Saturday, September 10

Happy Birthday


Stephen Jay Gould: September 10, 1941--May 20, 2002

I was hoping to link to a copy of "Phyletic Size Decrease in Hershey Bars", but I couldn't find one. It's in Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes". Hit the used bookstore.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I miss him. I mean, I'm not even remotely equipped to wade into the mess that was between him and Simon Conway Morris, but I have some of both of their books, have read many more, understood, admittedly, not all that much.
But anything with the words "Burgess Shale" on the cover pretty much sucks me in. I keep re-reading when I have time. Sooner or later I'll get it, I suppose.
I've got some documentaries with each of them, too. I have to say, I probably would have preferred to spend time with Gould.
Smart is sexy and all, and so's a sense of humor.

Cheers, Mr Gould. You're missed, especially lately.

Anonymous said...

ha! nice one!

the pic, that is -- i didn't know the good doctor was a guest on the simpsons.

Anonymous said...

The episode where Lisa finds the "angel" skeleton. She takes a bone to SJG for testing, and he tells her it's inconclusive.
Once it's shown to have been a fake, she goes back and asks why his tests didn't show that. He says something about Oh, I didn't really bother with the tests anyway.
It was all fairly funny. You're not gonna see SCM on the Simpsons, are you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the reminder, Doghouse. Gould was one of my heroes and an inspiration to lots of folks standing up for science and honesty. Another memorial to the man is Project Steve, a fitting tribute to SJG's contributions to popularizing science and to his sense of humor.

Anonymous said...

For the record, I did go to the used bookstore today (Well, the eleventh-today) and did get a copy of "Hen's Teeth". For about five bucks.
I also bought the New Pornographers' "Twin Cinema" today.

So. Now that you're apparently controlling my brain, Riley, what do you intend to do with it?