time scales) resulting in the sudden appearance of new forms in the fossil record. This creates punctuations backdrop of steady equilibT hirty years later, arguing over how often the fossil record shows a punctuated pattern and how Many credit punctuated equilibrium with promoting the flowering of the held of macroevolution, in which researchers study large-scale evolutionary changes, often in a geological time frame. "Ontogeny and Phylogeny" the long-ignored relationdevelop - that is, how an adult gets built from the starting plans of an egg - and how they evolve. importance of how organ isms are built, or their archime casay, youra orien tecture, in a famous paper pulled together unrelated ideas or things. (He began known as a spandrel. one essay by noting that Spandrels, the spaces above Ahraham Lincoln and an arch, exist as a necessary Charles Darwin were born outcome of building with A champion of the underIn the same way, they dor (excent in his support of argued, some features of the Yankees), he favoured organisms exist simply as theories and scientists that the result of how an organ- had been forgotten or whose ism develops or is built. reputations were in disreThus researchers, they pair. warned, should refrain from Gould also popularised assuming that every feature exists for some adaptive pur- Harvard, sometimes finding In March, Harvard standing-room only. But University Press published wale mis aavcatures typiwhat Gould described 35 bis cally took place in the magnum opus, "The brary. colleaoues said that Gould, whose specialty was Theory." The book, on Cerion land snails in the which he toiled for decades, Bahamas, was also impreslays out his vision for syn- sive in the field. was'a member of the National Academy of Sciences and won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Alexander Agassiz Professor O1 coology at harvard and the Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University.
Whether doquently and forcefully championing new or forgotten ideas or dismantling what he saw as misconceptions, Dr. Gould spent a career trying to shed light on an impossibly wide variety of subjects.
He once wrote, "I love the wry motto of toc Palacontological Society] (meant both literally and figuratively, for hammers are Frango us patefaciam - I break in order to reveal."
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