If I were asked to name Darwin’s most famous American disciple, I’d answer in a flash: Stephen Jay Gould.
Not that he always agreed with evolutionary theory’s founding father – in fact, he disputed him so often creationists tried enrolling him in their camp. But that was humbug, as Darwin was one of Gould’s all-time favorites, along with New York Yankee slugger Joe DiMaggio for his hitting streak.
More than any scientist of his day, Gould put evolution before the public in a new, powerful and convincing way. It became recognized as biology’s central dogma. Thanks to his lucid writing and his eloquent lectures, the idea that humans – indeed, all creatures – descended from earlier forms entered the popular discourse. Even presidential candidates were asked about it. Reagan, cagey as always, brushed it off as just a theory.
This is a good day to think about and remember Gould. He was born September 10, 1941, which would have made today (Friday) his 80th birthday. Sadly, he probably won’t get too much public attention since all eyes and emotions are focused on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. But even though Gould died less than a year later, on May 21, 2002 at a youthful 60, his life crossed with that dreadful event in very personal ways.
On September 11, 2001, a day after his 60th birthday, he and his wife were flying back from Milan when the Twin Towers were struck. With all air traffic to the U.S. abruptly grounded, they found themselves stranded at the airport in Halifax. After hours on the tarmac, then on cots in a sports complex and finally at a Holiday Inn, Alitalia brought them back to the airport, only to announce their plane would return to Milan.
But Gould, stubborn as always, was determined otherwise. As he recalled, “We rented one of the last two cars available and drove, with an intense mixture of grief and relief back home.” As it happened, home was a loft in lower Manhattan, within short walking distance of the huge new mountain of death and debris. In the days that followed, Gould and his wife Rhonda would throw themselves full force in helping feed, cloth and comfort firefighters and other rescuers at the site.
That painful day also had another meaning for Gould. It was the 100th anniversary of the very day, September 11, 1901, that his Hungarian grandfather landed at Ellis Island, just across the water from what would become the site of the doomed World Trade Center. It was the inauspicious beginning to his family’s American story and gave him the title for his last collection of essays, “I Have Landed,” published shortly before his death after a long struggle with cancer.
Even as we recall the solemn events of 9/11, I don’t think a touch of remembrance is out of order for our own great evolutionist.
Scribbling Fred 