Revolutionary scientist, author falls to cancer Gould held honorary degrees from Bates, UM

BOSTON – Stephen Jay Gould, the paleontologist and author who eloquently demystified science for the public and challenged his colleagues with revolutionary ideas about evolution, died Monday of cancer.

He was 60, and died at his home in New York City, according to his assistant, Stephanie Schur.

“He really was passionate about his ideas and the ideas that we all embrace together,” said Niles Eldredge, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History.

Gould became one of America’s most recognizable scientists for his voluminous and accessible writings and his participation in public debates with creationists. He also aired his disagreements with other evolutionary theorists in publications such as the New York Review of Books, bringing evolutionary theory to a wider intellectual audience during an era of increasing scientific specialization.

“He really was paleontology’s public intellectual,” said Andrew Knoll, a colleague of Gould’s at Harvard University for 20 years.

Honorary degrees from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 1987 and from the University of Maine in 1993 were among the more than 40 such degrees Gould earned from institutions of higher learning during his career. He delivered the keynote address during commencement ceremonies at Bates, UM and Unity College.

Gould’s book “Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes,” a collection of natural history essays, was chosen for the University of Maine’s first class book project, which began with the Class of 1996. The idea was for students to have a common book that could be used in composition class discussions.

Gould visited the University of Maine in March 1993 and spoke with students in an informal forum held in honor of his book’s status in UM’s then-new project. When asked during about the inspiration for his writing, Gould said, “You only get a limited amount of time on this planet, and there are a lot of interesting things out there,” according to a Bangor Daily News story at the time.

As graduate students at Columbia University in the early 1970s, Gould and Niles Eldredge ignited a scientific debate that continues today. For a century scientists had viewed evolution the way Darwin did, as an incredibly slow process that could only result in dramatic change over eons.

But in their studies of fossil land snail shells in Bermuda, Gould and Eldredge thought they saw a different pattern. They saw bursts of change, relatively rapid on the geologic time scale, interspersed with long periods of stasis.

The young scientists suggested that evolution proceeds in fits and starts, a pattern they dubbed “punctuated equilibrium.” Gould spent years trying to convince his colleagues that the idea has merit. Many were swayed, but some still reject the notion.

“It’s still a fight,” Eldredge said.

The author of a long-running column in Natural History magazine and numerous books, Gould was one of the most popular science writers of his time. His book “The Mismeasure of Man” won the National Book Critics Award in 1982 and was number 24 on the Modern Library’s list of the 100 greatest English-language nonfiction works of the 20th century.

Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin, a colleague of Gould’s for more than 25 years, said Gould was an artist at turning the dusty science of evolution into a vibrant subject, provoking public discussion and reevaluation in the process.

“He was one of the most creative and original thinkers about evolution that I ever knew,” Lewontin said. “He was always looking for new ideas and incorporating new results, and he understood how complicated evolution was better than most evolutionists.”

Gould frequently used his ideas about evolution to examine other topics that interested him, from his successful fight against a cancer diagnosed in 1982 to the demise of the .400 hitter in baseball.

A longtime New York Yankees fan, he appeared in Ken Burns’ PBS documentary history of the sport and in 1999 wrote an obituary tribute to Joe DiMaggio for The Associated Press.

Gould frequently championed the teaching of evolutionary science in school curricula, arguing that it not be challenged by creationism, whose advocates made Gould an enemy.

He also was an amateur choir singer, practicing every Monday night for many years in Boston’s Cecilia Choir, Knoll said.

Gould called human evolution “a fortuitous cosmic afterthought.” Known for the engaging, often witty style evident in his columns and collections, his more recent popular books included “Dinosaur in a Haystack” and “Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life.”

“The Structure of Evolutionary Theory,” a 1,500-page summary of his life’s work, was published earlier this year. His most recent book published just this month, “I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History,” is a collection of his 300 consecutive Natural History essays published monthly without fail from 1974 to 2001.

The book chronicles Gould’s intellectual endeavors and touches on subjects ranging from feathered dinosaurs to Gilbert and Sullivan. It also contains poignant details of Gould’s own life, including his grandfather’s journey from Hungary to America, which ended on Sept. 11, 1901, when his grandfather wrote in his journal the words for which the book is titled.

Gould received his bachelor’s degree from Antioch College in 1963 and a doctorate from Columbia University.