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 Stephen
Jay Gould
dies at 60
Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard's outspoken and often controversial
paleontologist whose groundbreaking work on evolutionary theory
- coupled with his award-winning writings - brought an expanded
world of science to thousands of readers, died this morning in Manhattan
of metastasized lung cancer. He was 60.
Gould, along with Niles Eldredge, a paleontologist at the New York's
Museum of Natural History, developed an evolutionary theory called
"punctuated equilibrium," where long periods of evolutionary
stability are broken by shorter spurts of evolutionary change, perhaps
sparked by external events such as climate change or the impact
of a comet. The theory contrasts with more traditional evolutionists,
who believe evolution is a slow, steady process occurring at a nearly
constant rate.
Gould, the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, spent his professional
career at Harvard. He wrote widely on topics ranging from baseball
to the Piltdown Man hoax to the Sept. 11 tragedy. He appeared on
the cover of Newsweek in 1982 and has been called by colleagues
"the bulldog of evolutionary biology" for his outspoken
advocacy of his views.
Gould's writing has made his a household name. He has published
many volumes of books as well as hundreds of essays in national
newspapers and magazines on any of a host of scientific topics.
He received the National Book Award in 1981 for "The Panda's
Thumb," the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1982 for
"The Mismeasure of Man," the Phi Beta Kappa Book Award
in Science for both "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes" in
1983, and "Wonderful Life" in 1990. He received the Rhone-Poulenc
Prize in 1991 for "Wonderful Life" and the Golden
Trilobite Award for excellence in paleontological writing from The
Paleontological Society.
Gould's most recent book, "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory"
(2002), is a 1,433-page opus that took him more than 20 years to
complete. At a reading and booksigning at the Harvard Museum of
Natural History shortly after its publication, he said that when
he was diagnosed with cancer in 1982 he believed he had "almost
zero chance of finishing it."
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The
Structure of Evolutionary Theory
by
Stephen Jay Gould
The theory of evolution is regarded as one of the greatest
glimmerings of understanding humans have ever had. It is an
idea of science, not of belief, and therefore undergoes constant
scrutiny and testing by argumentative evolutionary biologists.
But while Darwinists may disagree on a great many...
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