Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an 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 City. In the latter years of his life, Gould also taught biology and evolution at New York University near his home in SoHo.
Gould's greatest contribution to science was the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which he developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972. Most of Gould's empirical research was based on the land snails Poecilozonites and Cerion, which are endemic to Bermuda and the Caribbean area respectively.
Gould also contributed to evolutionary developmental biology, and has received wide praise for his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny. In evolutionary theory he opposed strict selectionism, sociobiology as applied to humans, and evolutionary psychology. He campaigned against creationism and proposed that science and religion should be considered two distinct fields, or "magisteria", whose authorities do not overlap. (Read more...)