Obituary and biographical information: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/Science/Stephen_Jay_Gould/ In addition to his many wonderful books on biology and paleontology, Gould recently published a collection of magazine essays, I Have Landed, including a piece on a centennial pilgrimage he had planned to make to Manhattan (his grandfather emigrated to the United States on September 11, 1901); and the theologians among us would be well-served to read his extended essay Rocks of Ages, which brought about the term "non-overlapping magisteria." Much of his work had meaningful progressive overtones--particularly The Mismeasure of Man, which took on (among other things) the 19th century proto-Nazi race theories that are still taught in some physical anthropology classes. And folks who don't know him from his books might have seen him on one of his good-humored The Simpsons cameos. He was by all accounts a scientific giant (credited to a great extent with coming up with the idea of punctuated equilibrium), and certainly one of the best science writers the U.S. has ever produced; he will be missed. Peace,
I will miss Gould's writings. Of note, he is an alum of Antioch College, along with some notables as Leonard Nimoy and Correta Scott King. John
And to bring in a DL connection... USC applies Gould and Niles Eldredge's punctuated equalibria model to the evolution of higher education -- see http://www.usc.edu/isd/about/welcome.html
