   #copyright

Stephen Jay Gould

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Evolution and
reproduction; Writers and critics

   Stephen Jay Gould ( September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American
   paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, historian of science, and
   professor. He was an influential and widely read writer of popular
   science of his generation; commentators called him "America's
   unofficial evolutionist laureate." Gould spent most of his career
   teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of
   Natural History in New York.

Personal life

   Gould was born and raised in the Queens borough of New York City, New
   York. His father Leonard was a court stenographer, and his mother
   Eleanor was an artist. When Gould was five years old, his father took
   him to the Hall of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History,
   where he first met Tyrannosaurus rex. "I had no idea there were such
   things—I was awestruck," Gould once recalled. In that moment he decided
   to become a paleontologist.

   Raised in a nominally Jewish home, Gould did not formally practice
   organized religion and preferred to be called an agnostic. Politically,
   though he "had been brought up by a Marxist father," he is quoted as
   saying that his father's politics were "very different" from his own.
   Throughout his career and writings he spoke out against cultural
   oppression in all its forms, especially what he saw as pseudoscience in
   the service of racism and sexism. In the early 1970s Gould joined a
   group called " Science for the People," which was a left-wing
   organization that emerged from the antiwar movement.

   Gould was twice married. His first marriage, to Deborah Lee in 1965
   ended in divorce. His second marriage was to artist Rhonda Roland
   Shearer in 1995. Gould had two children, Jesse and Ethan, by his first
   marriage, and two stepchildren, Jade and London, by his second.

   In July 1982 Gould was diagnosed with abdominal mesothelioma, an often
   terminal form of cancer affecting the abdominal lining (which is
   sometimes caused by asbestos exposure). After a difficult recovery,
   Gould published a column for Discover magazine, titled "The Median
   Isn't the Message," in which he discusses his discovery that
   mesothelioma patients had a median lifespan of only eight months after
   diagnosis. He then describes the true significance behind this number,
   and his relief upon realizing that statistics are just useful
   abstractions, not destiny. After an experimental treatment of
   radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery, Gould lived for another twenty
   years, and his column became a source of comfort for many cancer
   patients.

   Gould was also an advocate for medical marijuana. During his bout with
   abdominal mesothelioma, he smoked the illegal drug to alleviate the
   nausea associated with his cancer treatments. According to Gould, his
   use of marijuana had the "most important effect" on his eventual
   recovery. In 1998 he testified in the case of Jim Wakeford, a Canadian
   medical-marijuana user and activist.

   Stephen Jay Gould died on May 20, 2002 from a metastatic adenocarcinoma
   of the lung (a form of lung cancer, which had spread to his brain).
   This cancer was unrelated to his abdominal mesothelioma, from which he
   had fully recovered twenty years earlier. He died in his home "in a bed
   set up in the library of his Soho loft, surrounded by his wife Rhonda,
   his mother Eleanor, and the many books he loved."

Gould as a scientist

   Gould began his higher education at Antioch College, a distinguished
   liberal arts school in Ohio, graduating with a degree in geology in
   1963. During this time he also studied abroad at the University of
   Leeds in the United Kingdom. After completing his graduate work at
   Columbia University in 1967 under the guidance of Norman Newell, he was
   immediately hired by Harvard University where he worked until the end
   of his life ( 1967- 2002). In 1973 Harvard promoted him to Professor of
   Geology and Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the institution's
   Museum of Comparative Zoology, and in 1982 he was awarded the title of
   Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology. In 1983 he was awarded
   fellowship into the American Association for the Advancement of
   Science, where he later served as president ( 1999- 2001). The AAAS
   news release cited his "numerous contributions to both scientific
   progress and the public understanding of science." He also served as
   president of the Paleontological Society ( 1985- 1986) and the Society
   for the Study of Evolution ( 1990- 1991). In 1989 Gould was elected
   into the body of the National Academy of Sciences. He was also Vincent
   Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University
   from 1996- 2002.

   Most of Gould's empirical research was on land snails. His early work
   was on the Bermudian genus Poecilozonites, while his later work
   concentrated on the West Indian genus Cerion.

   Early in his career Gould developed with Niles Eldredge the theory of
   punctuated equilibrium, where evolutionary change occurs relatively
   rapidly to comparatively longer periods of evolutionary stability.
   According to Gould, punctuated equilibrium revised a key pillar "in the
   central logic of Darwinian theory." Some evolutionary biologists have
   argued that while punctuated equilibrium was "of great interest to
   biology," it merely modified neo-Darwinism in a manner which was fully
   compatible with what had been known before. Others however emphasized
   its theoretical novelty, and argued that evolutionary stasis had been
   "unexpected by most evolutionary biologists" and "had a major impact on
   paleontology and evolutionary biology."

   In addition to his work on punctuated equilibrium and evolutionary
   developmental biology, Gould championed biological constraints and
   other non-selectionist forces in evolution. With Richard Lewontin he
   wrote an influential 1979 paper critical of the overuse of adaptation
   in biology. Their paper introduced the evolutionary concept spandrel,
   borrowed from the architectural term " spandrel". Gould and Lewontin
   used it to mean a feature of an organism that exists as a necessary
   consequence of other features and not built directly, piece by piece,
   by natural selection. The relative frequency of spandrels, so defined,
   versus adaptive features in nature, remains a controversial topic in
   evolutionary biology.

   Gould is also one of the most highly cited scientists in the field of
   evolutionary theory. His 1979 "spandrels" paper has been cited more
   than 1,600 times. In Palaeobiology—the flagship journal of his own
   speciality—only Charles Darwin and G.G. Simpson have been cited more
   often. Gould was also a considerably respected historian of science.
   Historian Ronald Numbers has been quoted as saying: "I can't say much
   about Gould's strengths as a scientist, but for a long time I've
   regarded him as the second most influential historian of science (next
   to Thomas Kuhn)."

   Shortly before his death, Gould published a long treatise
   recapitulating his version of modern evolutionary theory, written
   primarily for the technical audience of evolutionary biologists: The
   Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002).

Gould as a public figure

   Gould became widely known through his popular science essays in Natural
   History magazine and his best-selling books on evolution. Many of his
   essays were reprinted in collected volumes, such as Ever Since Darwin
   and The Panda's Thumb, while his popular treatises included books such
   as The Mismeasure of Man, Wonderful Life and Full House.

   Gould was a passionate advocate of evolutionary theory and wrote
   prolifically on the subject, trying to communicate his understanding of
   contemporary evolutionary biology to a wide audience. A recurring theme
   in his writings is the history and development of evolutionary, and
   pre-evolutionary, thought. He was also an enthusiastic baseball fan and
   made frequent references to the sport in his essays.

   Although a proud Darwinist, his emphasis was less gradualist and
   reductionist than most neo-Darwinists. He also opposed many aspects of
   sociobiology and its intellectual descendant evolutionary psychology.
   He spent much of his time fighting against creationism (and the related
   constructs Creation Science and Intelligent Design) and other forms of
   pseudoscience. Most notably, Gould provided expert testimony against
   the equal-time creationism law in McLean v. Arkansas. Gould used the
   term "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" (NOMA) to describe how, in his view,
   science and religion could not comment on each other's realm.. Gould
   had become a noted public face of science, and often appeared on
   television. He once voiced a cartoon version of himself on an episode
   of The Simpsons, a widely popular animated television program. The
   Simpsons also paid tribute to him after his death. In an episode
   entitled Papa's Got a Brand New Badge, at the beginning of the credits,
   the message "Dedicated to the memory of Stephen Jay Gould" appears with
   a picture from the episode he was in. In addition, he is one of several
   luminaries who are heroes of the climax of the science fiction novel
   Ancient Shores.

   Gould was also featured prominently as a guest in Ken Burns' PBS
   documentary, Baseball.

   He was on the Board of Advisors to the influencial Children's
   Television Workshop television show, 3-2-1 Contact.

Controversies

   Gould received many accolades for his scholarly work and popular
   expositions of natural history, but was criticized by some in the
   biological community who felt his public presentations were, in various
   respects, out of step with mainstream evolutionary theory. The public
   debates between those that agreed with Gould and those that criticized
   him have been so quarrelsome that they have been dubbed "The Darwin
   Wars" by several commentators.

   The eminent John Maynard Smith was among Gould's strongest critics.
   Maynard Smith thought that Gould trivialized the role of adaptation,
   and criticised Gould's periodic invocation of large scale mutations. In
   a recent review of Daniel Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea,
   Maynard Smith wrote that Gould "is giving non-biologists a largely
   false picture of the state of evolutionary theory." But Maynard Smith
   has not been consistently negative, writing in a review of The Panda's
   Thumb that often "he infuriates me, but I hope he will go right on
   writing essays like these." Maynard Smith was also among those who
   welcomed Gould's reinvigoration of evolutionary paleontology.

   One reason for such criticism was that Gould appeared to be presenting
   his ideas as a revolutionary way of understanding evolution, which
   relegated natural selection to a much less important position. As a
   result, many non-specialists inferred from his early writings that
   Darwinian explanations had been proven to be unscientific (which Gould
   never wanted to imply). His works were sometimes used out of context as
   a "proof" that scientists no longer understood how organisms evolved,
   giving creationists ammunition in their battle against evolutionary
   theory.Gould himself corrected some of these misinterpretations and
   distortions of his writings in later works..

   Gould also had a long-running feud with E. O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins
   and other evolutionary biologists over sociobiology and its descendant
   evolutionary psychology, which Gould strongly opposed but Dawkins,
   Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker and others strongly advocated. Gould and
   Dawkins also disagreed over the importance of gene selection in
   evolution: Dawkins argued that all evolution is ultimately caused by
   gene competition, while Gould advocated the importance of higher-level
   competition including, but certainly not limited to, species selection.
   Strong criticism of Gould can be found in Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker
   and Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Dennett's criticism has tended
   to be harsher, while Dawkins praises Gould in evolutionary topics other
   than those of contention. Pinker accuses Gould, Lewontin and other
   opponents of evolutionary psychology of being "radical scientists,"
   whose stance on human nature is influenced by politics rather than
   science. Gould countered that sociobiologists and evolutionary
   psychologists are often heavily influenced, perhaps unconsciously, by
   their own prejudices and interests..

   Gould's interpretation of the Cambrian Burgess Shale fossils in his
   book Wonderful Life was criticized by Simon Conway Morris in his 1998
   book The Crucible Of Creation. Gould had emphasized the "weirdness" of
   the Burgess Shale fauna, and the role of unpredictable, contingent
   phenomena in determining which members of this fauna survived and
   flourished. Conway Morris stressed the phylogenetic linkages between
   the Burgess Shale forms and modern taxa, particularly, the importance
   of convergent evolution in producing general predictable responses to
   similar environmental circumstances. Paleontologist Richard Fortey has
   noted that prior to the release of Wonderful Life, Conway Morris shared
   many of Gould's sentiments and views. It was only after publication of
   Wonderful Life that Conway Morris revised his interpretation and
   adopted a more progressive stance towards the history of life.

Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA)

   In his book Rocks of Ages Gould put forward what he described as "a
   blessedly simple and entirely conventional resolution to ... the
   supposed conflict between science and religion" He defines the term
   magisterium as "a domain where one form of teaching holds the
   appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution" and the NOMA
   principle is "the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm:
   what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way
   (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of
   ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap,
   nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the
   magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)."

   In his view, "Science and religion do not glower at each other ...
   [they] interdigitate in patterns of complex fingering, and at every
   fractal scale of self-similarity" . He suggests, with examples, that
   "NOMA enjoys strong and fully explicit support, even from the primary
   cultural stereotypes of hard-line traditionalism" and that it is "a
   sound position of general consensus, established by long struggle among
   people of goodwill in both magisteria"

   A similar position has been adopted by the National Academy of
   Sciences. Its publication Science and Creationism: A View from the
   National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition (1999) states that
   "Scientists, like many others, are touched with awe at the order and
   complexity of nature. Indeed, many scientists are deeply religious. But
   science and religion occupy two separate realms of human experience.
   Demanding that they be combined detracts from the glory of each." This
   was subsequently signed by then-President Bruce Alberts.

   Richard Dawkins though, in his book The God Delusion, is critical of
   Gould’s concept of non-overlapping magisteria as Dawkins argues that
   the concept cannot be used to defend theologians from criticism.
   Dawkins presents that "the God Hypothesis", which he defines as "there
   exists a super-human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately
   designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us"
   is a scientific hypothesis about the universe and one that should be
   treated with as much scepticism as any other theory.

Mismeasure of Man

   Stephen Jay Gould was also the author of The Mismeasure of Man ( 1981),
   a history and skeptical inquiry of psychometrics and intelligence
   testing. Gould investigated many of the techniques of nineteenth
   century craniometry, as well as modern-day psychological testing—and
   claimed they developed unnecessarily from an unfounded faith in
   biological determinism. The Mismeasure of Man has generated perhaps the
   most controversy of all Gould's books, and has been subject to
   widespread praise (by skeptics) and extensive criticism (by
   psychologists)—including claims by some scientists that Gould had
   misrepresented their work.

Books

     * For technical audiences
          + Ontogeny and Phylogeny ( Harvard University Press, 1977), ISBN
            0-674-63940-5
          + The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Harvard University
            Press, 2002), ISBN 0-674-00613-5

     * For general audiences
          + The Mismeasure of Man ( W.W. Norton, 1981; revised 1996), ISBN
            0-393-03972-2
          + Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle (Harvard University Press, 1987),
            ISBN 0-674-89198-8
          + Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
            (W.W. Norton, 1989), ISBN 0-393-02705-8
          + Full House: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin
            (Harmony Books, 1996), ISBN 0-517-70394-7 (Released outside
            North America as Life's Grandeur: The Spread of Excellence
            From Plato to Darwin (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1996), ISBN
            0-09-989360-6)
          + Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist's Guide to a
            Precisely Arbitrary Countdown (Harmony, 1997); also published
            in a substantially extended second edition (Harmony, 1999),
            ISBN 0-609-60541-0
          + Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (
            Ballantine Books, 1999), ISBN 0-345-43009-3
          + The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap
            Between Science and the Humanities (Harmony, 2003), ISBN
            0-609-60140-7

     * Collected essays from Natural History magazine
          + Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History (Norton,
            1977), ISBN 0-393-06425-5
          + The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History
            (Norton, 1980), ISBN 0-393-01380-4
          + Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural
            History (Norton, 1983), ISBN 0-393-01716-8
          + The Flamingo's Smile (Norton, 1985), ISBN 0-393-02228-5
          + Bully for Brontosaurus (Norton, 1991), ISBN 0-393-02961-1
          + Eight Little Piggies (Norton, 1994), ISBN 0-393-03416-X
          + Dinosaur in a Haystack (Harmony, 1995), ISBN 0-517-70393-9
          + Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (Harmony,
            1998), ISBN 0-609-60141-5
          + The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in
            Natural History (Harmony, 2000), ISBN 0-609-60142-3
          + I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History
            (Harmony, 2001), ISBN 0-609-60143-1

     * Other essay collections
          + An Urchin in the Storm (Norton, 1987), ISBN 0-393-02492-X
          + Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for
            Baseball (Norton, 2003), ISBN 0-393-05755-0
          + Paul McGarr, ed., The Richness of Life: A Stephen Jay Gould
            Reader ( Jonathan Cape, 2006), ISBN 0-224-07607-8

End material

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
