Stephen Jay Gould

Yesterday was Stephen Jay Gould's birthday (1941 to 2002). I admit to not being familiar with all of his work. I have, however, read a large section of his book "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" as well as several of his papers including his 1972 paper with Eldredge on Punctuated Equilibrium (Punctuated Equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism) and  his 1979 paper with Lewontin on spandrels (The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm). I'll spare you a summary of these papers. Needless to say, Stephen Jay Gould has been an enormous influence for all palaeontologists and evolutionary biologists regardless of their agreement or disagreement with his hypotheses and ideas.

When I started graduate school in 2008 (my MSc), the first class I took was a group examination of Gould's final book. We did a lot of whining about how long and wordy the book is. Three years after taking that course, one year into my PhD, I realize that reading his book was an unparalleled experience. Having read it so early in my graduate career, it has really shaped the way I think about evolution (whether this is good or bad is in the eye of the beholder).

So thank you Gould and happy belated birthday!

If you would like to read more about Stephen Jay click the link below and download his papers (you might actually have to go to the library to read about PE). You won't regret it.

http://stephenjaygould.org/