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?
The gravest threat faced by the world is of an extremist group getting hold of nuclear weapons or materials.
If you don't get a good night's sleep, the events of the day are not properly encoded in memory.
The uncertainty relation does not refer to the past; if the velocity of the electron is at first known and the position then exactly measured, the position for times previous to the measurement may be calculated.
No one may have the guts to say this, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?
As climate change moves from a model of the future to the reality of the present, health care systems across the country are facing a difficult set of questions. What are doctors supposed to do when wildfires, rising floodwater or other natural disasters threaten their ability to provide care for patients?
My Design in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments: In order to which, I shall premise the following Definitions and Axioms.
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