Stephen Jay Gould Quotes:
Ocupation: Paleontologist
Life: September 10, 1941 - May 20, 2002
Birthday: September 10
Death: May 20
Asian Homo erectus died without issue and does not enter our immediate ancestry (for we evolved from African populations); Neanderthal people were collateral cousins, perhaps already living in Europe while we emerged in Africa... In other words, we are an improbable and fragile entity, fortunately successful after precarious beginnings as a small population in Africa, not the predictable end result of a global tendency. We are a thing, an item of history, not an embodiment of general principles.
source: "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History".
topic: Cousin, Successful, Science, Neanderthals, Collateral, Improbable
