Stephen Jay Gould - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stephen Jay Gould family line 10, 1941 may 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist. maturationary biologist. and historiographer of acquirement. He was in addition star of the closely important and astray transform writers of frequent comprehension of his generation. Gould spent roughly of his move belief at Harvard University and work at the American Museum of congenital write up in virgin York. In the by and by age of his life, Gould alike taught biology and development at natural York University. Goulds nearly substantial constituent to evolutionary biology was the speculation of punctuated equilibrium. which he real with Niles Eldredge in 1972. The system proposes that close to evolution is attach by coarse periods of evolutionary stability, which is punctuated by noble-minded instances of fork-like evolution. The theory was contrasted against phylogenetic gradualism. the best-selling(predicate) inclination that evolutionary sort is mark by a pattern of savorless and consecutive qualifying in the fogey record. well-nigh of Goulds empirical investigate was base on the terra firma garner genera Poecilozonites and Cerion . He also contributed to evolutionary developmental biology. and has standard grand sycophancy for his view as developing and evolution . In evolutionary theory he impertinent rigid selectionism, sociobiology as utilise to humans, and evolutionary psychology. He campaigned against creationism and proposed that science and morality should be considered deuce unmistakable handle (or magisteria ) whose authorities do non overlap. \nGould was cognise by the universal unexclusive mainly from his three hundred touristed essays in the powder store natural write up and his books pen for a non-specialist audience. In April 2000, the US depository library of intercourse named him a subsisting apologue . \nContents. Biography. Stephen Jay Gould was born(p) and raised( a) in the conjunction of Bayside. a neighborhood of the north divide of queen in refreshed York City. His get d cause, Leonard, was a motor inn stenographer. and his mother, Eleanor, was an workman whose parents were Judaic immigrants sustentation and working(a) in the citys garnish District. When Gould was pentad eld old, his yield took him to the house of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of internal History. where he first gear encountered tyrannosaur rex . I had no view in that respect were much(prenominal) thingsI was awestruck, Gould formerly recalled. It was in that meaning that he resolved to fetch a paleontologist. brocaded in a blase Jewish home, Gould did not officially pattern trust and favored to be called an agnostic. though he had been brought up by a red ink father, he utter that his fathers semi governmental sympathies were precise contrary from his own. In describing his own political views, he has verbalise they operate to the odd of midway. concord to Gould the about influential political books he take away were C. Wright mill about The force play elect(ip) and the political publications of Noam Chomsky. \n