Stephen Jay Gould

[tk2kewl]

[NeoGreen]

1. My Paleontology Professor's Professor...

Though, I never accepted his notion of "Non-overlapping magisteria"

[LeftinOH]

2. I miss him and his writing- he died too young. n/t

[aikoaiko]

3. And mopping his university laboratory floor.

[NeoGreen]

4. Are you suggesting...

... that every person who mopped the SJG's laboratory floor had "equivalent talent" as Einstein (in the vein of "Good Will Hunting&quot or that their labor was obtained and/or compensated in the same manner as you would find in a cotton field (with the allusion being that of slaves in a cotton field) or a sweat shop? Or did you mean to suggest something else entirely?

I am confused, given my presumption that the custodial staff at Harvard would, more likely than not, be represented by a union, and that their labor would in no way resemble that of a slave or sweat shop.

[aikoaiko]

6. They do have a union but they are often not treated well

They have to threaten strikes to improve their situations.

I didn't read SJG quote as a historical reference because their are still people being paid poorly to live, work, and die in cotton fields and sweatshops whose talents are unrealized.

[GReedDiamond]

5. I met SJG (wish he was still here), and his wife...

...Rhonda Roland Shearer, back in 1999.

They were the founders of the Art Science Research Laboratory, whose mission is to use high tech forensic analysis methods to reexamine the oeuvre of Marcel Duchamp.

They flew my girlfriend and I out to Cambridge to attend a Harvard Symposium based on an analysis by Shearer of Duchamp, and his interest in the writings and work of the mathematician Poincare, a contemporary of Duchamp in the early 20th Century.

I also met every important Duchamp biographer and scholar, including Arturo Schwarz.

In fact, we rode in a taxi and had dinner with Arturo, his very young girlfriend, and a former Dali assistant named Timothy Phillips.

That was a very interesting experience.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

7. AND giving birth to their 7th or 10th child

Women. On second thought.....

[RainDog]

8. k&r n/t

[formercia]

9. "A Mind is a terrible thing to waste."

Especially by a Sniper's Bullet.

[MsPithy]

10. Probably from "Mismeasure of Man,"

an astonishing and enlightening book. If you think measuring IQ has any utility, whatsoever, his book is a must-read.

[wryter2000]

12. Not just that

He destroyed the thinking behind The Bell Curve and all its iterations.

[wryter2000]

11. One of my heroes

The Mismeasure of Man should be read by every college student. (And the title was sexist to make a point about sexism.)