Fun Facts Friday: Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould (10 September, 1941 – 20 May, 2002) was a paleontologist who wrote science books for both scientists as well as the general public.

Books by Stephen Jay Gould*

Fun Facts about Stephen Jay Gould:

1. Mr. Gould was born in Queens, NY. His father, a World War II veteran, was a court stenographer and his mother was an artist.
2. When he was five years old, the author and his father went to the American Museum of Natural History, specifically to the Hall of Dinosaurs when he first saw the famous T-Rex.
   This is when he decided to be a paleontologist.
3. As a 1960s college student in Antioch College, and later at the University of Leeds he spoke out, and organized protests, against cultural oppression, racism, sexism, and pseudoscience.
4. Mr. Gould’s career, along with being a celebrated author, revolved around teaching at Harvard University, working at the American Museum of Natural History, and as a visiting professor at New York University.
5. Among his peers, Mr. Gould was celebrated for his theory of punctuated equilibrium. The theory states that evolution had long periods of stability, with swift periods of cladogenesis.
6. Mr. Gould’s essays in Natural History magazine on evolution made him well known.
7. In total, Mr. Gould published over 300 essays from 1974 to 2001. Between 1965 and 2000 Mr. Gould published 22 books, 101 professional book reviews, 479 peer reviewed papers, along with the essays previously mentioned.
8. Mr. Gould was prominently featured on the PBS series Evolution, as well as Ken Burns’ Baseball.
9. The author was on the Board of Advisers of, and a frequent guest on, the TV show 3-2-1 Contact.
10. He voiced himself on The Simpsons episode “Lisa The Skeptic”.