“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” (Albert Einstein, 1879—1955)
Stephen Jay
Gould died in 2002. During his lifetime
he achieved a status obtained by few other scientists. In addition to his scholarly work in
evolutionary biology, he became one of the most popular science writers of his
time. Gould had national visibility as
an expert witness defending evolutionary theory in court and contending with
fundamentalists’ intrusion into school science curriculum. He testified that creationism was religion
poorly disguised, masquerading as scientific inquiry.
Gould defined
a relationship that he felt should exist between science and religion. “Science tries to document the factual
character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and
explain these facts. Religion, on the
other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different realm of
human purposes, meanings, and values.”
Gould concluded that science and religion must be acknowledged and
respected as separate domains, each equally important, neither intruding into
the other’s realm. There is Darwin and
there is Job.
Gould’s
grandparents fled religious persecution in Eastern Europe. They began their new lives in the sweatshops
of New York. His father became a
middle-class worker and a left-wing political activist. Gould went on to complete a doctorate in
paleontology and became a professor at Harvard.
He was a self-professed skeptic, liberal, agnostic, and a life-long
Yankee fan.
In 1988
Gould wrote “The Streak of Streaks,” an essay about his hero, the Yankee Joe DiMaggio
who in 1941 hit in 56 consecutive games.
Gould, armed with hard-to-dispute statistics, predicted that DiMaggio’s
streak was one record, so improbable, that it is likely never to be broken.
Gould, too,
had a streak of his own. Without a
single interruption “for cancer, hell, high water, or the World Series,” he
authored 399 consecutive monthly essays for Natural History magazine, an
improbable feat, and a record likely never to be broken.
Among
scientists Gould is best known for his theory of “punctuated equilibrium.” Gould argued that life evolved not only from
‘survival of the fittest’, but also by coincidence and dumb luck. By chance, 65 million years ago, Earth
crossed the path of an oncoming meteor and as a result dinosaurs became
extinct. Had Earth and the meteor not
been in the same spot at the same time, dinosaurs might have survived. And if they had survived, they might easily
have dominated the smaller, weaker mammals.
But for that random collision of Earth and meteor, intelligent life on
earth might have been reptilian.
As one who
spent a career writing about chance occurrences, it was ironic that six months
prior to his death, Gould wrote about “the most eerie coincidence that I have
ever viscerally experienced.” Gould
possessed an English grammar book that his Grandpa Joe carried on the boat,
coming into America. His grandfather,
upon arriving at Ellis Island, had written a note in it. “I have landed. September 11, 1901.” Gould was on route to Ellis Island to
commemorate his family’s one-hundred-year journey in America on the morning of
September 11, 2001.
