At the sight of a single bone, of a single piece of bone, I recognize and reconstruct the portion of the whole from which it would have been taken. The whole being to which this fragment belonged appears in my mind's eye.
Interpretation
A single piece of evidence can reveal the existence and characteristics of a larger entity.
Georges Cuvier emphasizes the importance of using fragments of evidence to infer and reconstruct a larger picture, particularly in the context of paleontology and anatomy. His quote speaks to the idea that even a small piece of information can allow us to form a comprehensive understanding of an entire organism or system, highlighting the interconnectedness of parts and wholes in nature.
In practice
In a lecture on paleontology, one might quote Cuvier to highlight the significance of fossil evidence.
It is to them [fossils] alone that we owe the commencement of even a Theory of the Earth ... By them we are enabled to ascertain, with the utmost certainty, that our earth has not always been covered over by the same external crust, because we are thoroughly assured that the organized bodies to which these fossil remains belong must have lived upon the surface before they came to be buried, as they now are, at a great depth.
Genius and science have burst the limits of space, and few observations, explained by just reasoning, have unveiled the mechanism of the universe. Would it not also be glorious for man to burst the limits of time, and, by a few observations, to ascertain the history of this world, and the series of events which preceded the birth of the human race?
I'm not trying to copy Nature, I'm trying to find the principles she's using.
Wind power, if not properly planned and sited, can harm birds and bats (although Danish studies of 10,000 bird kills revealed that almost all died in collisions with buildings, cars and wires; only 10 were killed by windmills). Alternative energy sources are absolutely necessary. Global warming will kill birds and bats, as well as other species, in much greater numbers than wind power.
Hunger is actually the worst weapon of mass destruction. It claims millions of victims each year.
If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.
One can say, looking at the papers in this symposium, that the elucidation of the genetic code is indeed a great achievement. It is, in a sense, the key to molecular biology because it shows how the great polymer languages, the nucleic acid language and the protein language, are linked together.
This [climate change] is potentially so dangerous that we have to act strongly. Do we want to play Russian roulette with two bullets or one?
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