Indeed, I was unable to find any evidence whatsoever of the occurrence of a drastic evolutionary acceleration and genetic reconstruction in widespread, populous species.

All I claimed was that when a drastic change occurs, it occurs in a relatively small and isolated population.

Most of them are doomed to rapid extinction, but a few may make evolutionary inventions, such as physiological, ecological, or behavioral innovations that give these species improved competitive potential.

Life is simply the reification of the process of living.

Evolution thus is merely contingent on certain processes articulated by Darwin: variation and selection.

The major novelty of my theory was its claim that the most rapid evolutionary change does not occur in widespread, populous species, as claimed by Most geneticists, but in small founder populations.

It seems to me that for Darwin the pulsing of evolutionary rates was a strictly vertical phenomenon.

I did not claim that speciation occurs only in founder populations.

According to the concept of transformational evolution, first clearly articulated by Lamarck, evolution consists of the gradual transformation of organisms from one condition of existence to another.

As a consequence, geneticists described evolution simply as a change in gene frequencies in populations, totally ignoring the fact that evolution consists of the two simultaneous but quite separate phenomena of adaptation and diversification.

Living in an entirely different physical as well as biotic environment, such a population would have unique opportunities to enter new niches and to select novel adaptive pathways.

New gene pools are generated in every generation, and evolution takes place because the successful individuals produced by these gene pools give rise to the next generation.

I had found again and again that the most aberrant population of a species - often having reached species rank, and occasionally classified even as a separate genus - occurred at a peripheral location, indeed usually at the most isolated peripheral location.

Indeed, I was unable to find any evidence whatsoever of the occurrence of a drastic evolutionary acceleration and genetic reconstruction in widespread, populous species.

In those early years in New York when I was a stranger in a big city, it was the companionship and later friendship which I was offered in the Linnean Society that was the most important thing in my life.

In neither his definition nor the examples illustrating what memes are does Dawkins mention anything that would distinguish memes from concepts.

Scientific progress consists in the development of new concepts.

In order to make characters real - no matter what the character is doing - you have to see yourself as capable of having done that.

I kind of see myself as a cartoon that's on its way to becoming a real person that has to find that special amulet or mushroom to get to that next realm or level. I don't feel like anything is that tangible. It freaks me out, why I feel unhappy or conflicted and why that can change on a dime.

We never used to blink at taking a leadership role in the world. And we understood leadership often required something other than drones and bombs. We accepted global leadership not just for humanitarian reasons, but also because it was in our own best interest. We knew we couldn't isolate ourselves from trouble. There was no place to hide.

The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.

Comedians have the ability to feel other emotions.

Of course same sex marriage is constitutional! The right to be yourself, to pursue life, liberty, and property, is protected several ways over several amendments. John Boehner should know this.

There's something mathematically satisfying about music: notes fit together and harmony and all that. And mathematics has to do with abstractions and making connections.

Spontaneity, the hallmark of childhood, is well worth cultivating to counteract the rigidity that may otherwise set in as we grow older.

The truth is Floridians and Montanans have more in common than you might think. Both are fed up with partisan gridlock in D.C., and look to their state leaders to find common ground, pursue compromise, and move forward solutions that improve the health of their economy, their communities and their residents.

Butler's novel 'Kindred' may be the book most widely read by readers outside science fiction; it has been assigned as a text in classrooms and has sold steadily since its publication in 1979.

I would really hate it if I could call up Kafka or Hemingway or Salinger and any question I could throw at them they would have an answer. That's the magic when you read or hear something wonderful - there's no one that has all the answers.

Before you eat the elephant, make sure you know what parts you want to eat.

I am primarily concerned with the condition of man.

When people hurt you over and over, think of them like sandpaper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit, but in the end, you end up polished and they end up useless.

If you love something, you have to stay really focused and can't let outside things distract you.

He felt the journal in his pocket. It was like a pair of glasses that he had worn for a time, enabling him to see a world he didn't even know existed

Working as a journalist, I was always tempted to lie. I felt I could do dialogue better than the person I was interviewing. I felt I could lie better than Nixon and be more concise than some random person I was covering.

Losing my parents was probably the hardest and deepest blow from which I've had to recover.

We are imprisoned in life in the company of persons powerfully unlike us.

'Heroes' really changed the game for me in a way that nothing before it had.

Good things are associated with blue, like clear days, more than singing the blues. Just the word 'blue' in the singular is full of optimism and positive connotation to most people.

If you have a level of expectation in your life that you have to be a quote-unquote star, whatever that means, you might be setting yourself up for failure.

An easy going husband is the one indispensable comfort of life.