Posted on: Sunday, June 2, 2002
BOOK CLUB
Gould comes full circle in final batch of essays
By Alicia Chang
Associated Press
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In his last essay for Natural History magazine, Stephen Jay Gould paid homage to his maternal grandfather, who emigrated from Hungary to New York. Upon arrival, 13-year-old Joseph Rosenberg bought an English grammar book and inscribed the words: "I have landed. Sept. 11, 1901."
The simple words and ironic date became fodder for Gould's latest book, "I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History."
It's his 10th and final essay collection based on 300 monthly columns published in the magazine from 1974 to 2001 "without a single interruption for cancer, hell, high water, or the World Series."
Gould died of cancer on May 20 at age 60, a day before the book was published, but he left behind a rich legacy of scientific writings for professionals and lay people.
The book, presented in eight parts, represents Gould's trademark witty ability to breathe life into the science he writes, on topics as diverse as Charles Darwin's avoidance of the "dreaded 'E' word," Sigmund Freud's "evolutionary fantasy," feathered dinosaurs, and evolution versus creationism.
In the title essay, Gould examines the evolution of his own family tree beginning with his grandfather, who labored as a garment worker, and ending with himself as an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University.
"Perhaps I have finally won the right to restate your noble words, and to tell you that their inspiration still lights my journey: I have landed. But I also can't help wondering what comes next!" he wrote.
Gould was arguably the people's scientist, known to his fans as the scientist who never "dumbed down" science for the nonscientists but instead treated them like equals. It therefore seems fitting that Gould should personalize "I Have Landed" with a dedication to his readers:
"Each (essay) has taught me something new and important, and each has given me human contact with readers who expressed a complete range of opinions from calumny to adulation, but always with feeling and without neutrality — so God bless them, every one."
In the science community, Gould was known for his theory on punctuated equilibrium, developed with colleague Niles Eldredge, which suggested that evolution in the fossil record came in fits and starts rather than a Darwinian steady process of slow change.
Gould admitted that he often felt slighted by colleagues who refused to quote his essays because they were not considered scientific enough.
"I confess that I have often been frustrated by the disinclinations, and sometimes the downright refusals, of some (in my judgment) overly parochial scholars who will not cite my essays (while they happily quote my technical articles) because the content did not see its first published light of day in a traditional, peer-reviewed publication for credentialed scholars," Gould wrote.
Like most Americans, Gould was affected by the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, which also marked the centennial of the arrival of his grandfather in the United States.
Gould, who lived a mile from where the World Trade Center stood, was one of 9,000 passengers in 45 diverted flights that day and was temporarily stranded in Canada.
Four short essays published in various magazines were added to the end of the book.
With Gould's death, one of the 20th century's influential voices on evolutionary biology has been silenced, but his memory lives on in the prolific writings he has left behind.
