Stephen Jay Gould Just Died

[Rich Travs]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/20/obituaries/20CND-GOULD.html

Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary theorist at Harvard
University whose lectures, research and prolific output of
essays helped to reinvigorate the field of paleontology, died
today at his home in Manhattan. He was 60 years old. The cause
was adenocarcinoma, his wife, Rhonda Roland Schearer, said.

[Richard Wa]

Rich Travsky wrote:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/20/obituaries/20CND-GOU-
> LD.html
>
> Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary theorist at Harvard
> University whose lectures, research and prolific output of
> essays helped to reinvigorate the field of paleontology,
> died today at his home in Manhattan. He was 60 years old.
> The cause was adenocarcinoma, his wife, Rhonda Roland
> Schearer, said.

This is very sad news. A whole array of people liked to take
shots at him - much of it justified - but he is going to be
very hard to replace as a popularizer at a pretty high level
of scientific thinking in a culture that grossly undervalues
it. First Sagan and now Gould. Who is going to step forward to
fight the good fight?

Rick Wagler

[Bob Keeter]

in article 3CE9565E.69B0F53E@shaw.ca, Richard Wagler at
taxidea3@shaw.ca wrote on 5/20/02 3:02 PM:

>
>
> Rich Travsky wrote:
>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/20/obituaries/20CND-GOU-
>> LD.html
>>
>> Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary theorist at Harvard
>> University whose lectures, research and prolific output of
>> essays helped to reinvigorate the field of paleontology,
>> died today at his home in Manhattan. He was 60 years old.
>> The cause was adenocarcinoma, his wife, Rhonda Roland
>> Schearer, said.
>
> This is very sad news. A whole array of people liked to take
> shots at him - much of it justified - but he is going to be
> very hard to replace as a popularizer at a pretty high level
> of scientific thinking in a culture that grossly undervalues
> it. First Sagan and now Gould. Who is going to step forward
> to fight the good fight?
>
> Rick Wagler
>
>

You dont have to like the guy or his science but I think that
we can all appreciate that his "outreach" will be missed.

My sympathies to his family and friends.

Regards bk

[Anne V. Gi]

Rick:

> This is very sad news. A whole array of people liked to take
> shots at him - much of it justified - but he is going to be
> very hard to replace as a popularizer at a pretty high level
> of scientific thinking in a culture that grossly undervalues
> it. First Sagan and now Gould. Who is going to step forward
> to fight the good fight?

After our moment of silence remembering Stephen Jay Gould, we
are going to have to fight the good fight ourselves. The
question is, are we prepared to do it? Anne G

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[Philip Dei]

On Tue, 21 May 2002 03:43:20 GMT, "ANNE V. GILBERT"
<avgilbert@prodigy.net> wrote:

>After our moment of silence remembering Stephen Jay Gould, we
>are going to have to fight the good fight ourselves. The
>question is, are we prepared to do it?

Put up your dukes woman!!! [ahem] aahhhh, who exactly are we
supposed to be fighting?

=%^)

Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[Charles]

you are correct Anne. My favorite Gould moment was when he
said (paraphrasing) that most PA folks don't bother to fight
creationism because it is such a waste of time...and there is
so much work yet to be accomplished. He will be missed. --chas
ps...I would have also gotten the virus except it was stopped
in route.. more than once... by my virus checker... Norton.
I am not to pleased about the recent spat of Korean (?)
junk, which i can "spaminate," ...my server can stop
it.

"ANNE V. GILBERT" wrote:

> Rick:
>
> > This is very sad news. A whole array of people liked to
> > take shots at him - much of it justified - but he is going
> > to be very hard to replace as a popularizer at a pretty
> > high level of scientific thinking in a culture that
> > grossly undervalues it. First Sagan and now Gould. Who is
> > going to step forward to fight the good fight?
>
> After our moment of silence remembering Stephen Jay Gould,
> we are going to have to fight the good fight ourselves. The
> question is, are we prepared to do it? Anne G
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG
> anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.362
> / Virus Database: 199 - Release Date: 5/7/02

[Philip Dei]

On Tue, 21 May 2002 10:41:34 -0400, Charles
<lmno@mindspring.com> wrote:

>you are correct Anne. My favorite Gould moment was when he
>said (paraphrasing) that most PA folks don't bother to fight
>creationism because it is such a waste of time...and there is
>so much work yet to be accomplished. He will be missed.

See now tis is the right attitude, just keep shoving data into
the black box, and eventually creationism will go into the
land of the ancient myths. But I have to contest Gould on the
point that Paleontological evidence for evolution is highly
fallible, from a statistical point of view he based his ideas
of punctuated evolution based on a sample that is biased by
large sampling errors, errors which obviously would affect the
interpretation.

But also add most paleontologist don't have time to fight
evolution vause they are too busy fighting over new 'myths'
they are creating (not all but many) and trying to create
new dogmas. I think that if you gave a biostatistics course
to most Paleontologist, they would probably fail it. [Insert
Flame Here . . . . ]

[End Insert]
>Ps...I would have also gotten the virus except it was
> stopped in route.. more than once... by my virus
> checker... Norton. I am not to pleased about the recent
> spat of Korean (?) junk, which i can "spaminate," ...my
> server can stop
>it.

Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

For those folks that have Agent here is my filter file:

Author: Algis Kuliukas Author: Bob Keeter Author: Jabriol
Author: jabriol Author: James Michael Howard Author: Jim
McGinn Author: marc verhaegen Author: Paul Crowley Author:
Paul Kekai Manansala Author: Tim Tyler Author: Watch Tower AAT
Creation CreationEvolve Abortion Aquatic aquatic

[Anne V. Gi]

Philip:

> Put up your dukes woman!!! [ahem] aahhhh, who exactly are we
> supposed to be fighting?

Creationists, among other "nasties". Anne G

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