Stephen Jay Gould, RIP

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If for nothing else, his eloquent razzing of "The Bell Curve" several years back...

― Joe, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

first one to make a joke about survival of the fittest (nb this does not count) gets a sock in the kisser

― Josh, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

calling pinefox to thread - who is sjg?

― Queen G of the Windy Mores, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

shit!! he was a really cool guy. and he was a great lecturer, too! (even though he taught his evolutionary bio class at *&$%(&*#@^( 8.30 am to "discourage ppl from taking it")

oh man.

― geeta, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That's too bad. He was a great prof. Hey, geeta, did you take his "History of Earth and of Life" too?

― felicity, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

His book "Wonderful Life" about the Burgess Shale critters is the closest we'll ever get to a true-life Cthulhu story.

― Chris Barrus, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I took "Thinking About Thinking: Law, Science and Philosophy," the class he co-taught with Robert Nozick (who also R.I.P.) and Alan Dershowitz. Amazing class.

― Douglas, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A polymath of many sorts -- a pity to lose him, but as he would say, that's the nature of organic life and all. I'll yet honor his memory.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nozick had the best hair of those three, but SJG wrote bettah booXoR. The last one looks a bit of a cram-everything-in monster, tho. Influence doesn't exist, it if it did, I wd have picked Gould to be influenced by, and he is my favourites Darwinist easy. His secret passion was snails with square shells.

― mark s, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I bought two of his books over the interweb a while back - I still have 1 and a half of them to read, but they seem fascinating.

He was great on The Simpsons, too.

― Mark C, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the "I never did the test" bit was a strange copout

― Josh, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Which test didn't he do?

― Joe, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

not to speak ill of the dead but he was a rotten writer, unless 'dinosaur in a haystack' is not representative of his body of work. he did a fine job as guest star of many documentaries though.

― keith, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i think actually he could be pretty variable, keith: there is definitely one book i couldn't get anywhere with (forget title, i gave it to me dad as an xmas present, oops), and i always also zoned out when he talked baseball stats...

― mark s, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

joe, they ask him to authenticate (or de-) the "angel", but he confesses to them that he didn't even run the test that would have done so

― Josh, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

my classes start at 8:00am, and that's just for yr average crummy lecturer.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Monday, 9 June 2003 20:27 (twenty-two years ago)

his last book got a savaging in the last atlantic.

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 9 June 2003 20:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I sat in on a lecture in "thinking about thinking" with Gould, Dershowitz and Harvey Cox when I was in Boston last February: it was great to see three thinkers with completely different angles treat each other with such respect.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 9 June 2003 20:43 (twenty-two years ago)

the last book i think suffered from a sad thing = dying writer hurrying to get EVERYTHING IMPORTANT HE STILL HAD TO SAY ABOUT HIS BIG LIFE THEORY down into one book, and then running out of time to edit or rewrite properly — and no one else daring to

(that's based on reviews not reading: but i love sjg and read and rereread many of his earlier books, and the thing described in the reviews sounded so far from what i loved... )

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 9 June 2003 20:47 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

I'm reading "The Flamingo's Smile" right now and really digging on his ability to explain bizarre and complex scientific concepts in a way that is fascinating and comprehensive.

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 16:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I liked his last book, prolly cause it gave me something to read for two years.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 16:42 (twenty-one years ago)

He has a great essay in The Panda's Thumb about physiognomy: specifically, what kinds of facial features/body proportions lead us to feel a protective kind of affection toward an animal or human. In other words, why certain animals are considered "cute." To do this, he talks about the evolution of how Mickey Mouse was drawn.

Also: He was probably the first scientist I was ever aware of. In first grade, I had a dispute with a friend over how to pronounce a certain kind of dinosaur. (I forget which one now.) So my dad suggested I write Stephen Jay Gould to find out (although Gould himself didn't actually reply).

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 17:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Since I last posted to this thread I read the one and a half books I still had to read, and have since bought EIGHT more, of which I've read three so far (so I've read altogether Ever Since Darwin, The Panda's Thumb, Questioning the Millennium, Eight Little Piggies and I Have Landed). The five remaining are sitting together on my bookshelf, making me glow with pleasure every time I see they're there, waiting for me to read and wallow in.

I also bought Richard Leakey's "The Sixth Extinction", which I finished only this morning. It's also a wonderful collection of essays on similar subjects to Gould, although Leakey is a lot less devoted to darwin.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 21 July 2004 10:31 (twenty-one years ago)

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