CHECK IT OUT:Stephen Jay Gould’s contributions to science

If he were still alive, today would be Stephen Jay Gould’s birthday. Sadly, the renowned paleontologist and science historian died of cancer in 2002.

“The Simpsons” lovers will remember a characterization of him on the cartoon shows. Science fiction lovers will remember him as one of the heroes who saved the day in Jack McDevitt’s “Ancient Shores.” And readers of Natural History magazine know him from his unequaled 300 consecutive monthly columns, “This View of Life.”

He said: “The telephone is the greatest single enemy of scholarship; for what our intellectual forebears used to inscribe in ink now goes once over a wire into permanent oblivion.”

But most of us who know of Gould know him as the prolific writer and guest speaker on scientific topics — a speaker who actually made those topics understandable. What’s more, he made them palatable without trivializing them.

Gould began his career as an evolutionary biologist on the day when he was 5 years old and his father, a court stenographer, took him to the American Museum of Natural History. On this day, young Stephen met his first Tyrannosaurus rex. After degrees from Antioch College and Columbia University, he taught for the rest of his life at Harvard.

And in one of life’s lovely footnotes, he was very closely associated with the Museum of Natural History through collaboration with its Director of Paleontology, Niles Eldredge, and the fact that Natural History is published by that institution. Gould and Eldredge propounded the theory of punctuated equilibrium in evolution. That is, in short, that evolution is not gradual, but happens in spurts depending on dramatic environmental events.

“A man does not sustain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right,” Gould once said.

Gould’s academic life centered on the study of snails. The wonders of life thus open to him made Gould an outspoken advocate for evolution as a science and creationism as a religion.

He was also highly noted as a defender of the role of science in daily life in the sense that he abhorred the misuse of science to promulgate destructive social programs. For instance, one of his best-known books, “The Mismeasure of Man,” warns of using intelligence and psychological testing to label and marginalize people.

“The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best — and therefore never scrutinize or question,” he once said.

Doctorate degrees, MacArthur genius awards, and Harvard chairs notwithstanding, Gould’s books, designed for the layman, mark his great importance as a translator of difficult scientific principles into wonderful writing. The titles themselves demonstrate what fun lies between the covers. “Bully for Brontosaurus,” “Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms,” and “The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox” just beg to be read.

To show just how respected he was as a writer, regardless of the topic, Gould also edited the 2002 edition of “The Best American Essays.” And to endear him to all Americans, scientist or not, one of his last books was “Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball” in which he reversed the process. Instead of explaining scientific principles in layman’s terms, he explained baseball in scientific terms, and it is a must read for all baseball fans.

Evolutionary biologist, educator, author, spokesman, raconteur, and lifelong Yankee fan with Boston Red Sox season tickets, Gould was a fascinating man. He was a man of science, but his friends included horror writer, Stephen King, and off-beat cartoonist, Gary Larson. His contributions to the worlds of science and popular science have been greatly missed.

Finally, “Science is an integral part of culture. It’s not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It’s one of the glories of the human intellectual tradition.”

is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public Library. This week’s column is by Sara Barnicle. All titles may be reserved from home or office computers by accessing the catalog at www.newportbeachlibrary.org. For more information, call (949) 717-3800, option 2.