. Ever since then, the duality of natural history-richness in particularities and potential union in underlying explanation-has propelled me.

If genius has any common denominator, I would propose breadth of interest and the ability to construct fruitful analogies between fields.

... a local, indigenous, American bizarre-ity.

[Evolution is] one of the best documented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science.

Nature is what she is - amoral and persistent.