June 23, 2002

I did not personally know Stephen Jay Gould, nor had I ever met him. But like the thousands of his fans throughout the world, I feel “touched” by his writings. They have touched and affected me not only on an intellectual level but also on emotional and moral planes.

When I learnt about Stephen Jay Gould’s death from the New York Times Review of Books on-line version, I felt the loss in a “personal” way. One of my friends and a fellow admirer of Gould wrote to me that when he read about the writer’s death, it came as a “sad shock” to him.

In July 1982, Gould had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and was then given by the specialists only eight months to live. He beat the odds and survived, only to succumb to another form of cancer twenty years later. Undoubtedly it would have been a greater loss to the scientific and literary community if he had died then. For two more decades he could continue writing his elegant essays based on his knowledge of paleontology and the history of science. He thus emerged as one of the foremost popularizers of science in our times. But this does not say much about his versatility, erudition and, above all, his humanity.

Jay Gould, who had been with the Harvard University since 1967 until his death last month, became known to the general public mainly through his monthly essays on paleontology, evolutionary theory and the history of science that he published in Natural History Magazine for about 27 years. He stopped writing his monthly essays only in what he considered to be the start of the real millennium (January 2001) and after he had written and published his 300th essay in the magazine.

In the spring of 1982, I was studying at the University of Michigan Law School in the United States. One of the courses offered at the Law School was entitled “The one, the good and the many”. In the reading list were such classics as Shakespeare’s King Lear and also less well-known scientific books written by laypersons. There were also books such as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg’s philosophical tracts, The possibility of altruism by Thomas Nagel, and Stephen Jay Gould’s first collection of essays from his Natural History Magazine column Ever Since Darwin. I never had the chance to do the course but I did read some of the books. It was then that I discovered Stephen Jay Gould and got “hooked” to his writings.

I had been thinking of Gould just a few days before I heard of his death. I had not read a book by him for quite some time (the last one I read was in 1999, The rock of ages) and was planning to look up his latest book. Later on I learnt from the many obituaries written on him that his magnum opus, a major scientific tract entitled The structure of evolutionary theory of over 1440 pages, was published in March 2002 and that his last book, The end of beginning of essays in natural history, was published on the day of his death though I suppose he would have received advanced copies before he died.

(I recall reading that — and Gould whose political views have been described as “solidly left of centre” would perhaps not have been amused by the comparison — the proofs of Richard Nixon’s last book Beyond peace reached the writer on the day of his death.)

A Burmese geologist, who obtained his PhD in geology from Macquarie University in Australia, recently told me that he had the chance of corresponding with Gould when he was writing his PhD thesis. The geologist had written to Gould about the subject matter of his thesis and Gould was very helpful and “unpretentious” in both his correspondence and his conversations on the phone. In the course of this dialogue, Gould had mentioned to him that “the awarding of Nobel Prizes” in science or literature is a “political” decision and Gould believed he would never get the Nobel Prize.

The New York Times’ obituary of Gould stated that “Gould was known for his brilliance as well as his arrogance”. Having read at least 200 of his 300 essays in the Natural History Magazine and his book The mismeasure of man as well as parts of Wonderful life, I can vouchsafe for the brilliance. But I could not detect any trace of arrogance in his writing. I have been exposed to massive doses of “arrogance” in the writings, interviews and speeches of V.S. Naipaul whose works too I have read.

On the somewhat technical side of Gould’s contribution to science, much has been discussed on the merits and demerits of Gould’s and Niles Eldredge’s “Theory of punctuated equilibrium” first proposed in 1972 by them. The theory postulates that after long processes of (almost) stasis, biological evolution occurred (so to speak) in “leaps and bounds” or in “jerks”. Scientists as well as non-scientists have praised, criticized and commented on this theory.

Some argue that Gould (together with his colleague Niles Eldredge) in proposing “Punctuated equilibrium” might have been influenced by his own leftist or neo-Marxist views. Perhaps. But as an interested, ordinary layperson I just want to “observe” that according to historical and scientific data, humanity’s (homo sapiens) emergence is (at most) around two million years old when the earth, though it has been around for about four billion years.

What a long gap between the creation of the earth and the emergence of the “hominids” and still later of humans! And in contrast to the emergence of hominids of about a million years ago, humans came to use agriculture only about 10,000 years ago. Another leap came 3,000 years later, when human civilization began to develop.

Aspects of biological and social history of life on earth has, in some sense, “progressed” in leaps and bounds or in “jerks”. The scientific and technological achievements of humans of the past century or so excelled those of the previous seven or eight millennia and at least in that aspect there seems to be some sort of “punctuated equilibrium” in human social history as well.

I write to pay tribute to — to praise if you will — Stephen Jay Gould and not to discuss those theories which are mainly for scientists to debate. Ordinary worldlings can only observe those technical details of the debates and at times tread into the “arena” with our tentative views. I would like to thank Stephen Jay Gould for the dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of pleasure and bountiful knowledge he has given me through his many books and numerous essays. In Burmese traditional thought “teachers” are revered. And so are those whose books you have read for they are also teachers and I acknowledge and give my respects to Stephen Jay Gould as a teacher.

In his tribute entitled “The scientist who put rings around the earth” the Washington Post editorial writer, Joel Achenbach, said that “nature spreads her gifts sparingly” in that there are very few persons with such polymath skills like Steve Gould. Ludu Daw Ahmar, an 86-year-old eminent Burmese literary figure, once wrote in an article in Burmese that when she heard, in September 1990, that the esteemed Burmese poet Hsayar (“Teacher”), Zaw Gyi, had died at the age of 83, she felt a great sense of loss. Ludu Daw Ahmar recalled the Burmese saying that though a person dies, the (good) name of the person lives on. Yet, Daw Ahmar wrote, though his name lives on, the late Zaw Gyi cannot write any more poems. In the same vein, I would say that the name of Steve Gould continues to live on in many circles. Also, his niche among the great popularizers of science of our times is secure. But we cannot expect any more new books from Gould.

In his tribute, Joel Achenbach (perhaps taking only a twinge of poetic license) also wrote that Gould was a “miracle himself”. At least some of Gould’s detractors and most importantly Gould himself would graciously “demur” about the description of him as a “miracle”, even in a figurative or metaphorical sense.

Gould’s contribution to ‘popular science’ and to the general public’s knowledge of aspects of the history of science has been phenomenal, enriching and inspiring. To many in the scientific and literary circles as well as to those of hundreds of thousands of his “fans” throughout the world Gould’s death is indeed an irreparable loss.

In one of his essays Gould wrote to the effect that the wonders of nature, the intricacies of evolution and life are so abundant that he cannot begin to exhaust the study of them in “a thousand life times”. But the “one” life of Stephen Jay Gould that we have “witnessed” is a supremely well-lived one. In explaining to us about the wonders and diversity of nature, Gould’s “one life” was, to quote from the title of one of his books, indeed A wonderful life.

Writer’s email: Zan_M@VANUATU.USP.AC.FJ

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