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Early Life
Steven Jay Gould, born September 10th, 1941, was from the very beginning interested in science. His father took him to the Museum of Natural History when he was 7, where he saw a Tyrannosaurus Rex. His curiosity led him to dedicating his life to geologic periods. At age 11, he was learning about Evolution. In high school, Gould began to see the conflicting arguments between evolution and creationism. -
Major Scientific Contributions.
In Gould's "first career" as a paleontologist, he studied and taught evolutionary "punctuated equilibrium". This was the thought that evolution happens in rapid bursts. Gould was able to build off of Darwin's theories, and the lack of "middle species" Darwin ran into while trying to prove evolution. -
Gould's "Second Career"
In addition to Gould's work in paleontology, he put effort into making science understandable to everyone, regardless of whether or not they were scientists. Gould admitted that "human intelligence has a specific location in the brain and that it can be measured by a standard number score. He argued, however, that any efforts to label groups as having inferior or superior intelligence based upon these measurements mark a misuse of scientific data and an abuse of the scientific process." -
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Nonoverlapping Magisteria
In his book "Rock of Ages", Gould popularized the idea of "Non-overlapping Magisteria", or the idea that religion and science work independently of each other. It is a very controversial topic that raises many fundamental questions in both Science and Religion. Gould argued in court that schools should teach both creationism and evolution, as creationism should not be viewed as scientific at all, but rather religion. -
Work Cited
Works Cited: “Stephen Jay Gould Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, www.notablebiographies.com/Gi-He/Gould-Stephen-Jay.html. Bing, Microsoft, 4 Feb. 2017, www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Stephen Jay Gould&view=detail&mid=9C41D4C17C2DBEF35FED9C41D4C17C2DBEF35FED&FORM=VIRE.
