Stephen Gould: The Savior of the Scientific Essay

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Stephen Jay Gould was born on September 10, 1941, in New York City. As a young boy at the age of five, Stephen went to the Museum of Natural History in New York City where he saw the Tyrannosaurus Rex along with other large dinosaur skeletons. He decided that he wanted to study the fossils and evolution; he began to read up on as much information as he possibly could. As Stephen grew older, he discovered that there was a specific field of study that would fit in with his interests. This field of study is called paleontology. Mr. Gould graduated from Antioch University in Ohio “in 1963 with a degree in geology and philosophy” (Theory, 2009). While at Antioch, Stephen interned on a sea expedition with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. In Bermuda he collected tons of snail fossils and brought them back to Antioch to study them. Gould continued his studies at Columbia University where he received his doctorate degree in paleontology. Here, he continued his studies of snails but began to look at snails from the entire Caribbean region. Stephen “became the leading authority on the snail known as cerion” which consists of about 600 distinct species (Theory, 2009). It was here at Columbia University that Stephen Gould slowly made his name be known.
While in graduate school, Stephen Gould met fellow graduate student Niles Eldredge and they both began to study the many snail fossils. In a New York Times article Stephen Jay Gould, 60, is Dead; Enlivened Evolutionary Theory (2002), it is stated that “the two students could not find the gradual, continuous change in fossil forms that they were taught was the stuff of evolution. Instead they found sudden appearances of new fossil forms followed by long periods in which these organisms chang...

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... and beliefs and is considered the savior of scientific essay. Stephen may have created many enemies from his work, but if it was not for him, many fields may have never been reopened to exploration and the development of new theories and ideas.

Works Cited

The theory of punctuated equilibrium. Academy of Achievement. November 17, 2009 Retrieved from http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/gou0bio-1
Williams, A. P. (n.d.) Book review: The mismeasure of man by Stephen Jay Gould [Review of the book The mismeasure of man]. Think a Bit. Retrieved from http://reachandywilliams.weebly.com/gould-1996-mismeasure-of-man.html
Yoon, C. K. (2002, May 21). Stephen Jay Gould, 60, is dead; Enlivened evolutionary theory. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/21/us/stephen-jay-gould-60-is-dead-enlivened-evolutionary-theory.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1

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