Talk:Stephen Jay Gould

Removed passage
I have removed the following rather bizaire comment about Dawkins: ''After Gould died, Richard Dawkins began claiming Gould did not believe this, even though Gould came up with the it. Appearently Dawkins knows what other people believe better than the other people themselves. Dawkins is satisfied that his claim is correct, because Gould is yet to deny it. Dawkins evidently has no idea that Gould is long dead, and therefore is in no position to deny anything.
 * Maybe that was a joke at the expense of religions, which also make a lot of claims about the beliefs and preferences of an entity that seems disinclined to speak plainly on its own behalf? --Gulik 11:26, 29 August 2007 (CDT)
 * That is possible I suppose. But I'm not convinced that Bohdan is in the habit of making jokes about religions.  Still, I suppose it's possible.  :-.) --Bob_M (talk) 12:12, 29 August 2007 (CDT)

However, in the God Delusion Dawkins states, for example: ...Gould carried the art of bending over backwards to positively supine lengths in one of his less admired books, Rocks of Ages. There he coined the acronym NOMA for the phrase 'nonoverlapping magisterial. .... and later ...... I am not suggesting that my colleagues of the appeasement lobby are necessarily dishonest. They may sincerely believe in NOMA, although I can't help wondering how thoroughly they've thought it through and how they reconcile the internal conflicts in their minds.

All of which suggests Dawkins both knew Gould was dead and that he had believed in NOMA.--Bob_M (talk) 05:43, 29 August 2007 (CDT)

Fossil record?
The hypothesis has perhaps become less compelling as more and more of the fossil record has been revealed.

Is there a source for this unsupported opinion? It seems that whoever wrote this does not understand what Punctuated Equilibrium is and its history. Gould & co. do not claim that there isn't enough fossils and therefore it seems that there are "jumps" in the fossil record. Rather, as Gould notes, the fossil record is an "embarrassment of riches" in that while there are more than enough fossils, the record does not support the implicit view that species evolve in a gradual manner (despite Dawkins caricature of Gould's views in TBW). Punctuated Equilibrium is not a phenomena of an incomplete fossil record. 23:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Controversial edit
The writing's OK but it needs a citation. Proxima Centauri (talk) 12:42, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It's a bunch of loose sentences, one of which is not even finished. And a citation is indeed needed.--JorisEnter (talk) 12:44, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It is very poorly done, I admit that. But the reputation of this man has been questioned by enough people for a controversy read http://infoproc.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html
 * Not saying he was selling snake oil, but apart from working on snails his output seems to have been mostly popular science 193.62.251.21 (talk) 14:34, 17 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Why wouldn't his reputation be questioned considering he slandered Morton about his skull measurement and then went on to do exactly what he accused Morton of doing?

Reputation
This morning, I noticed a new collection of critical quotes collected by Nathan Cofnas: http://nathancofnas.com/what-prominent-biologists-think-of-stephen-jay-gould/ It appears that among experts, the man's reputation is in tatters, whereas non-experts still appreciate his popular books.

E.O. Wilson: "I believe Gould was a charlatan….I believe that he was…seeking reputation and credibility as a scientist and writer, and he did it consistently by distorting what other scientists were saying and devising arguments based upon that distortion."


 * I am obliged that none of the above nonsense has made it into the article.Ariel31459 (talk) 15:46, 11 December 2019 (UTC)