Cambrian Quotes (2 quotes)
…continental blocks can join and rift at random.… The fact that two provinces of the Canadian Shield have been together during post-Cambrian time does not necessarily mean that they were formed close together or that the sediments lying in one province were derived from the province now beside it.
In 'The Effect of New Orogenetic Theories Upon Ideas of the Tectonics of the Canadian Shield', collected in Royal Society of Canada, Special Publication No. 4, The Tectonics of the Canadian Shield (1962), 135-138. As quoted and cited in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (Nov 1995), 41, 544. This quote’s relevance is to show that after some years of reluctance, Wilson did eventually accept the idea of continental drift.
The notion that individualism came first runs against the very grain of cosmic history. … grouping has been inherent in evolution since the first quarks joined to form neutrons and protons. Similarly, replicators—RNA, DNA, and genes—have always worked in teams… The bacteria of 3.5 billion years ago were creatures of the crowd. So were the trilobites and echinoderms of the Cambrian age.
In 'The Embryonic Meme', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 34.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
