Stephen Jay Gould

For Linnaeus, Homo sapiens was both special and not special. [...] Special and not special have come to mean nonbiological and biological, or nurture and nature. These later polarizations are nonsensical. Humans are animals and everything we do lies within our biological potential. [...] the statement that humans are animals does not imply that our specific patterns of behavior and social arrangements are in any way directly determined by our genes. Potentiality and determination are different concepts.

Stephen Jay Gould, "Biological Potentiality vs. Biological Determinism", p. 251, Ever Since Darwin (1977)


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