George Gaylord Simpson

“I don't think that evolution is supremely important because it is my specialty; it is my specialty because I think it is supremely important. [In: Edward J. Larson (2004) Evolution, Modern Library. p. 250]”

“[Darwin] gave an answer to the tremendous question that so deeply concerns...What is Man? [He] answered this question to the effect that man is a natural product of the universe;...man is an animal, a vertebrate, a mammal, and a primate....By bringing man into the evolutionary picture, Darwin finally took the last step in our emancipation and finally made our world rational. [Yet] Darwin felt humility and awe that seem to me truly religious. ["Darwin led us into this modern world," 1959, p. 271-272.]”

“I don't know where to put whales. I'm sticking them here, but I don't have any reason for it.”

“Most of the dogmatic religions have exhibited a perverse talent for taking the wrong side on the most important concepts in the material universe, from the structure of the solar system to the origin of man.”

“Recognition of this kinship with the rest of the universe is necessary for understanding him, but his essential nature is defined by qualities found nowhere else, not by those he has in common with apes, fishes, trees, fire, or anything other than himself.”

“Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned.”

“Man has risen, not fallen. He can choose to develop his capacities as the highest animal and to try to rise still farther, or he can choose otherwise. The choice is his responsibility, and his alone. There is no automatism that will carry him upward without choice or effort and there is no trend solely in the right direction. Evolution has no purpose; man must supply this for himself. The means to gaining right ends involve both organic evolution and human evolution, but human choice as to what are the right ends must be based on human evolution.”

“Certainly paleontologists have found samples of an extremely small fraction, only, of the earth's extinct species, and even for groups that are most readily preserved and found as fossils they can never expect to find more than a fraction.”

“Now we do have many examples of transitional sequences.”

“If I didn't fear I'd do you harm...I'd try to make you an atheist. I really do think that you are a deluded follower of mistaken and superstitious and cowardly theories. That's as far as I'll go....Everyone who worships a god worships a force back of all nature, no matter what they call him or it and even if they call his aspects by different names & have many "gods." If there really is such a force, then all people who worship any god or gods, worship the same god. I'd just as soon call him Ishtar or Baal or Jehovah. They're merely names for the same idea. (Letter from Simpson to Anne Roe, written ca. 1920-21, when Anne was briefly flirting with fundamentalist Christianity, American Philosophical Society archives.)”

“The greatest impact of the Darwinian revolution...was that it completed the liberation from superstition and fear that began in the physical sciences a few centuries before. Man, too, is a natural phenomenon. [in "The evolutionary concept of man", 1972, p. 35.]”

“Almost all paleontologists recognize that the discovery of a complete transition is in any case unlikely.”

“Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.”

“Over and over again in the study of the history of life it appears that what can happen does happen. There is little suggestion that what occurs must occur, that it was fated or that it follows some fixed plan, except simply as the expansion of life follows the opportunities that are presented. In this sense, an outstanding characteristic of evolution is its opportunism.["Meaning of Evolution," 1949, p. 160.]”

“Every paleontologist knows that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of family appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.”

“He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal, and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed to all that is material.”

“Species evolve exactly as if they were adapting as best they could to a changing world, and not at all as if they were moving toward a set goal.”

“Splitting and gradual divergence of genera is exemplified very well and in a large variety of organisms.”

“If a sect does officially insist that its structure of belief demands that evolution be false, then no compromise is possible. An honest and competent biology teacher can only conclude that the sect's beliefs are wrong and that its religion is a false one.”

“Man is a glorious and unique species of animal. The species originated by evolution.... Future evolution could raise man to superb heights as yet hardly glimpsed, but it will not automatically do so. As far as can now be foreseen, evolutionary degeneration is at least as likely in our future as is further progress.The only way to ensure a progressive evolutionary future for mankind is for man himself to take a hand in the process. Although much further knowledge is needed, it is unquestionably possible for man to guide his own evolution (within limits) along desirable lines. But the great weight of the most widespread...beliefs and institutions is against even attempting such guidance. ["Man's evolutionary future," 1960, p. 134.]”