Stephen Jay Gould

Author profile

born

September 10, 1941 in New York City, New York, The United States

died

May 20, 2002

gender

male

genre

Nonfiction, Science

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Stephen Jay Gould was a prominent American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Most of Gould's empirical research was on land snails. Gould helped develop the theory of punctuated equilibrium, in which evolutionary stability is marked by instances of rapid change. He contributed to evolutionary developmental biology. In evolutionary theory, he opposed strict selectionism, sociobiology as applied to humans, and evolutionary psychology. He campaigned against creationism and proposed that...more

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Books by Stephen Jay Gould

Average rating: 4.01 · 15,356 ratings · 1,000 reviews · 94 distinct works

	The Mismeasure of Man 4.06 avg rating — 2,167 ratings — published 1981 — 18 editions	My rating:
	Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History 4.19 avg rating — 1,562 ratings — published 1989 — 15 editions	My rating:
	The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History 4.10 avg rating — 1,343 ratings — published 1981 — 18 editions	My rating:
	Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History 4.07 avg rating — 760 ratings — published 1991 — 14 editions	My rating:
	Ever Since Darwin: Reflections on Natural History 4.09 avg rating — 741 ratings — published 1977 — 14 editions	My rating:
	The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History 4.11 avg rating — 567 ratings — published 1985 — 10 editions	My rating:
	Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History 4.02 avg rating — 593 ratings — published 1995 — 11 editions	My rating:
	Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History 4.03 avg rating — 578 ratings — published 1983 — 14 editions	My rating:
	Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin 3.92 avg rating — 570 ratings — published 1996 — 14 editions	My rating:
	Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life 3.52 avg rating — 331 ratings — published 1999 — 15 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by Stephen Jay Gould

“We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.”
― Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man

tags: fear , hesitation , hope , life , tragedy

249 people liked it

“We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life's continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to it, but here we are.”
― Stephen Jay Gould, The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History

tags: ecology , intelligence , life , science , stewardship

61 people liked it

“I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
― Stephen Jay Gould

28 people liked it

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Stephen Jay Gould

Author profile

combine editionsBooks by Stephen Jay Gould

Quotes by Stephen Jay Gould

Topics Mentioning This Author

combine editions
Books by Stephen Jay Gould