Stephen J. Gould in the 1960s and 1970s, and the Origin of “Punctuated Equilibria”

Abstract

Steve Gould arrived as a beginning graduate student in the Department of Geology at Columbia University in the Fall of 1963. He was one of a group of entering students interested in paleontology, biostratigraphy, paleoecology and, of course, evolution. Though I was still an undergraduate, I was welcomed into the group—and took part in the field trips and special seminars they organized: especially one on paleontology and evolution whose main inspiration was Steve himself. Most of these students eventually went on to have distinguished careers in paleontology and related fields