Stephen Jay Gould Lives Fo' Ever!

Stephen Jay Gould is now part of the fossil record.  Or not; I'm unaware of what happened to his physical remains.  I have, though, had the pleasure of checking out a tiny fraction of the huge body of work he left behind.  His short life is a lesson to us all; a man who’s mind encompassed the enormity of the time was here-as are we all-for so short of a time. 

Wonderful Life has three goals.  Gould aims to show that life, and the evolution of consciousness (which seem inevitable since we are here) are far from the ordered affairs that the images of monkeys marching through time to become cavemen imply.  There is way too much chance involved.  The wonderful life of the Burgess Shale deposit of British Columbia shows this through the (relatively) rapid rise and extinction lineages of creatures that boggle the imagination.  But how easily do the rocks reveal their secrets?  Not as straightforwardly as one might think.  For over half a century the fossils of the Burgess Shale were misinterpreted by scientists who were constrained to some extent by conventions of their own making.  As Gould says, the fossils were talking but people weren’t listening.  

A second goal of the book is to illustrate the high drama of discovery.  Personally, I am gladdened enormously by this.  My own understanding of the sciences, meager though it is, has always been aided most by stories of how and why people arrived at their conclusions.  Discussion of the thought process--the mistakes, if you will, or at least the blind alleys--helps a layperson get to grips with the science more easily.  Thirdly, Gould—a great science popularize as well as a researcher—is also concerned as to what he clearly sees as a failure in this regard.  The story of the Burgess Shale – though better understood by the public thanks to him -- is still not well known.  Learning as I do these days from the nested volumes of the internet and the hopefully edifying morsels that make their way onto  YouTube, I can hear Gould’s sonorous tones as well as read his books.  His voice is so reassuring and avuncular, and his style of writing so natural that I can hear his voice as I read.  But am I listening or am I missing the point, analogous to the way that Charles D. Walcott misunderstood the message of the Burgess Shale?

One thing I hear on Gould’s issue of Seven Wonders (youtube.com/watch?v=Wnt8UVItyrY) is his claim that he is “bored to tears” by dinosaurs.  I’m sorry to hear this said out loud, not just because I’m not bored by dinosaurs but because I think it’s sad that anyone is bored by anything—unless of course, boredom with some things is a prerequisite for getting any single thing done, which it may well be.  The fact remains that Stephen Spielberg has popularized dinosaurs more than Gould popularized the Burgess Shale.  But is that a problem?   In Dinosaur in a Haystack Gould expresses his dismay that the fascination with dinosaurs misleads people regarding the true (or best available) picture of the past that we have.  He is also derisive of animatronic dinosaur displays and the lack of real educational substance they bring.  About this I have mixed feelings.  I saw a dinosaur show in Philadelphia some years back that I recollect had Gould’s name attached to it somehow.  While I, like Gould, only had skeletons to look at as a five-year old, and was also changed for life by them, modern pre-schoolers have dinosaurs that look a lot more real.  Does it affect more of them, or affect them more?  Unlike Gould, I don’t assume an understanding of media effects, but I’m going to hazard a guess that it doesn’t matter that much. I think the importance of the Diplodocus, stretching as it still does 25 metres down the entrance hall of the Natural History Museum in London (though now with tail off the ground, mind you) is not lessened by the existence of Dinotopia, JP, or animatronic dinosaur shows at zoos around the world.  They don’t tell the story that Gould wants heard, but they do blow the mind. Maybe the skeletons that blew Gould’s mind—and mine too—would do the trick, but hey, now we have CGI, and ever since I saw that Diplodocus carnegii  slowly being coated with a fine sediment of South Kensington's erudite dust, I wanted to see JP--I wanted to see it BAD. I wanted it bad enough that I endured Gwangi and all the rest with a proud stoicism.   Heck, I remember where I was when someone told me (simultaneously, no less—how can the mind take that kind of assault) the plot of Creighton’s book and the fact that Jurassic Park was being made by Spielberg. Do you? Perhaps, if you’re a paleontologist you do, and you remember the feeling of dejection that Gould may have felt.  For my part, it’s one of the few times I’ve wished I could do a cartwheel.  I think that children are capable of being entertained and of being educated. (I also believe the research that they can tell the difference between Tom and Jerry or Judas Priest and real violence, but that’s another story). I think they deserve both, and getting one doesn’t mean they can’t get the other.  Curmudgeonliness won’t help people tell the difference.  What makes the difference is upping the ante regarding the sense of wonder.  For the most part, Gould does this, so his occasional grumpiness is even more forgivable.  

Gould, no doubt, would have detested my bike messenger bag.  It shows that one-dimensional linear evolution. 

There’s not a jot about the huge diversity of mammals or even primates which never made it, or the more successful (in numbers and variation of species) versions of mammals such as bats and rodents.  It’s all about human beans.  On the other hand , he didn’t (as far as I know) live in Kentucky in the 20-teens, where the above says what I want it to say.  But in honor of Stephen Jay Gould – and even if he was bored with dinosaurs I have to love him – here’s the version for his messenger bag:

BIKES RULE

CREATIONISM SUCKS