Stephen Jay Gould was a widely-read late twentieth century author of scientific books. Additionally, he was a historian of science, evolutionary biologist and paleontologist. He is recognized for his contribution to evolutionary biology as he proposed the punctuated equilibrium theory. His notable works include Ontogeny and Phylogeny, The Mismeasure of Man and Ever Since Darwin.
Born on September 10, 1941, Gould grew up in Bayside, New York. His father was a court stenographer and mother was a Jewish artist. His father once took him to the Hall of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History where he felt awestruck by the skeletal remains of Tyrannosaurus rex. The idea of existence of life form hundreds of centuries ago, highly intrigued and inspired him to follow a career in paleontology. Despite the fact that he was brought up in a secular Jewish household, he grew up to embrace agnosticism. The encouragement of her mother and teachers at schools rendered Gould to develop a keen interest in reading evolutionism at the age of eleven. Moreover, he witnessed an educational divide in his high school based on the matter of belief in creationism and Darwinism.
Gould attended the University of Colorado before he went on to study at Antioch College in Ohio. There he played an active role in the social causes advocating justice, especially in the civil rights movement. In 1963, he graduated with a double major in geology and philosophy. Afterwards, he enrolled at the Columbia University studying paleontology and evolutionary biology. Upon graduation, he was immediately offered a teaching position at Harvard University. In fact, he was promoted to Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology as the Curator of Invertebrate paleontology. Henceforth, he spent considerable amount of time not only contributing to evolutionary science but also to raise public interest in the subject through his writings.
Besides being a professional paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould took up the responsibility to share his expert opinion on the particular subjects in a more comprehensive manner to inspire amateur readers. He gained immense popularity through his enlightening essays on evolution, which he published in the Natural History magazine. These 300 essays appeared in a series form under the title This View of Life and subsequently took on a book form. The volumes containing essays include The Flamingo’s Smile, Ever Since Darwin and Hens’ Teeth and Horses’ Toes. Being a passionate Darwinist, Gould avidly wrote on the subject of evolutionary theory keeping in mind the conflicted contemporary audience. The main focus of his writings was history, culture and evolutionary thought.
Gould’s highly acclaimed, The Mismeasure of Man (1996), explores the premise of human intelligence and its specious testing. He concurred with the observation that human intelligence is stored in particular area of human brain and thus can be measured. However, he strongly opposed the intelligence testing system that possesses the right to claim one’s intelligence superior or inferior merely based on some IQ score. He believed that the process rather abuses the scientific data, hence undermines the complexity of human brain. The book was able to garner huge praise as well as became a subject of widespread controversy. Furthermore, he was involved in a heated debate arguing against the biological determinism theory.
Gould was awarded multitude of prestigious awards for his contribution to evolutionary biology and literary input. Some of these accolades include Sue Tyler Friedman Medal, the Schuchert Award, the American Book Award in Science and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He died on May 20, 2002 in New York, suffering from cancer.