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Grex > Agora41 > #212: Stephen Jay Gould extinct as of May 20 | |
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md
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Stephen Jay Gould extinct as of May 20
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May 29 02:08 UTC 2002 |
I just found out that Stephen Jay Gould died last week. Lung cancer.
He was 60. He was a serious paleontologist whose book _Ontogeny and
Phylogeny_ is a classic. He also wrote many magazine essays in a
popular vein which he collected in book form under such titles as _The
Panda's Thumb_ and _Bully for Brontosaurus_. He will be missed.
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| 17 responses total. |
keesan
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response 1 of 17:
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May 31 23:31 UTC 2002 |
He was the assistant professor (co-taught the course) for my freshman intro
to geology and was always so excited about what he had to say that he talked
too fast to take notes. I tried to attend a lecture at U of M but had to
listen to it on TV out in the hall at Rackham, it was so popular. Was he one
of the unfortunate non-smokers who got lung cancer anyway?
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md
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response 2 of 17:
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Jun 1 02:47 UTC 2002 |
He had some type of abdominal cancer about twenty years ago. This
supposedly was a new cancer, and I don't know if he smoked.
Gould's "punctuated equilibrium" theories got him in trouble with his
peers, especially when creationists started quoting him as an anti-
darwinian. Obviously, whether he's loved by creationists or not has
nothing to do with the validity of his theories, and he knew that. But
I think the attacks stung him nevertheless. Check out
http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?
pageLoc=story/106/story_10644_1.html&boardID=40618
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md
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response 3 of 17:
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Jun 1 02:49 UTC 2002 |
[You can't click on that link. Sorry. Copy it out or do a copy-and-
paste.]
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oval
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response 4 of 17:
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Jun 2 01:38 UTC 2002 |
my husband was telling me some intersting things about his study on duchamp.
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iggy
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response 5 of 17:
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Jun 6 19:45 UTC 2002 |
it is too bad when folks die.. but
i really wasnt impressed with gould.
was far too arrogant and something about his style just
rubbed me the wrong way.
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vmskid
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response 6 of 17:
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Jun 6 20:05 UTC 2002 |
I felt the same way. He seemed like a wise-ass most of the time to me. Lots
of these science dudes are too full of themselves.
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rcurl
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response 7 of 17:
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Jun 6 20:47 UTC 2002 |
Like people that knock him?
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vmskid
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response 8 of 17:
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Jun 6 20:55 UTC 2002 |
yeah, exactly! ;)
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md
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response 9 of 17:
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Jun 7 11:39 UTC 2002 |
There was a very, very minor touch of the bdh gene in Gould, I admit.
He would start off telling you that if you thought you knew what
happened at the debate between Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Henry
Huxley (which, in my case, you probably did), you were probably wrong,
and then he'd let you in, sometimes rather coyly and circuitously, on
the results of his research. But he never seemed to condescend, and he
always evidently devoted much work and thought to his essays. I think
anyone who presumes to explain things to the masses is going to be
accused of being a smartass.
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janc
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response 10 of 17:
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Jun 9 12:30 UTC 2002 |
I think I know the effect you are refering to. When I'd read Gould's
books, it would start out sounding like he was going to tell me
something I didn't know, and then I'd hit the end of the chapter, and
find I'd learned nothing new. I know he did some real, innovative
research, but his popular essays seemed to be aimed at someone else, or
maybe had too much build up for what they delivered.
I don't think the problem in inevitable. Jared Diamond is a real
researcher who has written many fewer books, but his books actually
deliver something. Jonathan Weiner isn't himself a scientist, but
rather a science writer, but his books don't suffer from the Gould
effect either.
I think his books were aimed at an audience that had barely heard of
evolution. What I read in "The Panda's Thumb" seemed mostly to be
fairly straightforward examples of evolutionary theory applied to
specific cases. But because he thought evoluationary theory was so
important, he hyped things up a lot. So his books don't really hit the
target for those who actually have had a long-term interest in the
field. Of course, since I didn't read much of his work, my analysis
may be misguided. But as far as I could tell, he was a wonderful
advocate and popularizer of evolutionary theory. I just didn't need it
advocated or popularized at me.
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jmsaul
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response 11 of 17:
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Jun 9 14:25 UTC 2002 |
As you suggest, I don't think you were his target audience. You already
understood evolutionary theory and agreed with it.
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oval
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response 12 of 17:
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Jun 10 03:28 UTC 2002 |
is he considered a scientist or a philosopher .. or a little of both.
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rcurl
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response 13 of 17:
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Jun 10 04:53 UTC 2002 |
He was a reputable scientist working out of Harvard and the American
Museum of Natural History. His fields were paleontology and evolutionary
biology. He was a recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" award (and lots
others). You can read about him at
http://www.amnh.org/science/bios/gould/?src=h_h
I've found the comments here pretty condescending, for a scientist of his
stature. He is widely knowm for also popularizing science, especially in
relation to evolution, and was very widely admired both as a scientist
and as a public man of science.
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vmskid
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response 14 of 17:
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Jun 10 12:45 UTC 2002 |
I am not doubting his contributions, having always been onterested in
paleontology myself, just on the occasions that I have heard hom speak, he
sounded like something of a wise-ass. That kind of turned me off. Since you
seem to know more about him, Rane, what were his major contributions besides
trying to popularise science?
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rcurl
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response 15 of 17:
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Jun 10 15:27 UTC 2002 |
His books and selections of some of his other mostly didactic publications
are listed at ttp://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/gould/biblio.html
His particular scientific empirical specialty was about the evolution of
West Indian land snails. He got a lot of mileage out of those snails 8^}.
I read a lot of his articles in Natural History. They were often rather
cerebral and not easy reading (I am still puzzling over his argument about
spandrels), but there was always fascinating information and
interpretation in them. I also read his book on the Burgess Shale
("Wonderful Life"). There are arguments about his interpretation of that
suite of fossils, but that's not new in science.
I never heard him lecture. However his articles and books are not about
himself, and I would not expect his lectures to be. If he was a
"wise-ass", well, we all have our personality quirks. Which is more
important, his contributions or his quirks?
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jmsaul
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response 16 of 17:
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Jun 10 15:51 UTC 2002 |
I've heard him lecture, and I didn't think he was a wise-ass.
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vmskid
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response 17 of 17:
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Jun 10 16:03 UTC 2002 |
It wasn't a lecture that i heard, but parts of an interview. And we may well
have different ideas of what a wise-ass is. I recall reading a little bit
about his "punctuated equilibrium" stuff, and although I didn't find it
convincing, I did find it interesting.
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