Gould, Stephen Jay 1941–2002

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Gould, Stephen Jay 1941–2002

PERSONAL: Born September 10, 1941, in New York, NY; died of cancer, May 20, 2002, in New York, NY; son of Leonard (a court reporter) and Eleanor (an artist; maiden name, Rosenberg) Gould; married Deborah Lee (an artist and writer), October 3, 1965; children: Jesse, Ethan. Education: Antioch College, A.B., 1963; Columbia University, Ph.D., 1967. Hobbies and other interests: Baseball.

CAREER: Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH, instructor in geology, 1966; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, assistant professor and assistant curator, 1967–71, associate professor and associate curator, 1971–73, professor of geology and curator of invertebrate paleontology at Museum of Comparative Zoology, beginning 1973, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, beginning 1982. Member of advisory board, Children's Television Workshop, 1978–81, and Nova (television program), 1980–92.

MEMBER: American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Society of Naturalists (president, 1979–80), National Academy of Sciences, Paleontological Society (president, 1985–86), Society for the Study of Evolution (vice president, 1975; president, 1990), Society of Systematic Zoology, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, History of Science Society, European Union of Geo-sciences (honorary foreign fellow), Society for the Study of Sports History, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Linnaean Society of London (foreign member), Sigma Xi.

AWARDS, HONORS: National Science Foundation, Woodrow Wilson, and Columbia University fellowships, 1963–67; Schuchert Award, Paleontological Society, 1975; National Magazine Award, 1980, for "This View of Life"; Notable Book citation, American Library Association, 1980, and National Book Award in science, 1981, both for The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History; Scientist of the Year citation, Discover, 1981; MacArthur Foundation Prize fellowship, 1981–86; National Book Critics Circle Award, and American Book Award nomination in science, both 1982, and Outstanding Book Award, American Educational Research Association, 1983, all for The Mismea-sure of Man; Medal of Excellence, Columbia University, 1982; F.V. Haydn Medal, Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, 1982; Joseph Priestley Award and Medal, Dickinson College, 1983; Neil Miner Award, National Association of Geology Teachers, 1983; silver medal, Zoological Society of London, 1984; Bradford Washburn Award and gold medal, Boston Museum of Science, 1984; Distinguished Service Award, American Humanists Association, 1984; Tanner Lecturer, Cambridge University, 1984, and Stanford University, 1989; Meritorious Service Award, American Association of Systematics Collections, 1984; Founders Council Award of Merit, Field Museum of Natural History, 1984; John and Samuel Bard Award, Bard College, 1984; Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in science, 1984, for Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History; Sarah Josepha Hale Medal, 1986; Creative Arts Award for nonfiction, Brandeis University, 1986; Terry Lecturer, Yale University, 1986; Distinguished Service Award, American Geological Institute, 1986; Glenn T. Seaborg Award, International Platform Association, 1986; In Praise of Reason Award, Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, 1986; H.D. Vursell Award, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1987; National Book Critics Circle Award nomination, 1987, for Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time; Anthropology in Media Award, American Anthropological Association, 1987; History of Geology Award, Geological Society of America, 1988; T.N. George Medal, University of Glasgow, 1989; Sue T. Friedman Medal, Geological Society of London, 1989; Distinguished Service Award, American Institute of Professional Geologists, 1989; fellow, Museum National d'Historie Naturelle (Paris, France), 1989; fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1990; City of Edinburgh Medal, 1990; Britannica Award and Gold Medal, 1990, for dissemination of public knowledge; Forkosch Award, Council on Democratic Humanism, and Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science, both 1990, and Pulitzer Prize finalist and Rhone-Poulenc Prize, both 1991, all for Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History; Iglesias Prize, 1991, for Italian translation of The Mismeasure of Man; Distinguished Service Award, National Association of Biology Teachers, 1991; Golden Trilobite Award, Paleontological Society, 1992; Homer Smith Medal, New York University School of Medicine, 1992; University of California—Los Angeles medal, 1992; James T. Shea Award, National Association of Geology Teachers, 1992; Commonwealth Award in Interpretive Science, State of Massachusetts, 1993; J.P. McGovern Award and Medal in Science, Cosmos Club, 1993; St. Louis Libraries Literary Award, University of St. Louis, 1994; Gold Medal for Service to Zoology, Linnaean Society of London; Distinguished Service Medal, Teachers College, Columbia University. Recipient of numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Belknap Press/Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), 1977.

Ever since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History (essays), Norton (New York, NY), 1977.

The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (essays), Norton (New York, NY), 1980.

(With Salvador Edward Juria and Sam Singer) A View of Life, Benjamin-Cummings (Menlo Park, CA), 1981.

The Mismeasure of Man, Norton (New York, NY), 1981, revised and expanded edition, 1996.

Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History (essays), Norton (New York, NY), 1983.

The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History (essays), Norton (New York, NY), 1985.

(With Rosamund Wolff Purcell) Illuminations: A Bestiary, Norton (New York, NY), 1986.

Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1987.

An Urchin in the Storm: Essays about Books and Ideas, Norton (New York, NY), 1987.

(With others) Frederic Edwin Church, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), 1989.

Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, Norton (New York, NY), 1989.

The Individual in Darwin's World: The Second Edinburgh Medal Address, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1990.

Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History, Norton (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Rosamund Wolff Purcell) Finders, Keepers: Eight Collectors, Norton (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor) The Book of Life, Norton (New York, NY), 1993.

Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History, Norton (New York, NY), 1993.

Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 1996.

Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown, Random House (New York, NY), 1997.

Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History, Harmony (New York, NY), 1998.

Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1999.

(With Rosamond Wolff Purcell) Crossing Over: Where Art and Science Meet, Three Rivers Press (New York, NY), 2000.

The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2000.

The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Belknap Press/Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002.

I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2002.

The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball, Norton (New York, NY), 2003.

OTHER

(Editor, with Niles Eldredge) Ernst Mayr, Systematics and the Origin of Species, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1982.

(Editor, with Niles Eldredge) Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1982.

(Author of foreword) Gary Larson, The Far Side Gallery 3, Andrews & McMeel (Fairway, KS), 1988.

(Editor) Best American Essays, Mariner Books, 2002.

Author of An Evolutionary Microcosm: Pleistocene and Recent History of the Land Snail P. (Poecilozonites) in Bermuda, [Cambridge, MA], 1969. Also author, with Eric Lewin Altschuler, of Bachanalia: The Essential Listener's Guide to Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier."

Contributor to books, including Models in Paleobiology, edited by T.J.M. Schopf, Freeman, Cooper (San Francisco, CA), 1972; The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology, edited by Ernst Mayr, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1980; Darwin's Legacy: Nobel Conference XVIII, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota, edited by Charles L. Hamrum, Harper (New York, NY), 1983; Between Home and Heaven: Contemporary American Landscape Photography, National Museum of American Art (Washington, DC), 1992; and Understanding Scientific Prose, edited by Jack Selzer, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 1993; Contributor to Melancholies of Knowledge: Literature in the Age of Science, State University of New York Press, 1999. Contributor to proceedings of the International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology Symposium, 1973; contributor to Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, and contributor of numerous articles to scientific journals. Author of monthly column, "This View of Life," in Natural History.

General editor, The History of Paleontology, twenty volumes, Ayer, 1980; and The Book of Life, Norton (New York, NY), 1993. Associate editor, Evolution, 1970–72; member of editorial board, Systematic Zoology, 1970–72, Paleobiology, 1974–76, and American Naturalist, 1977–80; member of board of editors, Science, 1986–91.

SIDELIGHTS: Stephen Jay Gould, a Harvard University professor and evolutionary biologist, was renowned for his ability to translate difficult scientific theories into prose understandable to the layman. In his books and essays on natural history, Gould, a paleontologist and geologist by training, popularized his subjects without trivializing them, "simultaneously entertaining and teaching," according to James Gorman in the New York Times Book Review. With his dozen essay collections, Gould won critical acclaim for bridging the gap between the advancing frontier of science and the literary world. With coauthor Rosamond Wolff Purcell, he addressed particularly the interface of art and science in the 2000 publication Crossing Over: Where Art and Science Meet. "As witty as he is learned, Gould has a born essayist's ability to evoke the general out of fascinating particulars and to discuss important scientific questions for an audience of educated laymen without confusion or condescension," Gene Lyons commented in Newsweek. "What made Steve different was that he didn't make a cartoon out of science. He didn't talk down to people," Harvard professor Richard Lewontin told John Nichols of the Nation. "He communicated about science in a way that did not try to hide the complexities of the issues and that did not shy away from the political side of these issues. Steve's great talent was his ability to make sense of an issue at precisely the point when people needed that insight." Hallmarks of Gould's style include the use of metaphors and analogies from a variety of disciplines. Gould wrote a single draft on a typewriter, following a detailed outline, and editors soon learned not to touch his prose.

Gould's focus on the unexpected within nature reflects the worldview that permeates his entire body of work: that natural history is significantly altered by events out-of-the-ordinary and is largely revealed by examining its "imperfections." "Catastrophes contain continuities," explained Michael Neve in the Times Literary Supplement. "In fact Gould made it his business to see the oddities and small-scale disasters of the natural record as the actual historical evidence for taking evolution seriously, as a real event." Through imperfections, continued Neve, "we can … see how things have altered by looking at the way organic life is, as it were, cobbled together out of bits and pieces some of which work, but often only just." The thumb of the panda, highlighted in Gould's American Book Award-winning essay collection The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History, particularly demonstrates this. Not really a thumb at all, the offshoot on the panda's paw is actually an enlarged wristbone that enables the animal to efficiently strip leaves from bamboo shoots. "If one were to design a panda from scratch, one would not adapt a wrist bone to do the job of a thumb," observed Times Literary Supplement reviewer D.M. Knight. An imperfection, the appendage "may have been fashioned by a simple genetic change, perhaps a single mutation affecting the timing and rate of growth."

Gould's writings also emphasize science as a "culturally embedded" discipline. "Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information," he once told the New York Times Book Review; "it is a creative human activity." Raymond A. Sokolov, in the same publication, remarked that Gould's "method is at bottom, a kind of textual criticism of the language of earlier biologists, a historical analysis of their 'metaphors,' their concepts of the world." Gould frequently examines science as the output of individuals working within the confines of specific time periods and cultures. In a New Yorker review of The Flamingo's Smile, John Updike wrote of "Gould's evangelical sense of science as an advancing light, which gives him a vivid sympathy with thinkers in the dark." Updike continued: "Gould chastens us ungrateful beneficiaries of science with his affectionate and tactile sense of its strenuous progress, its worming forward through fragmentary revelations and obsolete debates, from relative darkness into relative light. Even those who were wrong win his gratitude." Sue M. Halpern noted in the Nation: "Gould is both a scientist and a humanist, not merely a scientist whose literary abilities enable him to build a narrow bridge between the two cultures in order to export the intellectual commodities of science to the other side. His writing portrays universal strivings, it expresses creativity and it reveals Gould to be a student of human nature as well as one of human affairs."

In his writing Gould also demonstrates instances where science, by factually "verifying" certain cultural prejudices, has been misused. The Flamingo's Smile contains several accounts of individuals victimized as a result of cultural prejudices used as scientific knowledge, such as the "Hottentot Venus," a black southern African woman whose anatomy was put on public display in nineteenth-century Europe, and Carrie Buck, an American woman who was legally sterilized in the 1920s because of a family history of mentally "unfit" individuals. And in his award-winning Mismeasure of Man, Gould focuses on the development of intelligence quotient (IQ) testing and debunks the work of scientists purporting to measure human intelligence objectively. "This book," writes Gould in the introduction, "is about the abstraction of intelligence as a single entity, its location within the brain, its quantification as one number for each individual, and the use of these numbers to rank people in a single series of worthiness, invariably to find that oppressed or disadvantaged groups—races, classes or sexes—are innately inferior and deserve their status." Halpern pointed out that, "Implicit in Gould's writing is a binding premise: while the findings of science are themselves value-free, the uses to which they are put are not."

In a London Review of Books essay on Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History, John Hedley Brooke summarized some of the major themes that appear in Gould's writings: "The 'fact' of evolution is 'proved' from those imperfections in living organisms which betray a history of descent. The self-styled 'scientific creationists' have no leg to stand on and are simply playing politics. Natural selection must not be construed as a perfecting principle in any strong sense of perfection. Neo-Darwinists who look to adaptive utility as the key to every explanation are as myopic as the natural theologians of the early nineteenth century who saw in the utility of every organ the stamp of its divine origin." Citing yet another recurrent theme, Brooke noted Gould's focus on "the extent to which the course of evolution has been constrained by the simple fact that organisms inherit a body structure and style of embryonic development which impose limits on the scope of transformation." This last principle was enhanced by Gould's field work with the Bahamian land snail genus Cerion, a group displaying a wide variety of shapes, in addition to a permanent growth record in its shell. "More orthodox evolutionists would assume that the many changes of form represent adaptations," noted James Gleick in the New York Times Magazine. "Gould denies it and finds explanations in the laws of growth. Snails grow the way they do because there are only so many ways a snail can grow."

Gould's Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History focuses on the fossil-rich remains discovered in a small area in the Canadian Rockies in 1909. The organisms preserved there display a much greater diversity than fossil sites from later eras, and their meaning has been hotly debated ever since their discovery. Gould chronicles the early studies of the Burgess Shale, then offers his own speculations on what the fossils reveal. In the process, he discredits the long-held notion that evolution is inevitably a progression toward higher and increasingly perfect life forms. Reviewing Wonderful Life in New Statesman & Society, Steven Rose related: "Far from being the mechanism of ordered transformation along a great chain of being towards adaptive perfection, evolution is a lottery in which winners and losers are determined by forces over which they have little control. Nearly everything is possible; what survives, including ourselves, confirms the truth that nothing in biology makes sense except in the context of history." High praise for Wonderful Life also came from Robin McKie, who wrote in the London Observer that Gould's "book is written with such clarity and breathtaking leaps of imagination that it successfully moulds a mass of detail and arcane taxonomy into a lucid and highly entertaining whole." McKie took exception to Gould's contention that biologists have purposely presented evolution in anthropomorphic terms, yet McKie concluded that "Wonderful Life remains a masterly scientific explanation" of the Burgess Shale and evolution in general.

In essay collections such as Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History, Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History, and Dinosaur in a Hay-stack: Reflections in Natural History, Gould upheld the standards of accessibility and scientific integrity he set in earlier books. "What makes Gould so good?" Robert Kanigel asked in the Washington Post Book World. The critic went on to answer his own question: His essays transport readers "into a cozy little world where we are left in intimate touch with Gould's heart and mind. Gould is one part Harvard intellectual, nine parts curious little boy; that's one element of his distinctive appeal. For another, he has a commanding knowledge of his discipline, evolutionary biology, and the fields, like geology and paleontology, that flank it. He doesn't have to parade it around; but he has so much to draw upon, and does." Kanigel described Gould's characteristic technique: beginning with some odd fact and proceeding from there to sweeping insights as another special charm, along with his delight in interesting digressions. "This is a feast," declared Bryan C. Clarke in his Nature commentary on Eight Little Piggies, citing the work as "a lovely mixture of bizarre facts, nice arguments, clever insights into the workings of evolution and a quality of writing that can make your skin prickle."

While some reviewers have commented that Gould's writings display a repetition of key principles and themes—in critiquing Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, Brooke remarked that "the big implications may begin to sound familiar"—Gould earned consistent praise for the range of subjects through which he illustrates evolutionary principles. "Gould entices us to follow him on a multifaceted Darwinian hunt for answers to age-old questions about ourselves and the rest of the living world," commented John C. McLoughlin in the Washington Post Book World. "Like evolution itself, Gould explores possibilities—any that come to hand—and his range of interest is stupendous…. Throughout, he displays with force and elegance the power of evolutionary theory to link the phenomena of the living world as no other theory seems able." Steven Rose wrote in the New York Times Book Review: "Exploring the richness of living forms, Mr. Gould, and we, are constantly struck by the absurd ingenuity by which fundamentally inappropriate parts are pressed into new roles like toes that become hooves, or smell receptors that become the outer layer of the brain. Natural selection is not some grandiose planned event but a continual tinkering…. Gould's great strength is to recognize that, by demystifying nature in this way, he increases our wonder and our respect for the richness of life."

In a New York Times Book Review critique of Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, David Papineau stated that Gould's "central contention is that trends, in any area, should never be considered in isolation, but only as aspects of an overall range of variation (the full house of the title)." In terms of evolution, this means that the mechanism of natural selection does not always progress toward greater complexity; in fact, according to Gould, it is just as likely to run toward simplicity. Gould based this argument on "a very clear statistical insight…. The first is his own experience as a statistic, when he was a cancer patient. The second is an extended analysis of the disappearance of .400 batters in major league baseball," stated Lucy Horwitz in the Boston Book Review, who concluded that Gould's argument is "convincing" and "elegantly presented."

Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown focuses on three questions posed by Gould: "What does the millennium mean? When does a millennium arrive? Why are we interested in it and other divisions of time?" Gould uses "wit and style" to "launch an inquiry into the human 'fascination with numerical regularity'" and to seek this regularity "as one way of ordering a confusing world," according to New York Times contributor Michiko Kakutani. The critic also stated that the book "is not one of Mr. Gould's more important books, but … it beguiles and entertains, even as it teaches us to reconsider our preconceptions about the natural world."

After writing columns regularly over twenty-four years, in 2000 Gould served up a new selection of these short journalistic pieces in The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History, in which he discusses the misconception of inevitable progress being made in scientific endeavors. Among the work's enthusiasts, Booklist reviewer Gilbert Taylor remarked that the work "evinces no dimming of Gould's humanistic brilliance," and Audubon critic Christopher Camuto dubbed them "elegant, complexly wrought essays." Gould's final essays for Natural Science were compiled into the 2002 work I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History, which coincided with the publication of his major scholarly work The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Included in I Have Landed are pieces of a slightly more personal nature, including a short essay titled "September 11, 2001." As a Publishers Weekly critic acknowledged, "Gould is at the peak of his abilities in this latest menagerie of wonders" for which, according to Gregg Sapp in Library Journal, his "many fans and foes alike should congratulate him."

Between 1999 and 2003, three works by Gould appeared that focus on the interstices of science and religion: Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Full-ness of Life, Crossing Over, and The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities. In the first, Gould explains what he perceives are the differences in subject matter, method, and intention between the disciplines of science and religion. Then he proposes what he terms "non-overlapping magisteria," that is, a "respectful noninterference—accompanied by intense dialogue between the two distinct subjects," which he dubbed NOMA. While American Scientist's Ursula Goodenough viewed this work as vintage Gould, with "graceful language flecked with occasional irreverence [and] wonderful anecdotes," she pointed out contradictions in his arguments. So too, in Commentary George Weigel pointed to Gould's failure to adequately deal with the common aspects of science and religions, "both of which aim to understand the truth of the human condition. To treat science and religion as 'utterly different' is convenient for certain kinds of scientists (deeply skeptical about religion but 'tolerant') and certain kinds of religious believers (tepid and/or intellectually insecure). But it does not help us think very seriously about either realm."

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Gould also warred constantly against what he considered "bad science," often ending up in the public spotlight, and he believed that paleontology as a science could add to the discussion of evolution. In his magnum opus, the 1,464-page study The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, he discusses how three principal tenets of Darwinism developed throughout modern works on evolutionary theory and, in the process, "presents Gould in all his incarnations: as a digressive historian, original thinker and cunning polemicist," to quote a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Booklist's Donna Seaman admitted that "this astonishing feat of scholarship and creativity is intimidating at first glance," yet found that Gould's style makes it readable. On the other hand, Gregg Sapp, writing in Library Journal, dubbed The Structure of Evolutionary Theory both "indispensable" for collections on the subject and "bloated, redundant, and self-indulgent," the last because Gould wrote 250 pages about his own theory of evolution, known as punctuated equilibrium. Calling the work so full of "asides, digressions, polemics and hobbies that it is positively obese," an Economist (U.S.) reviewer found it both difficult to review and "enormously irritating." Yet the critic added, "it is also a book of great power, scope and learning. In the end, its impressive features far outweigh its irritations." Also noting Gould's "remarkably undisciplined prose" was H. Allen Orr, who, writing in the New Yorker, suggested that "while Gould's popular essays are perhaps the most widely read texts in the history of biology, his magnum opus risks becoming one of the least." "What should be incisive analysis is intermittently swamped in highly creative persiflage," complained Spectator reviewer John R.G. Turner, who added, "Gould stands here to be judged not on his many literary merits but on the quality of his theory." Despite any perceived stylistic flaws, Orr deemed the first half of the work—the history of evolutionary theory—"particularly impressive."

Gould was a life-long baseball fan—a Yankee fan, in particular—an avidity that is amply evident in his posthumously published essay collection Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball. Compiled upon the suggestion of his friend Stephen King, the essays were written over the course of two decades and first appeared in a wide variety of periodicals ranging from the New York Times to Vanity Fair. While there is, therefore, some repetition of information in the book, in the opinion of Booklist reviewer GraceAnne A. DeCandido, the pieces are "uniformly wonderful." Sports Illustrated writer Charles Hirshberg pointed to the essay "Why No One Hits .400 Anymore" as the "book's most profound and challenging essay." In it Gould proposed that the lack of .400 hitters "is a sign of improvement, not decline" because modern players are better trained; thus, the difference between the best athletes and average players is slighter than it was in the past. While Gould called this work "baseball scrib-blings," reviewers had a more respectful view, as in the case of a Publishers Weekly writer who dubbed Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville a "glorious testament to Gould's remarkable insights and passionate writing." Praising Gould's judgments of teams' and players' abilities, his assessments of books on the game, and his actualities of the game itself as "smart, well-written, and eminently entertaining" was a Kirkus Reviews critic.

Gould passed away in May of 2002, after suffering from cancer for several years. In contemplating Gould's contribution to the field of paleontology, Orr suggested that it might not have so much to do with the evolutionary theory of snails or other organisms in the fossil record, but in his effect on his scientific colleagues. "Gould might well … represent something new in the historical strata of science: the first self-consciously revolutionary scientist—the first scientist who set out to create a revolution at least in part because he felt that the field just needed one." Orr explained, "Just as old and hopelessly constrained species can do nothing interesting unless they get periodically shaken, so old and hopelessly conservative paradigms can't give way to new science unless they receive a good swift kick now and then."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Gould, Stephen Jay, The Mismeasure of Man, W. W. Norton and Company (New York, NY), 1996.

Gould, Stephen Jay, Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown, Random House (New York, NY), 1997.

Gould, Stephen Jay, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1999.

PERIODICALS

America, May 24, 1986.

American Scientist, May-June, 1999, Ursula Good-enough, review of Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, pp. 264-265; May-June, 2003, Margaret Pizer, "The Steve Wars," p. 213.

Antioch Review, spring, 1978.

Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, January 26, 2003, "Vidal, Ehrenreich Stars of Essay Collection."

Audubon, March, 2000, Christopher Camuto, review of The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History, p. 156.

Book, March-April, 2003, Chris Barsanti, review of Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball, p. 81.

Booklist, December 1, 1999, review of Dinosaur in a Haystack (audio version), p. 718; January 1, 2000, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Lying Stones of Marrakech, p. 832; December 1, 2000, Donna Seaman, review of The Lying Stones of Marrakech, p. 686; December 15, 2001, review of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, p. 682; March 1, 2002, review of I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History, p. 1050; December 15, 2002, Donna Seaman, review of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, p. 682; February 15, 2003, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville, p. 1031; April 1, 2003, Donna Seaman, review of The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities, p. 1354.

Boston Book Review, March 1, 1997.

Bulletin with Newsweek, May 15, 2001, Ashley Hay, review of Crossing Over: Where Art and Science Meet, p. 77.

Chicago Tribune, December 2, 1981; January 20, 1988.

Choice, March, 2000, F.M. Szasz, review of Rocks of Ages, p. 1312; July-August, 2002, F.S. Szalay, review of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, p. 1985; November, 2002, J. Nabe, review of I Have Landed, p. 495.

Christian Century, June 2, 1999, review of Rocks of Ages, p. 624.

Christian Science Monitor, July 15, 1987; March 18, 1999, review of Rocks of Ages, p. 19.

Commentary, May, 1999, George Weigel, review of Rocks of Ages, p. 67.

Commonweal, April 23, 1999, review of Rocks of Ages, p. 29.

Detroit News, May 22, 1983.

Economist (U.K.), November 10, 2001, review of Rocks of Ages, p. 111.

Economist (U.S.), May 16, 1987; November 10, 2001, review of Rocks of Ages, p. 77; December 7, 2002, review of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), July 24, 1999, review of Rocks of Ages, p. D14; March 23, 2002, review of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, p. D3.

Journal of Chemical Education, June, 2002, Hal Harris, review of The Lying Stones of Marrakech, p. 651.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2002, review of I Have Landed, p. 236; January 15, 2003, review of The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox, p. 125, and review of Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville, p. 125.

Kliatt, July, 1999, review of Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History (audio version), p. 59; May, 2001, review of Crossing Over, p. 40; September, 2001, review of The Lying Stones of Marrakech, p. 42.

Library Journal, March 1, 1999, review of Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms, p. 47; February 15, 2000, Gregg Sapp, review of The Lying Stones of Marrakech, p. 193; February 15, 2002, Gregg Sapp, review of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, pp. 174-175; April 15, 2002, Gregg Sapp, review of I Have Landed, p. 122; October 1, 2002, Denise J. Stankovics, review of The Best American Essays 2002, p. 94; February 1, 2003, Paul Kaplan and Robert C. Cotrrell, review of Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville, p. 90; March 1, 2003, Gregg Sapp, review of The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox, p. 113.

Listener, June 11, 1987.

London Review of Books, December 1, 1983.

Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1987.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, July 17, 1983; November 29, 1987.

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, 1999, review of Questioning the Millennium, p. 35.

Nation, June 18, 1983; November 16, 1985; June 10, 2002, David Hawkes, review of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, p. 29.

Natural History, January, 1988.

Nature, November 19, 1987; August 26, 1999, review of Rocks of Ages, p. 830; May 25, 2000, Henry Gee, review of The Lying Stones of Marrakech, p. 397.

New Criterion, October, 2002, Paul R. Gross, "The Apotheosis of Stephen Jay Gould," pp. 77-80.

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Science Books & Films, November, 1999, review of Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms, p. 249, and reviews of Leonardo's Mountain of Claims and the Diet of Worms and Wonderful Life pp. 271-272.

Science News, July 20, 2002, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, p. 47; August 10, 2002, review of I Have Landed, p. 95.

Scientist, June 10, 2002, Barry A. Palevitz, "Love Him or Hate Him, Stephen Jay Gould Made a Difference," pp. 12-13.

Spectator, November 24, 2001, review of Rocks of Ages, p. 44; June 29, 2002, John R.G. Turner, reviews of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory and I Have Landed, pp. 36-37.

Sports Illustrated, March 17, 2003, Charles Hirshberg, "Thinking Baseball: Renowned Scientist Stephen Jay Gould Was No Snob When He Focused His Intellect on His Favorite Game," p. R4.

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