Niles Eldredge

Niles Eldredge is an American paleontologist, who, along with Stephen Jay Gould, proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium. He called for an extended evolutionary synthesis in his book Unfinished Synthesis: Biological Hierarchies and Modern Evolutionary Thought (1985) based on the view of interaction of two hierarchies: a hierarchy of genetic information housed in genes, organisms, species and higher taxa; and an ecological hierarchy, concerned with interactions between biologic entities and the physical environment.

Unfortunately, much like Stephen Jay Gould, Eldredge is usually quote mined by creationists.

Selected publications

 * Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life (2005)
 * The Triumph of Evolution...And the Failure of Creationism (2000)
 * Reinventing Darwin: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory (1995)
 * Fossils: The Evolution and Extinction of Species (1991)
 * Life Pulse: Episodes in the History of Life. Facts on File (1987)
 * Unfinished Synthesis: Biological Hierarchies and Modern Evolutionary Thought (1985)