Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould
Born
September 10, 1941
Bayside, New York, United States
Died
May 20, 2002 (aged 60)
Manhattan, New York, United States
Nationality
American
Fields
Paleontology, Evolutionary biology
History of Science
Institutions
Harvard University,
American Museum of Natural
History,
New York University
Alma mater
Antioch College,
Columbia University
Known for
Punctuated equilibrium,
Non-overlapping magisteria
Notable
awards
Linnean Society of London's
DarwinWallace Medal (2008)
Paleontological Society Medal
(2002)
Sue Tyler Friedman Medal (1989)
Charles Schuchert Award (1975)
Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science
(twice 1983, 1990)
MacArthur Fellowship
National Book Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the paleontologist and science writer. For the science fiction writer, see Steven Gould.
Stephen Jay Gould (/uld/; September 10, 1941 May 20,
2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist
and historian of science. He was also one of the most
influential and widely read writers of popular science of his
generation.
[1]
Gould spent most of his career teaching at
Harvard University and working at the American Museum of
Natural History in New York. In the later years of his life,
Gould also taught biology and evolution at New York
University.
Gould's most significant contribution to evolutionary biology
was the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which he
developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972.
[2]
The theory
proposes that most evolution is marked by long periods of
evolutionary stability, which is punctuated by rare instances
of branching evolution. The theory was contrasted against
phyletic gradualism, the popular idea that evolutionary
change is marked by a pattern of smooth and continuous
change in the fossil record.
Most of Gould's empirical research was based on the land
snail genera Poecilozonites and Cerion. He also contributed
to evolutionary developmental biology, and has received
wide praise for his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny. In
evolutionary theory he opposed strict selectionism,
sociobiology as applied to humans, and evolutionary
psychology. He campaigned against creationism and
proposed that science and religion should be considered two
distinct fields (or "magisteria") whose authorities do not
overlap.
[3]
Gould was known by the general public mainly from his 300
popular essays in the magazine Natural History,
[4]
and his
books written for a non-specialist audience. In April 2000,
the US Library of Congress named him a "Living Legend".
[5]
1 Biography
1.1 Marriage and family
1.2 First bout with cancer
Stephen Jay Gould - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould
1 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
Spouse
Deborah Lee (1965?; divorced; 2
children)
Rhonda Roland Shearer
(19952002; his death; 2
stepchildren)
Signature
1.3 Final illness and death
2 Scientific career
2.1 Punctuated equilibrium
2.2 Evolutionary developmental biology
2.3 Selectionism and sociobiology
2.3.1 Against "Sociobiology"
2.3.2 Spandrels and the Panglossian
Paradigm
2.4 Evolutionary progress
2.5 Cladistics
2.6 Technical work on land snails
2.7 Influence
2.8 The Structure of Evolutionary Theory
3 As a public figure
4 Controversy
4.1 Cambrian fauna
4.2 Opposition to sociobiology and
evolutionary psychology
4.3 The Mismeasure of Man
5 Non-overlapping magisteria
6 Publications
6.1 Articles
6.2 Books
7 Notes and references
8 External links
Stephen Jay Gould was born and raised in the community of Bayside, a neighborhood of the northeastern
section of Queens in New York City. His father, Leonard, was a court stenographer, and his mother, Eleanor,
was an artist whose parents were Jewish immigrants living and working in the city's Garment District.
[6]
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 encountered Tyrannosaurus rex. "I had no idea there were such thingsI was
awestruck," Gould once recalled.
[7]
It was in that moment that he decided to become a paleontologist.
Raised in a secular Jewish home, Gould did not formally practice religion and preferred to be called an
agnostic.
[3]
Though he "had been brought up by a Marxist father", he stated that his father's politics were "very
different" from his own.
[8]
In describing his own political views, he has said they "tend to the left of center".
[9]
2 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
According to Gould the most influential political books he read were C. Wright Mills' The Power Elite and the
political writings of Noam Chomsky.
[9]
While attending Antioch College in the early 1960s, Gould was active in the civil rights movement and often
campaigned for social justice. When he attended the University of Leeds as a visiting undergraduate, he
organized weekly demonstrations outside a Bradford dance hall which refused to admit Blacks. Gould
continued these demonstrations until the policy was revoked.
[10]
Throughout his career and writings, he spoke
out against cultural oppression in all its forms, especially what he saw as the pseudoscience used in the service
of racism and sexism.
[11]
Interspersed throughout his scientific essays for Natural History magazine, Gould frequently referred to his
nonscientific interests and pastimes. As a boy he collected baseball cards and remained a New York Yankees
fan throughout his life. As an adult he was fond of science fiction movies, but often lamented their mediocrity
(not just in their presentation of science, but in their storytelling as well).
[12]
His other interests included singing
in the Boston Cecilia, and he was a great aficionado of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. He collected rare
antiquarian books and textbooks. He often traveled to Europe, and spoke French, German, Russian, and Italian.
He admired Renaissance architecture. When discussing the Judeo-Christian tradition, he usually referred to it
simply as "Moses". He sometimes alluded ruefully to his tendency to put on weight.
[13]
Marriage and family
Gould was married twice. His first marriage was to artist Deborah Lee on October 3, 1965. Gould met Lee
while they were students together at Antioch College.
[7]
They had two sons, Jesse and Ethan.
[14]
His second
marriage, in 1995, was to artist and sculptor Rhonda Roland Shearer, who is the mother of two children, Jade
and London Allen, stepchildren of Gould.
[14]
First bout with cancer
In July 1982, Gould was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma, a deadly form of cancer affecting the
abdominal lining and frequently found in people who have been exposed to asbestos or rock dust. After a
difficult two-year recovery, Gould published a column for Discover magazine, entitled, "The Median Isn't the
Message", which discusses his reaction to discovering that mesothelioma patients had a median lifespan of only
eight months after diagnosis.
[15]
He then describes the true significance behind this number, and his relief upon
realizing that statistical averages are just useful abstractions, and do not encompass the full range of variation.
The median is the halfway point, which means that 50% of patients will die before eight months, but the other
half will live longer, potentially much longer. He then needed to determine where his personal characteristics
placed him within this range. Considering that the cancer was detected early, the fact he was young, optimistic,
and had the best treatments available, Gould figured that he should be in the favorable half of the upper
statistical range. After an experimental treatment of radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery, Gould made a full
recovery, and his column became a source of comfort for many cancer patients.
Gould was also an advocate of medical marijuana. During his bout with cancer, he smoked the illegal drug to
alleviate the nausea associated with his medical treatments. According to Gould, his use of marijuana had a
"most important effect" on his eventual recovery.
[16]
In 1998, he testified in the case of Jim Wakeford, a
Canadian medical-marijuana user and activist.
Final illness and death
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Gould survived for 20 years until another cancer ended his life. Gould died on May 20, 2002, from a metastatic
adenocarcinoma of the lung, a form of cancer which had spread to his brain.
[17]
This cancer was unrelated to his
abdominal cancer. 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."
[18]
Gould began his higher education at Antioch College, graduating with a double major in geology and
philosophy in 1963.
[19]
During this time, he also studied at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.
[20]
After completing 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 (19672002). In 1973,
Harvard promoted him to Professor of Geology and Curator of Invertebrate paleontology at the institution's
Museum of Comparative Zoology; he very often described himself as a taxonomist.
In 1982 Harvard awarded him the title of Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology. The following year, 1983, he
was awarded fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where he later served as
president (19992001). 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
(19851986) and of the Society for the Study of Evolution (19901991).
In 1989 Gould was elected into the body of the National Academy of Sciences. Through 19962002 Gould was
Vincent Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University. In 2001, the American Humanist
Association named him the Humanist of the Year for his lifetime of work. In 2008, he was posthumously
awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal, along with 12 other recipients. (Until 2008 this medal had been awarded
every 50 years by the Linnean Society of London.
[21]
)
Punctuated equilibrium
Early in his career, Gould and Niles Eldredge developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium, according to
which evolutionary change occurs relatively rapidly, alternating with longer periods of relative evolutionary
stability.
[2]
Although Gould suggested the term itself, the basic concept was first presented in Eldredge's
doctoral dissertation on Devonian trilobites and in an article published the previous year on allopatric
speciation.
[22]
According to Gould, punctuated equilibrium revised a key pillar "in the central logic of
Darwinian theory".
[8]
Some evolutionary biologists have argued that while punctuated equilibrium was "of great interest to
biology",
[23]
it merely modified neo-Darwinism in a manner that was fully compatible with what had been
known before.
[24]
For example, George Gaylord Simpson, in Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1941), described
evolutionary history as being characterized by long periods of stasis (bradytely) or gradual change (horotely),
punctuated by short bursts of rapid change (tachytely). This description of evolutionary change, however, is not
a theory of the process(es) that produces it. Punctuated equilibrium is such a theory.
Others have emphasized the theoretical novelty of punctuated equilibrium, and argued that evolutionary stasis
had been "unexpected by most evolutionary biologists" and "had a major impact on paleontology and
evolutionary biology".
[25]
Some critics jokingly referred to the theory as "evolution by jerks",
[26]
which elicited Gould to respond in kind
4 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
by describing gradualism as "evolution by creeps".
[27]
Evolutionary developmental biology
Gould made significant contributions to evolutionary developmental biology,
[28]
especially in his work
Ontogeny and Phylogeny.
[19]
In this book he emphasized the process of heterochrony, which encompasses two
distinct processes: pedomorphosis and terminal additions. Pedomorphosis is the process where ontogeny is
slowed down and the organism does not reach the end of its development. Terminal addition is the process by
which an organism adds to its development by speeding and shortening earlier stages in the developmental
process. Gould's influence in the field of evolutionary developmental biology continues to be seen in such areas
as the study of evolution of feathers.
[29]
Selectionism and sociobiology
Gould championed biological constraints such as the limitations of developmental pathways on evolutionary
outcomes, as well as other non-selectionist forces in evolution. In particular, he considered many higher
functions of the human brain to be the unintended side consequence or by-product of natural selection, rather
than direct adaptations. To describe such co-opted features he coined the term exaptation with Elisabeth
Vrba.
[30]
Gould believed this understanding undermines an essential premise of human sociobiology and
evolutionary psychology.
Against "Sociobiology"
In 1975, Gould's Harvard colleague E. O. Wilson introduced his analysis of animal behavior (including human
behavior) based on a sociobiological framework that suggested that many social behaviors have a strong
evolutionary basis.
[31]
In response, Gould, Richard Lewontin, and others from the Boston area wrote the
subsequently well-referenced letter to The New York Review of Books entitled, "Against 'Sociobiology'". This
open letter criticized Wilson's notion of a "deterministic view of human society and human action".
[32]
But Gould did not rule out sociobiological explanations for many aspects of animal behavior, and later wrote:
"Sociobiologists have broadened their range of selective stories by invoking concepts of inclusive fitness and
kin selection to solve (successfully I think) the vexatious problem of altruismpreviously the greatest
stumbling block to a Darwinian theory of social behavior... Here sociobiology has had and will continue to have
success. And here I wish it well. For it represents an extension of basic Darwinism to a realm where it should
apply."
[33]
Spandrels and the Panglossian Paradigm
With Richard Lewontin, Gould wrote an influential 1979 paper entitled, "The Spandrels of San Marco and the
panglossian paradigm",
[34]
which introduced the architectural term "spandrel" into evolutionary biology. In
architecture, a spandrel is a curved area of masonry which exists between arches supporting a dome. Spandrels,
also called pendentives in this context, are found particularly in Gothic churches.
When visiting Venice in 1978, Gould noted that the spandrels of the San Marco cathedral, while quite beautiful,
were not spaces planned by the architect. Rather the spaces arise as "necessary architectural byproducts of
mounting a dome on rounded arches." Gould and Lewontin thus defined "spandrels" in the evolutionary biology
context, to mean any biological feature of an organism that arises as a necessary side consequence of other
5 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
A spandrel from the Holy Trinity
Church in Fulnek, Czech Republic.
features, which is not directly selected for by natural selection. Proposed
examples include the "masculinized genitalia in female hyenas, exaptive
use of an umbilicus as a brooding chamber by snails, the shoulder hump
of the giant Irish deer, and several key features of human mentality."
[35]
In Voltaire's Candide, Dr. Pangloss is portrayed as a clueless scholar
who, despite the evidence, insists that "all is for the best in this best of
all possible worlds". Gould and Lewontin asserted that it is Panglossian
for evolutionary biologists to view all traits as atomized things that had
been naturally selected for, and criticised biologists for not granting
theoretical space to other causes, such as phyletic and developmental
constraints. The relative frequency of spandrels, so defined, versus
adaptive features in nature, remains a controversial topic in evolutionary
biology.
[36]
An illustrative example of Gould's approach can be found in
Elisabeth Lloyd's case study suggesting that the female orgasm is a
by-product of shared developmental pathways.
[37]
Gould also wrote on
this topic in his essay "Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples",
[38]
prompted by Lloyd's earlier work.
Evolutionary progress
Gould favored the argument that evolution has no inherent drive towards long-term "progress". Uncritical
commentaries often portray evolution as a ladder of progress, leading towards bigger, faster, and smarter
organisms, the assumption being that evolution is somehow driving organisms to get more complex and
ultimately more like humankind. Gould argued that evolution's drive was not towards complexity, but towards
diversification. Because life is constrained to begin with a simple starting point ( like bacteria), any diversity
resulting from this start, by random walk, will have a skewed distribution and therefore be perceived to move in
the direction of higher complexity. But life, Gould argued, can also easily adapt towards simplification, as is
often the case with parasites.
[39]
In a review of Full House, Richard Dawkins approved of Gould's general argument, but suggested that he saw
evidence of a "tendency for lineages to improve cumulatively their adaptive fit to their particular way of life, by
increasing the numbers of features which combine together in adaptive complexes. ... By this definition,
adaptive evolution is not just incidentally progressive, it is deeply, dyed-in-the-wool, indispensably
progressive."
[40]
Cladistics
Gould never embraced cladistics as a method of investigating evolutionary lineages and process, possibly
because he was concerned that such investigations would lead to neglect of the details in historical biology,
which he considered all-important. In the early 1990s this led him into a debate with Derek Briggs, who had
begun to apply quantitative cladistic techniques to the Burgess Shale fossils, about the methods to be used in
interpreting these fossils.
[41]
Around this time cladistics rapidly became the dominant method of classification
in evolutionary biology. Inexpensive but increasingly powerful personal computers made it possible to process
large quantities of data about organisms and their characteristics. Around the same time the development of
effective polymerase chain reaction techniques made it possible to apply cladistic methods of analysis to
biochemical and genetic features as well.
[42]
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Technical work on land snails
Most of Gould's empirical research pertained to land snails. He focused his early work on the Bermudian genus
Poecilozonites, while his later work concentrated on the West Indian genus Cerion. According to Gould "Cerion
is the land snail of maximal diversity in form throughout the entire world. There are 600 described species of
this single genus. In fact, they're not really species, they all interbreed, but the names exist to express a real
phenomenon which is this incredible morphological diversity. Some are shaped like golf balls, some are shaped
like pencils. ... Now my main subject is the evolution of form, and the problem of how it is that you can get this
diversity amid so little genetic difference, so far as we can tell, is a very interesting one. And if we could solve
this we'd learn something general about the evolution of form."
[43]
Given Cerion's extensive geographic diversity, Gould later lamented that if Christopher Columbus had only
cataloged a single Cerion it would have ended the scholarly debate about which island Columbus had first set
foot on in America.
[44]
Influence
Gould is one of the most frequently cited scientists in the field of evolutionary theory. His 1979 "spandrels"
paper has been cited more than 4,000 times.
[45]
In Paleobiologythe flagship journal of his own
specialityonly Charles Darwin and George Gaylord Simpson have been cited more often.
[46]
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)."
[47]
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory
Shortly before his death, Gould published a long treatise recapitulating his version of modern evolutionary
theory: The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002).
Gould became widely known through his popular essays on evolution in the Natural History magazine. His
essays were published in a series titled This View of Life (a phrase from the concluding paragraph of Charles
Darwin's Origin of Species) starting from January 1974 and ended in January 2001, amounting to a continuous
publication of 300 essays.
[4]
Many of his essays were reprinted in collected volumes that became bestselling
books such as Ever Since Darwin and The Panda's Thumb, Hens' Teeth and Horses' Toes, and The Flamingo's
Smile.
A passionate advocate of evolutionary theory, Gould 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 pre-evolutionary and evolutionary thought. He was also an enthusiastic
baseball fan and sabermetrician, and made frequent reference to the sport in his essays. Many of his baseball
essays were anthologized in his posthumously published book Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (2003).
[48]
Although a proud Darwinist, Gould's emphasis was less gradualist and reductionist than most neo-Darwinists.
He fiercely opposed many aspects of sociobiology and its intellectual descendant evolutionary psychology. He
devoted considerable time to fighting against creationism, creation science, and intelligent design. Most notably,
7 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
Gould provided expert testimony against the equal-time creationism law in McLean v. Arkansas. Gould later
developed the term "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA) to describe how, in his view, science and religion
could not comment on each other's realm. Gould went on to develop this idea in some detail, particularly in the
books Rocks of Ages (1999) and The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox (2003). In a 1982 essay for
Natural History Gould wrote:
Our failure to discern a universal good does not record any lack of insight or ingenuity, but merely
demonstrates that nature contains no moral messages framed in human terms. Morality is a subject
for philosophers, theologians, students of the humanities, indeed for all thinking people. The
answers will not be read passively from nature; they do not, and cannot, arise from the data of
science. The factual state of the world does not teach us how we, with our powers for good and
evil, should alter or preserve it in the most ethical manner.
[49]
The anti-evolution petition A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism spawned the National Center for Science
Education's pro-evolution counterpart Project Steve, which is named in Gould's honor.
[50]
Gould also became a noted public face of science, often appearing on television. In 1984 Gould received his
own NOVA special on PBS.
[51]
Other appearances included interviews on CNN's Crossfire, NBC's The Today
Show, and regular appearances on the Charlie Rose show. Gould was also a guest in all seven episodes of the
Dutch talk series A Glorious Accident, in which he appeared with Oliver Sacks.
[52]
Gould was featured prominently as a guest in Ken Burns's PBS documentary Baseball, as well as PBS's
Evolution series. Gould was also on the Board of Advisers to the influential Children's Television Workshop
television show 3-2-1 Contact, where he made frequent guest appearances.
In 1997 he voiced a cartoon version of himself on the television series The Simpsons. In the episode "Lisa the
Skeptic", Lisa finds a skeleton that many people believe is an apocalyptic angel. Lisa contacts Gould and asks
him to test the skeleton's DNA. The fossil is discovered to be a marketing gimmick for a new mall.
[53]
During
production the only phrase Gould objected to was a line in the script that introduced him as the "world's most
brilliant paleontologist".
[54]
In 2002 the show paid tribute to Gould after his death, dedicating the season 13
finale to his memory. Gould had died two days before the episode aired.
Gould received many accolades for his scholarly work and popular expositions of natural history,
[17][55]
but was
not immune from criticism by biologists who felt his public presentations were out of step with mainstream
evolutionary theory.
[56]
The public debates between Gould's supporters and detractors have been so
quarrelsome that they have been dubbed "The Darwin Wars" by several commentators.
[57][58][59][60][61]
John Maynard Smith, an eminent British evolutionary biologist, was among Gould's strongest critics. Maynard
Smith thought that Gould misjudged the vital role of adaptation in biology, and was critical of Gould's
acceptance of species selection as a major component of biological evolution.
[62]
In a 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."
[63]
But Maynard Smith has not been consistently negative,
writing in a review of The Panda's Thumb that "Stephen Gould is the best writer of popular science now
active... Often he infuriates me, but I hope he will go right on writing essays like these."
[64]
Maynard Smith was
also among those who welcomed Gould's reinvigoration of evolutionary paleontology.
[24]
8 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
One reason for criticism was that Gould appeared to be presenting his ideas as a revolutionary way of
understanding evolution, and argued for the importance of mechanisms other than natural selection,
mechanisms which he believed had been ignored by many professional evolutionists. As a result, many
non-specialists sometimes inferred from his early writings that Darwinian explanations had been proven to be
unscientific (which Gould never tried to imply). Along with many other researchers in the field, Gould's works
were sometimes deliberately taken out of context by creationists as "proof" that scientists no longer understood
how organisms evolved.
[65]
Gould himself corrected some of these misinterpretations and distortions of his
writings in later works.
[66]
As documented by Kim Sterelny among others, Gould disagreed with Richard Dawkins about the importance of
gene selection in evolution. Dawkins argued that evolution is best understood as competition among genes (or
replicators), while Gould advocated the importance of multi-level selection, including selection amongst genes,
cell lineages, organisms, demes, species, and clades.
[60]
Dawkins also found that Gould deliberately played down the difference between rapid gradualism and
macromutation in his theory of punctuated equilibrium.
[67]
Criticism of Gould and his theory of punctuated
equilibrium can be found in Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker and Unweaving the Rainbow, as well as chapter
10 of Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
Cambrian fauna
Gould's interpretation of the Cambrian Burgess Shale fossils in his book Wonderful Life emphasized the striking
morphological disparity (or "weirdness") of the Burgess Shale fauna, and the role of chance in determining
which members of this fauna survived and flourished. He used the Cambrian fauna as an example of the role of
contingency in the broader pattern of evolution.
His view was criticized by Simon Conway Morris in his 1998 book The Crucible of Creation.
[68]
Conway
Morris stressed those members of the Cambrian fauna that resemble modern taxa. He also promoted convergent
evolution as a mechanism producing similar forms in similar environmental circumstances, and argued in a
subsequent book that the appearance of human-like animals is likely. Paleontologists Derek Briggs and Richard
Fortey have also argued that much of the Cambrian fauna may be regarded as stem groups of living taxa,
[69]
though this is still a subject of intense research and debate, and the relationship of many Cambrian taxa to
modern phyla has not been established in the eyes of many palaeontologists.
Paleontologist Richard Fortey 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.
[70]
Richard Dawkins also disagreed with Gould's interpretation of the Burgess Shale, arguing:
The extreme Gouldian viewcertainly the view inspired by his rhetoric, though it is hard to tell
from his own words whether he literally holds it himselfis radically different from and utterly
incompatible with the standard neo-Darwinian model. ... For a new body plana new phylumto
spring into existence, what actually has to happen on the ground is that a child is born which
suddenly, out of the blue, is as different from its parents as a snail is from an earthworm. No
zoologist who thinks through the implications, not even the most ardent saltationist, has ever
supported any such notion.
[71]
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Opposition to sociobiology and evolutionary psychology
Gould also had a long-running public feud with E. O. Wilson and other evolutionary biologists about human
sociobiology and its later descendant evolutionary psychology (which Gould, Lewontin, and Maynard Smith
opposed, but which Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker advocated).
[72]
These debates reached
their climax in the 1970s, and included strong opposition from groups like the Sociobiology Study Group and
Science for the People.
[73]
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.
[74]
Gould
stated that he made "no attribution of motive in Wilson's or anyone else's case" but cautioned that all human
beings are influenced, especially unconsciously, by our personal expectations and biases. He wrote:
I grew up in a family with a tradition of participation in campaigns for social justice, and I was
active, as a student, in the civil rights movement at a time of great excitement and success in the
early 1960s. Scholars are often wary of citing such commitments. [but] it is dangerous for a
scholar even to imagine that he might attain complete neutrality, for then one stops being vigilant
about personal preferences and their influencesand then one truly falls victim to the dictates of
prejudice. Objectivity must be operationally defined as fair treatment of data, not absence of
preference.
[75]
Gould's primary criticism held that human sociobiological explanations lacked evidential support, and argued
that adaptive behaviors are frequently assumed to be genetic for no other reason than their supposed
universality, or their adaptive nature. Gould emphasized that adaptive behaviors can be passed on through
culture as well, and either hypothesis is equally plausible.
[76]
Gould did not deny the relevance of biology to
human nature, but reframed the debate as "biological potentiality vs. biological determinism". Gould stated that
the human brain allows for a wide range of behaviors. Its flexibility "permits us to be aggressive or peaceful,
dominant or submissive, spiteful or generous Violence, sexism, and general nastiness are biological since
they represent one subset of a possible range of behaviors. But peacefulness, equality, and kindness are just as
biologicaland we may see their influence increase if we can create social structures that permit them to
flourish."
[76]
The Mismeasure of Man
Main article: The Mismeasure of Man
Gould was the author of The Mismeasure of Man (1981), a history and inquiry of psychometrics and
intelligence testing. Gould investigated the methods of nineteenth century craniometry, as well as the history of
psychological testing. Gould claimed that both theories developed from an unfounded belief in biological
determinism, the view that "social and economic differences between human groupsprimarily races, classes,
and sexesarise from inherited, inborn distinctions and that society, in this sense, is an accurate reflection of
biology."
[77]
It was reprinted in 1996 with the addition of a new foreword and a critical review of The Bell Curve. The
Mismeasure of Man has generated perhaps the greatest controversy of all of Gould's books. It has received both
widespread praise
[78]
and extensive criticism,
[79]
including claims of misrepresentation.
[80]
In 2011, a study conducted by six anthropologists reanalyzed Gould's claim that Samuel Morton unconsciously
manipulated his skull measurements,
[81]
and concluded that Gould's analysis was poorly supported and
incorrect. They praised Gould for his "staunch opposition to racism" but concluded, "we find that Morton's
10 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
initial reputation as the objectivist of his era was well-deserved."
[82]
Ralph Holloway, one of the co-authors of
the study, commented, "I just didn't trust Gould. ... I had the feeling that his ideological stance was supreme.
When the 1996 version of 'The Mismeasure of Man' came and he never even bothered to mention Michael's
study, I just felt he was a charlatan."
[83]
The group's paper was reviewed in the journal Nature, which
recommended a degree of caution, stating "the critique leaves the majority of Gould's work unscathed," and
notes that "because they couldn't measure all the skulls, they do not know whether the average cranial capacities
that Morton reported represent his sample accurately."
[84]
The journal stated that Gould's opposition to racism
may have biased his interpretation of Morton's data, but also noted that "Lewis and his colleagues have their
own motivations. Several in the group have an association with the University of Pennsylvania, and have an
interest in seeing the valuable but understudied skull collection freed from the stigma of bias."
[84]
Main article: Non-overlapping magisteria
In his book Rocks of Ages (1999), Gould put forward what he described as "a blessedly simple and entirely
conventional resolution to ... the supposed conflict between science and religion."
[85]
He defines the term
magisterium as "a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and
resolution."
[85]
The non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) principle therefore divides the magisterium of science
to cover "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."
[85]
He suggests that "NOMA enjoys strong and fully
explicit support, even from the primary cultural stereotypes of hard-line traditionalism" and that NOMA is "a
sound position of general consensus, established by long struggle among people of goodwill in both
magisteria."
[85]
However, this view has not been without criticism. For example, in his book The God Delusion, Richard
Dawkins argues that the division between religion and science is not as simple as Gould claims, as few religions
exist without claiming the existence of miracles, which "by definition, violate the principles of science".
[86]
Dawkins also opposes the idea that religion has anything meaningful to say about ethics and values, and
therefore has no authority to claim a magisterium of its own.
[86]
He goes on to say that he believes Gould is
disengenuous in much of what he says in Rocks of Ages.
[87]
Similarly, humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz argues
that Gould was wrong to posit that science has nothing to say about questions of ethics. In fact, Kurtz claims
that science is a much better method than religion for determining moral principles.
[88]
Articles
Gould's publications were numerous. One review of his publications between 1965 and 2000 noted 479
peer-reviewed papers, 22 books, 300 essays,
[6]
and 101 "major" book reviews.
[89]
A select number of his papers
are listed online (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/bibliography.html).
Books
11 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
The following is a list of books either written or edited by Stephen Jay Gould, including those published
posthumously, after his death in 2002. While some books have been republished at later dates, by multiple
publishers, the list below comprises the original publisher and publishing date.
1977. Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Cambridge
MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
ISBN 0-674-63940-5 online preview
(http://books.google.com.au
/books?id=z8tDIQi5HaUC&
printsec=frontcover&
dq=%22Stephen+Jay+Gould%22&hl=en&
ei=RUHWS7fdO4uK6gP7sPmEAw&
sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&
ved=0CFgQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false)
1977. Ever Since Darwin, New York: W. W.
Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-06425-4
1980. The Panda's Thumb, New York: W. W.
Norton, ISBN 0-393-01380-4
1980. Gould, Stephen Jay (December 1980), The
Evolution of Gryphaea (http://books.google.com
/?id=k4ykb5el47kC&printsec=frontcover&
dq=%22'The+Evolution+of+Gryphaea%22&q),
New York: Arno Press, ISBN 0-405-12751-0
1981. The Mismeasure of Man, New York: W.
W. Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-31425-0
1983. Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, New York:
W. W. Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-01716-8
1985. The Flamingo's Smile, New York: W. W.
Norton, ISBN 0-393-02228-5
1987. Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle, Cambridge
MA: Harvard Univ. Press, ISBN 0-674-89198-8
online preview (http://books.google.com.au
/books?id=UeGXJ5b8Ph0C&
ei=30LWS8SlC4Hk7AOF-qH8Ag&
1995. Dinosaur in a Haystack, New York:
Harmony Books, ISBN 0-517-70393-9
1996. Full House: The Spread of Excellence
From Plato to Darwin, New York: Harmony
Books, ISBN 0-517-70394-7
1997. Questioning the Millennium: A
Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary
Countdown, New York: Harmony Books,
ISBN 0-609-60541-0
1998. Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the
Diet of Worms, N.Y.: Harmony Books,
ISBN 0-609-60141-5
1999. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the
Fullness of Life, New York: Ballantine Books,
ISBN 0-345-43009-3
2000. The Lying Stones of Marrakech, New
York: Harmony Books, ISBN 0-609-60142-3
2000. Crossing Over: Where Art and Science
Meet, New York: Three Rivers Press,
ISBN 0-609-80586-X
2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory,
Cambridge MA: Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-00613-3
online preview (http://books.google.com.au
/books?id=nhIl7e61WOUC&
ei=30LWS8SlC4Hk7AOF-qH8Ag&
ved=0CDsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)
2002. I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in
Natural History, New York: Harmony Books,
ISBN 0-609-60143-1
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ved=0CEoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false)
1987. An Urchin in the Storm: Essays about
Books and Ideas, N.Y.: W. W. Norton,
ISBN 0-393-02492-X
1987. (with Rosamond Wolff Purcell)
Illuminations: A Bestiary, N.Y.: W. W. Norton,
ISBN 0-393-30436-1
1989. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the
Nature of History, New York: W. W. Norton,
ISBN 0-393-02705-8. 347 pp.
1991. Bully for Brontosaurus, New York: W. W.
Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-02961-1. 540 pp.
1992. (with Rosamond Wolff Purcell) Finders,
Keepers: Eight Collectors, New York: W. W.
Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-03054-9
1993. Eight Little Piggies, New York: W. W.
Norton, ISBN 0-393-03416-X
1993. The Book of Life. Preface, pp. 621. New
York: W. W. Norton (S. J. Gould general editor,
10 contributors). ISBN 0-393-05003-3 review
citing original publishing date (http://palaeo-
electronica.org/2001_1/books/life.pdf)
2003. Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A
Lifelong Passion for Baseball, New York: W. W.
Norton, ISBN 0-393-05755-0
2003. The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the
Magister's Pox, New York: Harmony Books,
ISBN 0-609-60140-7
2006. The Richness of Life: the Essential
Stephen Jay Gould, London: Jonathan Cape,
ISBN 978-0-09-948867-5 This is an anthology
of Gould's writings edited by Paul McGarr and
Steven Rose, introduced by Steven Rose.
2007. Punctuated Equilibrium, Cambridge MA:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
ISBN 0-674-02444-3 Book review
(http://palaeo-electronica.org/2007_3/books
/equal.htm)
Specific citations:
^ Shermer, Michael (2002), "This View of Science" (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/shermer_sjgould.pdf),
Social Studies of Science 32 (4): 489525.
1.
^
a

b
Eldredge, Niles, and S. J. Gould (1972). "Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism."
(http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/classictexts/eldredge.pdf) In T.J.M. Schopf, ed., Models in Paleobiology.
San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper and Company, pp. 82115.
2.
^
a

b
Gould, S. J. (1997). "Nonoverlapping magisteria". (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html)
Natural History 106 (March): 1622.
3.
^
a

b
Tattersall I. "Remembering Stephen Jay Gould" (http://naturalhistorymag.com/perspectives/302413
/remembering-stephen-jay-gould). Retrieved 2013-06-07.
4.
^ Library of Congress. "Living Legend: Stephen Jay Gould" (http://www.loc.gov/about/awardshonors/livinglegends
/bio/goulds.html). Retrieved 2013-06-07.
5.
13 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
^
a

b
Gould, Stephen Jay (December 2000 January 2001). "In the final essay of this twenty-seven-year series, the
author reflects on continuityfrom family history to the branching lineage of terrestrial life" (http://web.archive.org
/web/20040503211224/http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/features/1200_feature.html). This View of Life. Natural
History. Archived from the original (http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/features/1200_feature.html) on May 3, 2004.
Retrieved 2013-03-30. "Papa Joe ended up, along with so many Jewish immigrants, in the garment district of New
York City, where, after severing his middle finger in an accident as a cloth cutter, he eventually figured out how to
parlay his remarkable, albeit entirely untrained, artistic talents into a better job that provided eventual access to
middle-class life (and afforded much titillation to his grandchildren)as a designer of brassieres and corsets. He met
Irene, also a garment worker, when he lived as a boarder at the home of Irene's aunt..."
6.
^
a

b
Green, Michelle (1986). "Stephen Jay Gould: driven by a hunger to learn and to write".
(http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/green_sjgould.html) People 25 (June 2): 109114.
7.
^
a

b
Gould, S. J. (2002). The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press. ISBN 0-674-00613-5
8.
^
a

b
Gould, S. J. (1981). "Official Transcript for Goulds deposition in McLean v. Arkansas".
(http://www.antievolution.org/projects/mclean/new_site/depos/pf_gould_dep.htm) (Nov. 27). Under oath Gould
stated: "My political views tend to the left of center. Q. Could you be more specific about your political views? A. I
don't know how to be. I am not a joiner, so I am not a member of any organization. So I have always resisted labeling.
But if you read my other book, The Mismeasure of Man, which is not included because it is not about evolution, you
will get a sense of my political views." p. 153.
9.
^ Gasper, Phil (2002). "Stephen Jay Gould: (http://www.isreview.org/issues/24/gould.shtml) Dialectical Biologist".
International Socialist Review 24 (JulyAugust).
10.
^ Lewontin, Richard and Richard Levins (2002). "Stephen Jay Gouldwhat does it mean to be a radical?"
(http://www.monthlyreview.org/1102lewontin.htm) Monthly Review 54 (Nov. 1). "The public intellectual and political
life of Steve Gould was extraordinary, if not unique. First, he was an evolutionary biologist and historian of science
whose intellectual work had a major impact on our views of the process of evolution. Second, he was, by far, the
most widely known and influential expositor of science who has ever written for a lay public. Third, he was a
consistent political activist in support of socialism and in opposition to all forms of colonialism and oppression. The
figure he most closely resembled in these respects was the British biologist of the 1930s, J. B. S. Haldane, a founder
of the modern genetical theory of evolution, a wonderful essayist on science for the general public, and an
idiosyncratic Marxist and columnist for the Daily Worker who finally split with the Communist Party over its demand
that scientific claims follow Party doctrine."
11.
^ Gould, S. J. (1993). "Dinomania". (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2483) New York Review of Books 40 (August
12): 5156.
12.
^ Gould, S. J. (1983). Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31103-1. 13.
^
a

b
Carol Kaesuk Yoon (2002). "Stephen Jay Gould, 60, Is Dead; Enlivened Evolutionary Theory,"
(http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/21/us/stephen-jay-gould-60-is-dead-enlivened-evolutionary-theory.html) New York
Times May 21, 2002.
14.
^ Gould, S. J. (1985). "The Median Isn't the Message". (http://www.cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html) Discover
6 (June): 4042.
15.
^ Bakalar, James and Lester Grinspoon (1997). Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine. New Haven: Yale University
Press, pp. 3941. (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_marijuana.html)
16.
14 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
^
a

b
Harvard News Office (2002). "Paleontologist, author Gould dies at 60". (http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette
/2002/05.16/99-gould.html) The Harvard Gazette. (May 20). Retrieved on June 4, 2009.
17.
^ Krementz, Jill (2002). "Jill Krementz Photo Journal". (http://www.asrlab.org/archive/jillPage.htm) New York Social
Diary. Retrieved on June 4, 2009.
18.
^
a

b
Allen, Warren (2008). "The Structure of Gould". (http://books.google.com/books?id=6iVOHEVeSFMC&
pg=PA3) In Warren Allen et al. Stephen Jay Gould: Reflections on His View of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
p. 24, 59.
19.
^ Masha, Etkin (2002). "A Tribute to Stephen Jay Gould '63". (http://antiochians.org/antiochdocs/antiochian/archive
/Antiochian_wi02/winter2002/book_gould.html) Antiochian (Winter ed.). Retrieved on June 4, 2009.
20.
^ Linnean Society of London (2008). "The DarwinWallace Medal". (http://linnean.org/index.php?id=344l)
Retrieved on June 4, 2009.
21.
^ Eldredge, Niles (1971). "The Allopatric Model and Phylogeny in Paleozoic Invertebrates." Evolution Vol. 25, No. 1
(Mar. 1971), pp. 156167.
22.
^ Dawkins, Richard (1999). The Extended Phenotype. Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press. p. 101. ISBN
0-19-288051-9.
23.
^
a

b
Maynard Smith, John (1984), "Paleontology at the high table", Nature 309 (5967): 401402,
Bibcode:1984Natur.309..401S (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1984Natur.309..401S), doi:10.1038/309401a0
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2F309401a0).
24.
^ Mayr, Ernst (1992). "Speciational Evolution or Punctuated Equilibria". (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library
/mayr_punctuated.html) In Steven Peterson and Albert Somit. The Dynamics of Evolution. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, pp. 2148. Special:BookSources/0801497639ISBN 0-8014-9763-9.
25.
^ Turner, John (1984). "Why we need evolution by jerks." (http://books.google.com/books?id=6idhDboGmZoC&
pg=PA34) New Scientist 101 (Feb. 9): 3435.
26.
^ Gould, S. J. and Steven Rose, ed. (2007). The Richness of Life: The Essential Stephen Jay Gould. New York: W. W.
Norton & Co., p. 6. (http://books.google.com/books?id=yfXJhKmp1wUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA6)
27.
^ Thomas, R.D.K. (2009). "Gould, Stephen Jay (19412002)". in M. Ruse and J. Travis (eds). Evolution: The First
Four Billion Years. Cambridge MA: Belknap Press. pp. 611615.
28.
^ Prum, R.O., & Brush, A.H. (March 2003). "Which Came First, the Feather or the Bird?" Scientific American,
vol.288, no.3, pp. 8493
29.
^ Gould, S. J.; Vrba, E. (1982), "Exaptationa missing term in the science of form"
(http://evolutionanddesign.googlepages.com/Gould__Vrba_1982_Exaptation.pdf), Paleobiology 8 (1): 415.
30.
^ Wilson, E. O. (1975). Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. 31.
^ Allen, Elizabeth, et al. (1975). "Against 'Sociobiology'". (http://www.nybooks.com/articles
/9017?sess=305fe41afae729849e1e7eb4b004bb81) [letter] New York Review of Books 22 (Nov. 13): 182, 184186.
32.
^ Gould, S. J. (1980). "Sociobiology and the Theory of Natural Selection". In G. W. Barlow and J. Silverberg, eds.,
Sociobiology: Beyond Nature/Nurture? Boulder CO: Westview Press, pp. 257269.
33.
^ Gould, S. J. and Richard Lewontin (1979). "The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique
of the adaptationist programme". (http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/03_Areas/evolution/perspectives
/Gould_Lewontin_1979.shtml) Proc. R. Soc. Lond., B, Biol. Sci. 205 (1161): 58198. DOI (http://dx.doi.org
/10.1098%2Frspb.1979.0086) PMID (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/42062); for background see Gould's "The
Pattern of Life's History" (http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/i-Ch.2.html) in John Brockman The Third
34.
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Culture (http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/d-Contents.html). New York: Simon & Schuster. 1996, pp.
5264. ISBN 0-684-82344-6.
^ Gould, S. J. (1997). "The exaptive excellence of spandrels as a term and prototype". (http://www.pnas.org/content
/94/20/10750.full) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 94 (20): 107505. DOI (http://dx.doi.org
/10.1073%2Fpnas.94.20.10750) PMID (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11038582)
35.
^ Maynard Smith, John (1995). "Genes, Memes, & Minds". (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1703) The New York
Review of Books 42 (Nov. 30): 4648. "By and large, I think their [Spandrels] paper had a healthy effect. . . . Their
critique forced us to clean up our act and to provide evidence for our stories. But adaptationism remains the core of
biological thinking." A similar appraisal is reflected by Ernst Mayr in his 1983 paper "How to Carry Out the
Adaptationist Program?" The American Naturalist 121 (3): 324334; and George C. Williams, Natural Selection:
Domains, Levels, and Challenges. New York: Oxford University Press. 1992.
36.
^ Lloyd, E.A. (2005). The Case of The Female Orgasm: Bias in the science of evolution. Cambridge MA: Harvard
University Press.
37.
^ Gould, S.J. (1992). "Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples". (http://books.google.com/books?id=pzj90slTTEIC&
pg=PA124) In Bully for Brontosaurus: Further Reflections in Natural History. New York: W. W. Norton. pp.
124138.
38.
^ Gould, S. J. (1996). Full House: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin. New York: Harmony Books. 39.
^ Dawkins, Richard; Gould, Stephen Jay (1997), "Human chauvinism" (http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins
/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/Reviews/1997-06fullhouse.shtml), Evolution 51 (3): 10151020,
doi:10.2307/2411179 (http://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2F2411179), JSTOR 2411179 (https://www.jstor.org/stable
/2411179).
40.
^ Gould, S. J. (1991). "The disparity of the Burgess Shale arthropod fauna and the limits of cladistic analysis".
(http://webh01.ua.ac.be/funmorph/raoul/macroevolutie/Gould1991.pdf) Paleobiology 17 (October): 411423.
41.
^ Baron, Christian and J. T. Heg (2005). "Gould, Scharm and the Paleontologocal Perspective in Evolutionary
Biology". (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LalmQ4346O0C&pg=PA3) In S. Koenemann and R.A. Jenner,
Crustacea and Arthropod Relationships. CRC Press. pp. 314. ISBN 0-8493-3498-5.
42.
^ Wolpert, Lewis and Alison Richards (1998). A Passion For Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.
139152. (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/wolpert_sjg-interview.html) ISBN 0-19-854212-7
43.
^ Gould, S. J. (1996). "A Cerion for Christopher". Natural History 105 (Oct.): 2229, 7879. 44.
^ Google Scholar. http://scholar.google.com (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=8886524888381702203).
Retrieved on 2011-6-12.
45.
^ Prothero, Donald (2000). "Evolution Revolution: Paleontology, History, Biography". (http://www.skeptic.com
/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SS&Product_Code=av093&Category_Code=) Skeptic
Festschrift lecture for Stephen Jay Gould. October 7, 2000.
46.
^ Shermer, Michael (2002), "This View of Science" (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/shermer_sjgould.pdf),
47.
^ Gould, S. J. (2003). Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (http://books.google.com/books?id=XIJ-ay4GJ_kC&
pg=PA). New York: W. W. Norton & Co. See his essays: "The Streak of Streaks", (http://www.nybooks.com/articles
/4337) "Thcience Studies" (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/4337), and "Baseball's reliquary: the oddly possible
hybrid of shrine and university" (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_2_111/ai_83553539/)
48.
^ Gould, S. J. (1982). "Nonmoral Nature". (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_nonmoral.html) Natural 49.
16 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
History 91 (Feb.): 1926.
^ NCSE Project Steve (http://ncse.com/taking-action/project-steve) official webpage, National Center for Science
Education, February 16, 2003
50.
^ PBS (1984). "Stephen Jay Gould: This View of Life". (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/audio/gould_nova-
special.html) NOVA. December 18.
51.
^ Sacks, Oliver (2007). Forward. (http://books.google.com/books?id=yfXJhKmp1wUC&pg=PP17) In Steven Rose,
ed. The Richness of Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, p. xi. Video (http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=SJzqHnwNbUY)
52.
^ Fox. The Simpsons. "Lisa the Skeptic", November 23, 1997. Audio here. (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/audio
/thesimpsons.rm)
53.
^ Scully, Mike (2006). The Simpsons. Season 9 DVD Commentary for "Lisa the Skeptic". DVD. 20th Century Fox. 54.
^ Shermer, Michael (2002). "This View of Science" (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/shermer_sjgould.pdf).
This is almost all of Schermer's note 10 (which cites "Gould's curriculum vitae, dated September 2000"):
Awards include a National Book Award for The Panda's Thumb, a National Book Critics Circle Award for The
Mismeasure of Man, the Phi Beta Kappa Book Award for Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, and a Pulitzer Prize
Finalist for Wonderful Life, on which Gould commented "close but, as they say, no cigar". Forty-four honorary
degrees and 66 major fellowships, medals, and awards bear witness to the depth and scope of his
accomplishments in both the sciences and humanities: Member of the National Academy of Sciences,
President and Fellow of AAAS, MacArthur Foundation 'genius' Fellowship (in the first group of awardees),
Humanist Laureate from the Academy of Humanism, Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow of the European
Union of Geosciences, Associate of the Musum National D'Histoire Naturelle Paris, the Schuchert Award for
excellence in paleontological research, Scientist of the Year from Discover magazine, the Silver Medal from
the Zoological Society of London, the Gold Medal for Service to Zoology from the Linnean Society of
London, the Edinburgh Medal from the City of Edinburgh, the Britannica Award and Gold Medal for
dissemination of public knowledge, Public Service Award from the Geological Society of America,
Anthropology in Media Award from the American Anthropological Association, Distinguished Service Award
from the National Association of Biology Teachers, Distinguished Scientist Award from UCLA, the Randi
Award for Skeptic of the Year from the Skeptics Society, and a Festschrift in his honour at Caltech.
55.
^ These are the first two of 25 paragraphs, with notes, from a "Letter to the Editor of The New York Review of Books"
(http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html) by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby (July 7, 1997). They wrote in
comment on two recent NYRB articles by Gould (June 12 and 26). The source (cogweb.ucla.edu, August 2002) does
not say whether NYRB published the letter.
John Maynard Smith, one of the world's leading evolutionary biologists, recently summarized in the NYRB
the sharply conflicting assessments of Stephen Jay Gould: "Because of the excellence of his essays, he has
come to be seen by non-biologists as the pre-eminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary
biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be
hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side
against the creationists." (NYRB, November 30, 1995, p. 46). No one can take any pleasure in the evident pain
Gould is experiencing now that his actual standing within the community of professional evolutionary
56.
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biologists is finally becoming more widely known. If what was a stake was solely one man's self-regard,
common decency would preclude comment.
But as Maynard Smith points out, more is at stake. Gould "is giving non-biologists a largely false picture of
the state of evolutionary theory"or as Ernst Mayr says of Gould and his small group of alliesthey "quite
conspicuously misrepresent the views of [biology's] leading spokesmen."{1}. Indeed, although Gould
characterizes his critics as "anonymous" and "a tiny coterie", nearly every major evolutionary biologist of our
era has weighed in a vain attempt to correct the tangle of confusions that the higher profile Gould has
inundated the intellectual world with.{2} The point is not that Gould is the object of some criticismso
properly are we allit is that his reputation as a credible and balanced authority about evolutionary biology is
non-existent among those who are in a professional position to know.
...
{1} [Full reference provided by the writers.]
{2} These include Ernst Mayr, John Maynard Smith, George Williams, Bill Hamilton, Richard Dawkins, E.O.
Wilson, Tim Clutton-Brock, Paul Harvey, Brian Charlesworth, Jerry Coyne, Robert Trivers, John Alcock,
Randy Thornhill, and many others.
It should be noted that where Tooby & Cosmides quote Ernst Mayr, he does not speak of Gould in particular, and
does not mention him by name, but speaks generally of the critics of the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis.
The list of experts provided by Tooby and Cosmides is also questionable. For example, Mayr, Williams, Hamilton,
Dawkins, Wilson, Coyne, and Trivers have shown great respect for Gould as a scientist.
In the first of the two articles that provoked Tooby & Cosmides, Gould had commented on the November 1995
review of his work by Maynard Smith, which they quoted in support (quoted in this note).
Gould, "Darwinian Fundamentalism" (webpage 2) (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/jun
/12/darwinian-fundamentalism/?page=2), reprinted from New York Review of Books 44 (June 12, 1997): 3437.
A false fact can be refuted, a false argument exposed; but how can one respond to a purely ad hominem
attack? This harder, and altogether more discouraging, task may best be achieved by exposing internal
inconsistency and unfairness of rhetoric.
[quotation of Smith's November 1995 NYRB quotation of Gould, later quoted by Tooby & Consides (above)]
It seems futile to reply to an attack so empty of content, and based only on comments by anonymous critics; ...
Instead of responding to Maynard Smith's attack against my integrity and scholarship, citing people unknown
and with arguments unmentioned, let me, instead, merely remind him of the blatant inconsistency between his
admirable past and lamentable present. Some sixteen years ago he wrote a highly critical but wonderfully
supportive review of my early book of essays, The Panda's Thumb, stating: "I hope it will be obvious that my
wish to argue with Gould is a compliment, not a criticism." He then attended my series of Tanner Lectures at
Cambridge in 1984 and wrote in a report for Nature, and under the remarkable title "Paleontology at the High
Table", the kindest and most supportive critical commentary I have ever received. He argued that the work of a
small group of American paleobiologists had brought the entire subject back to theoretical centrality within the
evolutionary sciences. ...
[multiple paragraphs]
So we face the enigma of a man who has written numerous articles, amounting to tens of thousands of words,
about my workalways strongly and incisively critical, always richly informed (and always, I might add,
18 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
enormously appreciated by me). But now Maynard Smith needs to canvass unnamed colleagues to find out
that my ideas are "hardly worth bothering with". He really ought to be asking himself why he has been
bothering about my work so intensely, and for so many years. ...
^ Brown, Andrew (1999). The Darwin Wars: The Scientific Battle for the Soul of Man. London: Simon & Schuster.
ISBN 0-8050-7137-7
57.
^ Rose, Steven (2002). "Obituaries: Stephen Jay Gould". (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2002/may
/22/medicalscience.internationaleducationnews) The Guardian (May 22): 20.
58.
^ Blume, Harvey (2002). "The Origin of Specious". (http://www.prospect.org
/cs/articles?article=the_origin_of_specious) The American Prospect (September 22): 4143.
59.
^
a

b
Sterelny, Kim (2007), Dawkins vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest, Cambridge, U.K.: Icon Books,
ISBN 1-84046-780-0 Also ISBN 978-1-84046-780-2
60.
^ Dawkins (1998), p. 195 (http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=ZudTchiioUoC&printsec=frontcover&
dq=unweaving+the+rainbow&source=bl&ots=vUbqz7NJs0&sig=P-FaM4jTHMMv4d-ZjM4yvd--P30&hl=zh-
CN&sa=X&ei=CQsnUP38OcTtrQeTuIG4DA&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=gould&f=false)
61.
^ Maynard Smith, John (1981). "Did Darwin get it right?" The London Review of Books 3 (11): 1011; Also reprinted
in Did Darwin Get it Right? New York: Chapman and Hall, 1989, pp. 148156.
62.
^ Maynard Smith, John (1995). "Genes, Memes, & Minds". (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1703) The New York
Review of Books 42 (Nov. 30): 4648.
63.
^ Maynard Smith, John (1981). "Review of The Panda's Thumb" The London Review of Books pp. 1730; Reprinted
as "Tinkering" in his Did Darwin Get It Right? New York: Chapman and Hall. 1989, pp. 94, 97.
64.
^ Wright, Robert (1999). "The Accidental Creationist: Why Stephen J. Gould is bad for evolution".
(http://www.nonzero.org/newyorker.htm) The New Yorker 75 (Dec. 13): 5665.
65.
^ Gould, S. J. (1981). "Evolution as fact and theory". (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-
and-theory.html) Discover 2 (May): 3437.
66.
^ "It is when we ask what happens during the sudden bursts of species formation that the confusion... arises... Gould
is aware of the difference between rapid gradualism and macromutation, but he treats the matter as though it were a
minor detail, to be cleared up after we have taken on board the overarching question of whether evolution is episodic
rather than gradual." As seen at: Dawkins, Richard (1998). Unweaving the Rainbow, pp. 196197
(http://books.google.com/books?id=ZudTchiioUoC&pg=PA202)
67.
^ Conway Morris, S.; Gould, S. J. (1998). "Showdown on the Burgess Shale" (http://www.stephenjaygould.org
/library/naturalhistory_cambrian.html). Natural History 107: 4855.
68.
^ Briggs, Derek; Fortey, Richard (2005). "Wonderful Strife: systematics, stem groups, and the phylogenetic signal of
the Cambrian radiation" (http://www.colorado.edu/geolsci/courses/GEOL3410
/BriggsFortey05_CambrianRadiation.pdf). Paleobiology 31 (2): 94112.
doi:10.1666/0094-8373(2005)031[0094:WSSSGA]2.0.CO;2 (http://dx.doi.org
/10.1666%2F0094-8373%282005%29031%5B0094%3AWSSSGA%5D2.0.CO%3B2). Abstract
(http://www.psjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1666/0094-8373(2005)031%5B0094%3AWSSSGA%5D2.0.CO%3B2)
69.
^ Fortey, Richard (1998). "Shock Lobsters". (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n19/fort01_.html) London Review of Books 20
(Oct. 1).
70.
^ Dawkins, Richard (1998). Unweaving the Rainbow, p. 202. (http://books.google.com/books?id=ZudTchiioUoC&
pg=PA202)
71.
19 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
^ Gould, S. J. (1997). "Evolution: The pleasures of pluralism". (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/reviews
/gould_pluralism.html) The New York Review of Books 44 (June 26): 4752.
72.
^ Wilson, E. O. (2006). Naturalist New York: Island Press, p.337 (http://books.google.com
/books?id=TZH2nHEPSjYC&pg=PA337) ISBN 1-59726-088-6.
73.
^ Pinker, Steven (2002), The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, New York: Penguin Books,
ISBN 0-14-200334-4
74.
^ Gould S. J. (1996). The Mismeasure of Man: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., p.
36. ISBN 0-14-025824-8
75.
^
a

b
Gould, S. J. (1992). "Biological potentiality vs. biological determinism". (http://books.google.com
/books?id=_VCnI02FwHAC&pg=PA251) In Ever Since Darwin. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., pp. 251259.
76.
^ Gould, S. J. (1981). The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. p. 20. 77.
^ In 1981 The Mismeasure of Man won the National Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction. It was voted as the
17th greatest science book of all time by Discover magazine vol. 27 (December 8, 2006); 9th best skeptic book by
The Skeptics Society (Frank Diller, "Scientists' Nightstand" American Scientist); and ranked 24th place for the best
non-fiction book by the Modern Library.
78.
^ Blinkhorn, Steve (1982). "What Skulduggery?" (http://www.skepticfiles.org/evolut/mismeasr.htm) Nature 296
(April 8): 506.
79.
^ Jensen, Arthur (1982). "The Debunking of Scientific Fossils and Straw Persons" (http://www.debunker.com/texts
/jensen.html). Contemporary Education 1 (2). pp. 121135.
80.
^ Gould, S. J. (1978). "Morton's Ranking of Races by Cranial Capacity." (http://www.colorado.edu
/MCDB/MCDB4234/readings/Morton-Skulls-Gould.pdf) Science 200 (May 5): 503509.
81.
^ Lewis, J., E., DeGusta, D. Meyer, M.R., Monge, J.M., Mann, A.E. and Holloway, R.L. (2011). "The Mismeasure of
Science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on Skulls and Bias." (http://www.plosbiology.org/article
/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001071) Public Library of Science Biology 9 (6): e1001071.
82.
^ Wade, Nicholas (2011). "Scientists Measure the Accuracy of a Racism Claim." (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06
/14/science/14skull.html?_r=1&ref=science) New York Times (June 14): D4.
83.
^
a

b
Editorial (2011). "Mismeasure for mismeasure." (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7352
/full/474419a.html) Nature 474 (June 23): 419.
84.
^
a

b

c

d
Gould, S. J. (2002). Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York: Ballantine
Books.
85.
^
a

b
Dawkins, R. (2006). The God Delusion. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p. 83. (http://books.google.com
/books?id=yq1xDpicghkC&pg=PA83)
86.
^ p.81 (2006). The God Delusion, Black Swan. 87.
^ Grothe, DJ (11 December 2005). "Paul Kurtz - Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?"
(http://www.pointofinquiry.org/paul_kurtz_science_and_religion_are_they_compatible/). Point of Inquiry Podcast.
Center for Inquiry. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
88.
^ Shermer, Michael (2002). "This View of Science" (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/shermer_sjgould.pdf)
Social Studies of Science 32 (4): 496
89.
General references:
20 of 21 5/14/2014 12:46 AM
Dawkins, Richard (1998). Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
(http://books.google.com/books?id=ZudTchiioUoC). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 0395883822.
Richard C. Lewontin sums up Gould's career in an obituary (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132
/is_6_54/ai_94142087) from findarticles.com
"Darwinian Fundamentalism" (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1151) Gould's response to Daniel Dennett and
other critics, from the The New York Review of Books
Excerpts from Gould Lectures at Stanford University (http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/gould/)
Stephen Jay Gould papers (http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt229036tr) at Stanford
University Libraries
Stephen Jay Gould (http://www.charlierose.com/search/?text=Stephen+Jay+Gould) Charlie Rose
interviews
Unofficial Stephen Jay Gould Archive (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stephen_Jay_Gould&oldid=606331361"
Categories: MacArthur Fellows Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
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