George Gaylord Simpson
George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American paleontologist. He was an expert on extinct mammals and their intercontinental migrations. Simpson was the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century and a major participant in the Modern synthesis, contributing Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944) and Principles of Classification and a Classification of Mammals (1945). Among other things, he is notable for anticipating such concepts as punctuated equilibrium (in his 1944 work, see quantum evolution), and dispelling the myth that the evolution of the horse was a linear process culminating in the modern Equus caballus.
One of Simpson's famous quotes is "Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind." There is nothing in the science that proves this point definitively. This is really a reflection of "dogma" or a type of "religious view" to which Simpson adheres and is so common in science. In reality, while there is a lot of evidence for descent with modification (the pattern of evolution), the process of evolution (natural selection) on the macroevolutionary level remains an extrapolation from process on the microevolutionary levels. Simpson's adherence represents a "belief" rather than based on hard science.
Biography
George Gaylord Simpson born at 9:15 a.m. on June 16, 1902 in Chicago, south of the Midway, to Joseph A. and Helen J. Simpson, their third child and first son. While still an infant the family moves briefly to Wyoming where his lawyer father is engaged in land speculation.
In 1903, George and his two sisters, Peg and Martha, and parents move to Denver. In the fall of 1911, Simpson starts school in Piedmont, Calif., where family considers settling, but return to Denver. In 1914, Simpson spends the first of two summers on Aunt Lil and Uncle Charlie Baldwin's farm in Blantyre, N.C., near Asheville. He graduates from elementary school at age 11, having completed 8 grades in 6 years, and enters East Denver Latin High School. In 1918 he graduates from high school; his yearbook picture is captioned "Knowledge is more than equivalent to force," presumably contrasting his mental stature (large) to his physical size (small). He participates in the senior play and the Forum Debating Society. The high school was relatively large, with 49 faculty and more than 1000 students—263 in his senior class. After a second summer at the mine, he enters the Univ. of Colorado at Boulder, spends several months in the Student Training Corps, and is hospitalized with Spanish Influenza from which he recovers. In 1919, after the end of his freshman at the university, Simpson's father loses the mine and the "family finances at lowest ebb ever." Simpson drops out of college and works briefly for his uncle in Chicago, then as errand boy at the Chicago Board of Trade. He moves on to the advertising dept. of the Cable Piano Co. and ushers at night at the opera. Later, he takes off for New Orleans with many detours on the way, eventually reaching the city by the following June. "Stayed for a while at Sam Crosby's place in Port Arthur, Texas, and worked for a canal-lock keeper."
In 1922, transfers to Yale because his geology instructor, Arthur Tieje, tells him that that is the best place to study geology and paleontology. In 1923, contrary to Yale"s regulations, Simpson secretly marries Lydia Pedroja, from Buffalo, Kansas, on 2 Feb. 1923. To meet Yale graduation requirements, he goes to France for the summer with Lydia to learn French. He starts Yale graduate school in September on a Dana Fellowship. Daughter Helen is born on 22 December in New Haven. (Anne Roe, his future second wife, receives her B.A. from Denver University.)
In March, 1925 Simpson's first two abstracts are published in Geological Society of America Bulletin on triconodonts and on the Santa Fé Fm. He spends the summer at Yale's Peabody Museum working on his thesis. In August his first published article, on American triconodonts, appears in August in the American Journal of Science. In December, Simpson gives his first formal talks at the New Haven meeting of Geological Society of America and the Paleontological Society. Simpson reestablishes friendship with Denver childhood playmate, Anne Roe, who receives her M.A. in psychology from Denver University and enters Columbia University in the fall.
Simpson awarded his Ph.D. in geology from Yale in June, 1926. His second daughter Patricia Gaylord ("Gay") is born on 6 July in New Haven. Simpson receives fellowships from the National Research Council and the International Education Board for post-doctoral research on British and European Mesozoic mammals at the British Museum (Natural History) in London. In October sails for England with wife and two infant daughters. Lydia, however, prefers sunny southern France to dreary London and takes off for Grasse. Simpson now supporting two households on his fellowships. Simpson divides Christmas holidays with Lydia in Grasse and his artist sister Martha in Les Arcs, southern France. Daughter Joan conceived during Christmas conjugal visit.
In 1928, Simpson promoted to associate curator of vertebrate paleontology. In spring, a pregnant Lydia takes off once more, this time for California. Separation between husband and wife now almost continuous thereafter. Their fourth daughter Elizabeth is born on 20 December. Lydia and babies living for a time within the anthropological ménage of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead.
In February, 1932 GGS formally separated from Lydia and has custody of Helen (age 9); second daughter, Patricia Gaylord—"Gay" (6)—lives with maternal grandmother in Kansas; and Lydia retains custody of two youngest daughters, Joan (5) and Elizabeth (4). In late '32, Lydia committed to mental hospital and GGS's parents care for Joan and Elizabeth.
Simpson's classic work, Tempo and Mode in Evolution, was published in 1944. In this work he inttegrated paleontology within the newly emerging synthetic theory (Hull 1988).
Simpson was Professor of zoology at Columbia University and curator of the Department of Geology and Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1945 to 1959. He was curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University from 1959 to 1970.
In 1984, GGS's last book, "Discoverers of the Lost World," is published. Like his first, "Attending Marvels," it is about South America. Anne and GGS take another South Seas cruise during which GGS catches pneumonia, and in the summer he is in the hospital on and off with various resulting complications. On Saturday, 6 October, GGS dies of heart failure in Tucson hospital. His body is cremated and ashes dispersed in the desert outside Tucson. A memorial for him takes places at the University of Arizona in late October. During this last year of his life, he was working on a manuscript on extinction that was posthumously published the following year.
Quotes
| “ | Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind. (Simpson 1967, p. 345). | ” |
| “ | I don't think that evolution is supremely important because it is my specialty; it is my specialty because I think it is supremely important. (Larson 2004) </ref> | ” |
| “ | The regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists." | ” |
Books
- Attending Marvels (1931)
- Mammals and Land Bridges (1940)
- Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944)
- The Meaning of Evolution (1949)
- Horses (1951)
- Evolution and Geography (1953)
- The Major Features of Evolution (1953)
- Life: An Introduction to Biology (1957)
- Principles of Animal Taxonomy (1961)
- This View of Life (1964)
- The Geography of Evolution (1965)
- Penguins (1976)
- Concession to the Improbable (1978)
- Splendid Isolation (1980)
- The Dechronization of Sam Magruder (posthumously published novella, 1996)
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Gould, S. J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
- Gould, S. J. 2007. George Gaylord Simpson. The Stephen Jay Gould Archive. Retrieved December 22, 2007.
- Hull, D. L. 1988. Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
- Laporte, L. F. 2007. George Gaylord Simpson. UCSC. Retrieved December 22, 2007.
- Larson, E. J. 2004. Evolution. Modern Library. ISBN 0679642889.
- Public Broadcasting Service. 2007. George Gaylord Simpson]. PBS. Retrieved December 22, 2007.
- Simpson, G. G. 1967. The Meaning of Evolution. New Haven: Yale University Press.
External links
- George Gaylord Simpson Papers, American Philosophical Society. Retrieved December 22, 2007.
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