![]() ![]() On completing his doctorate in paleontology at Columbia, Gould was hired by Harvard University, an association that lasted until his death. Roughly 600 distinct species of cerion have been identified, and the unusually rich fossil record of their development presents an excellent model for the study of the evolutionary process. He became the leading authority on the snail known as cerion. From Bermuda, his attention shifted to the snails of the Caribbean islands. Gould continued his field work with snails as a graduate student at Columbia University. Woodruff, an associate professor of evolutionary biology at the University of California at San Diego.” (Corbis) ![]() ‘It’s hot, and the bushes are full of sand flies and mosquitoes,’ says his frequent companion David S. He has “spent weeks combing the scattered islands of the Caribbean in search of telling specimens of Cerion -an enterprise that has both bizarre and uncomfortable aspects. January 1982: Stephen Gould in Eleuthera, Bahamas. He graduated in 1963 with a degree in geology and philosophy. With so many specimens from one location to examine, Gould decided to make them the topic of his senior thesis. Returning to Antioch with his finds, he discovered that a geology professor, A.C Swinnerton, had left the university his own large collection of snail specimens, which he had collected in Bermuda decades earlier. While docked in Bermuda, he collected a number of fossil specimens, land snails preserved over hundreds of thousands of years. While still at Antioch, Gould served as a student intern on a seagoing expedition with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. When he spent a year abroad, studying at Leeds University in England, he organized weekly protests at a dance hall that refused to admit black customers, until the management relented and integrated the establishment. As an undergraduate at Antioch University in Ohio, Gould was active in the Civil Rights Movement. There was no precedent of higher education in the family, but his parents supported his academic efforts and also encouraged a strong interest in current events and public affairs. Gould’s parents were the American-born children of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He then attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and graduated in 1963 with a degree in both geology and philosophy. In 1958, Stephen Jay Gould graduated from Jamaica High School in New York City, New York. With only the slightest knowledge of what this career would be, he moved inexorably toward his goal. When he learned that there was a field of study called paleontology, and that an adult could have a career seeking the fossils of extinct animals, his course in life was set. But his thoughts continually returned to the dinosaurs in the museum. As a teenager he was a member of New York’s All-City High School Chorus, and he continued to participate in choral groups for the rest of his life. ![]() “I dreamed of becoming a scientist, in general, and a paleontologist, in particular, ever since the Tyrannosaurus skeleton awed and scared me.”Īs a youngster, Gould also enjoyed playing stickball in the street, and poker at home, a game that stimulated his interest in the laws of probability. Gould took his first steps toward a career in paleontology after a visit to the American Museum of Natural History with his father. Stephen Jay Gould was born on September 10, 1941, in Queens, New York, the son of Leonard Gould, a court stenographer, and Eleanor, an artist and entrepreneur. Soon, he was reading everything he could find about dinosaurs, fossils and evolution. The majesty and mystery of these ancient creatures exerted an enduring fascination. On a trip to the Museum of Natural History with his father, five-year-old Stephen was captivated by the giant dinosaur skeletons. Stephen Jay Gould was born in New York City and raised in Bayside in the borough of Queens. ![]()
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