Stephen Jay Gould Interview (page: 8 / 8) Evolutionary Biologist and Paleontologist	Print Interview

Should the people we consider to be successful as achievers be thinking about the impact they have on other people? Whether they be students or leaders or whatever, is that something you consciously think about?

Stephen Jay Gould: I think you have to. I don't mean this to sound overly selfish, but people ask me why I write for example, and they expect me to say, "I think that I write because I have this burning desire to communicate knowledge about the earth to all the people so that they will grow in wisdom." In a sense, if that happens, that's wonderful. I'm all in favor it.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. But, I think if you asked any decent writer why they write, the honest answer could only be because they have to. Because there's a personal need, because there's a struggle to compose that elusive perfect essay, which you can never do, but you can come closer to some times than others. I think all good writers fundamentally write for themselves, and that's legitimate, as long as it's a decent personal motivation. On the other hand, we have moral responsibilities as human beings. We're a social species. We have our families, our relatives, our co-religious sect, co-nationalities, our brother and sisterhood with everyone on the planet. So yes, I think we do have larger, ethical responsibilities. And if someone asked me, when I'm 80 years old and about to depart, what I was most satisfied with, I hope what I'll be able to say is that I think my life has been useful.

Has anything happened to you in the course of this career that you didn't expect to happen?

Stephen Jay Gould: Oh, definitely.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I had no idea that I was ever going to have this second career as a popular writer. I never planned on it. I spent the first ten years of my career writing technical papers. I wrote them in this oddly literary style which -- I don't necessarily mean it was good, I mean I didn't write conventional scientific prose. I didn't start writing essays from any personal desire or plan, I was invited to do so. I thought it was a curious and strange idea when I was approached by Natural History magazine. I figured I'd write three or four of them and see how it goes, since they asked. Now I'm about to write number 200, so it was just one of those things that happened. I wasn't a writer in high school. In fact, my high school guidance counselor and English teacher wrote in my yearbook that she was disappointed with me, 'cause she thought I ought to write better then I did, given my intelligence. Writing is something that grew on me. I never had a writing course. I wouldn't know how to give one. I don't know what the rules are.

What issue or problem confronting society worries you the most today?

Stephen Jay Gould: From a paleontologist's perspective, for an evolutionist, it's persistence. We don't have any other criteria.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. There's no such thing as intrinsic progress in the history of life. Everything eventually becomes extinct. It's what, in technical parlance we'd call -- well it's not mega-technical, let's make it a poker game. You're playing a game of poker against a house that has infinite resources. And you don't have infinite resources. Eventually you're going to bust, you can't help it. But as I think I put in my one of my essays once, all you can do is stay alive as long as possible, you keep at it. Now if you happen to be a moral agent as well, as human beings are, then there's another important consideration. Not only do you want to stay alive, but you have to stay the course with honor. So I think as I once put it, a few simple moral precepts will do. As the prophet Micah said, "You have to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God." And that's whatever your concept -- I don't necessarily mean the man with the beard, I mean your sense of your own values. Then there are other lessons, like you never draw to an inside straight and do other things that are foolish with respect to persistence, and that'll work itself out.

If there was one great problem you could solve, in or out of your field, what would it be?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Stephen Jay Gould: Oh it would be that whole set of issues that are loosely called environmentalism and ecology, and that includes things like the dangers of nuclear war and our ability to blow ourselves up. And more than anything else it includes the very discouraging disparity between so-called Third World nations and our own. Because you talk about blighted lives, it's the lack of opportunity for that vast majority of the world's population -- which I'm sure includes as many people with the drive and the intelligence that was ever born anywhere else -- just simply don't get the chance, and that's really very sad. And unless we solve it, we're going to do ourselves in, and I think science and paleontologists have contributions to make there. There is no single-button-solution by any means, but we have to somehow create stability on a planet in which we are now imposing a downward vector, we have to reverse that somehow.

Over your left shoulder, we can see a panda and a flamingo. What significance do they have for you?

Stephen Jay Gould: Oh, two of my essay books. It's almost accidental in a funny way. Two of my essay books are called, The Panda's Thumb and The Flamingo's Smile. They're not about pandas or flamingos, those just happen to be the flagship essays. I don't know more about pandas or flamingos than I do about hippopotamuses or rhinoceroses, but I had to write an essay on each of them. Since we used them for book titles, people who like the books occasionally send me things. So I get stuffed pandas and flamingos now and again. They're fun so I keep them over there.

It's like fan mail?

Stephen Jay Gould: Yes, three dimensional fan mail.

Do you get a lot of fan mail?

Stephen Jay Gould: Oh yes. All sorts of mail, not all of which can be answered, and some which is very peculiar, but a lot of which is very wonderful.

Do you have any favorite letters?

Stephen Jay Gould: They're too scatological to really discuss, but you could have a category of favorite letters. The category of favorite letters are from people who are over age 90 and who are still struggling to understand the world and figure out what it all means. I get a lot of them.

The struggle that never ends?

Stephen Jay Gould: Never.

How about any letters from children?

Stephen Jay Gould: Everybody gets children's letters. Most of them are essentially written by parents and teachers and are very unfair impositions upon my time, to be perfectly honest. There's a subset of kids' letters which are wonderful. Everybody loves to hear from a seven- or an eight-year-old who's fascinated. I got a letter from a nine-year-old boy just a couple weeks ago who asked me a very technical question about the classification of Burgess Shale trilobites and actually noticed a funny little error I had made which no one had picked up. That's great! You wish the world were full of people like him.

You answered him?

Stephen Jay Gould: That one I answered.

Well, thank you for your time, Professor Gould.

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