Stephen Jay Gould Reflections on His View of Life

Although Steve Gould’s death on May 20, 2002, provided the
immediate impetus for this book, its original motivation came
from a review of his book Structure of Evolutionary Theory, published
just before his death. That review—by someone who in our view
clearly had no idea what punctuated equilibrium or species selection
were about—suggested to us that Steve’s science was even
more widely misunderstood than we had thought. We said to each
other at the time that someone needed to “do something” about
this situation.
Steve’s death took most of his students and close colleagues
by surprise, although a few of us were aware that he had been
ill. For many of us, it left a great hole in our lives. After his

death and the several memorial services that followed, the three
of us were asked to organize a symposium in Steve’s memory at
the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, which
convened on November 2, 2003. We invited students and close
colleagues of Steve to participate in this symposium, asking
each to explore an aspect of his thought from his or her own
relatively “intimate” perspective—that is, from the point of view
of one who had known well, learned under, and/or worked with
him for many years. Our logic was that such people would be
more likely to have a clearer-than-average understanding of his

thought and its signifi cance. (Not all of the papers presented
at that session are included in this book, and a few that were
not presented have been added. Two were originally published
elsewhere and are reprinted here.)
Steve Gould was a major and highly infl uential intellectual fi gure
in science (particularly evolutionary paleobiology) and society
over a span of about thirty years of his professional life. Indeed,
some assessments during his lifetime deemed him the best-known
scientist in the world; what other scientist, after all, merited a
guest appearance on the television cartoon The Simpsons? Due to
his prominence, a small Gould commentary industry had already
become established prior to his death (e.g., Somit and Peterson
1992; Selzer 1993; Sterelny 2001). Furthermore, because Steve
published two books (Structure [2002c] and I Have Landed [2001m],
his tenth volume of essays from Natural History magazine*) in the
months just before his death, a number of major review/essays on
his life and work appeared around that time, supplemented after
his death by various memorials, thereby expanding this industry
considerably and laying a foundation for what may well be a signifi -
cant Gouldiana literature in the future. An “essential” compilation
of his writings has recently appeared (McGarr and Rose 2006), as
well as an extract from Structure (Gould 2007), and at least one
major biography is in preparation.
Despite such attention, the present volume is the fi rst (and so
far only) book to explore critically Steve Gould’s numerous and
varied scientifi c and intellectual contributions, what the connections
among them are, and what their long-term impact may be
on our understanding of the history of life. It is not a conventional
memorial festschrift; such has been published elsewhere (Vrba
and Eldredge 2005). It is also not (to use Dick Lewontin’s phrase)
a “compendium of encomia,” nor (as Steve might have said, using
one of his favorite words) an attempt at hagiography. Instead,
we hope that this book is an informed yet honest assessment of
Steve’s contributions within the scientifi c, intellectual, and societal
contexts of the late twentieth century. In some sense it is intended
as a “reader’s guide” to Gould.Steve’s work was widely quoted and criticized, but—at least in
our experience—much less often read thoroughly and carefully
and still less frequently fully understood. We would like to think
of the essays here as written by “those who knew him best,” but
this would be presumptuous. We do think we knew him and his
thoughts well, or at least a bit better than did most other scientists,
including many of his critics. As the chapters of this volume
demonstrate, however, familiarity does not necessarily breed
agreement. In any case, we wanted to provide what we hope will
be some perspective and clarity that we fear might be lost from the
scientifi c community’s understanding of Steve’s contributions. We
wanted to have our say, before the critics and “picklocks of biographers”
(Benet 1930) have had their way with his legacy.
Most of the contributors to this volume were Steve’s students, to
whom he was fi rst and foremost a teacher and mentor. He was not
always warm or gentle, or even friendly, to his students, but he valued
and inspired excellence, hard work, and accomplishment, and he
stretched all of us farther than we thought we could go. He was indifferent
to many of the things that excited us (as we were to many of the
things that excited him). He was a diffi cult role model. He decided
quickly whom he did and didn’t favor, and you usually didn’t get a
second chance to make a fi rst impression. He didn’t always come to
our talks at meetings or read our papers. But he worked hard to fi nd
us jobs, and he was always very generous to each of us—with his time
(when we made appointments), his money, and especially with his
mind. For some of us, he was among the most important infl uences
in our entire lives. For all of us, our professional and personal lives are
emptier now without him, and we are extraordinarily grateful to have
known him well and to have been under his tutelage.


Warren D. Allmon
Patricia H. Kelley
Robert M. Ross

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