Stephen Jay Gould Reflections on His View of Life

by Allmon, Warren D.; Kelley, Patricia; Ross, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780195373202
• ISBN10: 0195373200
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-11-05
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Considered by many during his lifetime as the most well-known scientist in the world, Stephen Jay Gould left an enormous and influential body of work. A Harvard professor of paleontology, evolutionary biology, and the history of science, Gould provided major insights into our understanding of the history of life. He helped to reinvigorate paleontology, launch macroevolution on a new course, and provide a context in which the biological developmental stages of an organism's embryonic growth could be integrated into an understanding of evolution. This book is a set of reflections on the many areas of Gould's intellectual life by the people who knew and understood him best: former students and prominent close collaborators. Mostly a critical assessment of his legacy, the chapters are not technical contributions but rather offer a combination of intellectual bibliography, personal memoir, and reflection on Gould's diverse scientific achievements. The work includes the most complete bibliography of his writings to date and offers a multi-dimensional view of Gould's life-work not to be found in any other volume.

Author Biography

Warren D. Allmon is Director of the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, NY, and Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. Patricia H. Kelley is Professor of Geology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Robert M. Ross is Associate Director for Outreach at the Paleontological Research Institution, Ithaca, NY.

Table of Contents

Editors' Preface	p. vii
Contributors	p. xi
The Structure of Gould: Happenstance, Humanism, History, and the Unity of His View of Life	p. 3
Diversity in the Fossil Record and Stephen Jay Gould's Evolving View of the History of Life	p. 69
The Legacy of Punctuated Equilibrium	p. 127
A Tree Grows in Queens: Stephen Jay Gould and Ecology	p. 147
Stephen Jay Gould's Winnowing Fork: Science, Religion, and Creationism	p. 171
Top-Tier: Stephen Jay Gould and Mass Extinctions	p. 189
Stephen Jay Gould-What Does It Mean to Be a Radical?	p. 199
Evolutionary Theory and the Social Uses of Biology	p. 207
Stephen Jay Gould's Evolving, Hierarchical Thoughts on Stasis	p. 227
Stephen Jay Gould: The Scientist as Educator	p. 243
Stephen Jay Gould: Remembering a Geologist	p. 263
Gould's Odyssey: Form May Follow Function, or Former Function, and All Species Are Equal (Especially Bacteria), but History Is Trumps	p. 271
The Tree of Life: Stephen Jay Gould's Contributions to Systematics	p. 291
Genetics and Development: Good as Gould	p. 313
Bibliography: Stephen Jay Gould	p. 335
Notes	p. 381
Index	p. 387
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