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John S. Wilkins
5 quotes
“A lot of people have thought of understanding as just knowledge of true causes, but then there is a problem of why we value knowledge - if not to understand things. And in effect understanding is what underwrites the desire for knowledge in the context of science.”
John S. Wilkins (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Generally, scientists have a “rolling wall of fog” that trails behind them at various distances for different disciplines, above which only the peaks of mountains of the Greats can be seen. In medical biology, for instance, this wall is about five years behind the present. Little is cited before that, and those works that are, are cited by nearly everyone. So there is a tendency for what Kuhn called “textbook history” to become the common property of all members of the discipline.”
John S. Wilkins (born 1955) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Species: A history of the Idea. (2009) University of California Press, p. ix.
“Since philosophers are very often beholden to a particular biological writer or tradition (especially Mayr, who overcame his adversaries by the dual strategies of prolixity and longevity), they tend to see the issues in terms specified by those particular authorities.”
John S. Wilkins (born 1955) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Species: the evolution of the idea. (2018) CRC Press, p. 331.
“[Species] obey, and when they occur are post hoc explained by the biology of populations, interbreeding, selection, drift, and so on, but they are not theoretical objects, any more than planetary orbits are in physics. Species occur, and are explicable in a multiplicity of ways, but they do not follow formally from any theory of biology.”
John S. Wilkins (born 1955) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Species: the evolution of the idea. (2018) CRC Press, p. 345.
“What to think? My solution is this:”
John S. Wilkins (born 1955) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2010/oct/20/3