By Mike Moore
Special to THE DAILY

When Stephen Jay Gould died in 2002, he left behind three decades worth of essays that had allowed him to delve into a wide array of scientific ideas. With a writing style that was both personal and persuasive, he was one of the most widely read popular-science writers of his time.

“The Richness of Life: The Essential Stephen Jay Gould,” brings together in one volume many of the best of these essays.

Gould knew from a young age that the study of dinosaurs would be his passion, and he was able to make this his life’s work.

After receiving a doctorate in paleontology from Columbia University, he spent the rest of his life teaching at Harvard University.

He was also long associated with the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In 1974, he began writing a column for Natural History magazine, and continued regularly until 2001.

Many of these essays are repeated, and some updated, in this collection.

Although most of his essays examined some area of science, Gould had a way of heading off in a different direction before hammering home the point he wished to make. An article about the astounding ability of life on earth to persevere begins with an examination of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.

A look at changes in body size in biological lineages is compared to the decrease in candy bar sizes. His own battle with a rare form of cancer gives him a chance to illustrate probability distributions.

Gould is perhaps best known as an investigator and advocate of evolutionary theory. Several of the essays are devoted to explanations of some point of biological evolution, or the impact of evolution on contemporary culture.

Also evident are the results of the in-house disagreements among Gould and his contemporaries, such as Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson. Gould is well known for his theory of “punctuated equilibria,” or periods of accelerated change in life forms, a theory at odds with some more commonly held ideas.

He is also a critic of the application of Darwinian theory to sociology, as found in Wilson’s Sociobiology.

In one of his last books, Gould addressed the role of religion in contemporary life, and how it interacts with science.

Though not religious himself, Gould nonetheless considered religion a separate authority, or, as he referred to it, science and religion are “non-overlapping magesteria,” each with its own area of influence and each free from interference with the other.

“The Richness of Life” will serve not only as a good introduction to Stephen Jay Gould’s writings, but as an example of science writing at its best.

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