"Orchids were not made by an ideal engineer; they are jury-rigged from a limited set of available components."
"Siphonophores do not convey the message a favorite theme of unthinking romanticism that nature is but one gigantic whole, all its parts intimately connected and interacting in some higher, ineffable harmony. Nature revels in boundaries and distinctions; we inhabit a universe of structure. But since our universe of structure has evolved historically, it must present us with fuzzy boundaries, where one kind of thing grades into another."
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Source: Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History”, p.95, W. W. Norton & Company
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