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

He 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 and a Professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona until his retirement in 1982.

Quotes

Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.

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.

"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)

References

External links

• George Gaylord Simpson - full and comprehensive biography by L. F. Laporte
• George Gaylord Simpson - biographical sketch from The Stephen Jay Gould Archive
• George Gaylord Simpson - a short biography from the PBS Evolution website
• George Gaylord Simpson Papers, American Philosophical Society.

See also

• Annie Montague Alexander, who helped finance much of his work