May 23, 2002

I knew my readers wouldn't

I knew my readers wouldn't disappoint me. According to Lowell Ponte, the late Stephen Jay Gould had a picture of Lenin above his desk. He was also raised by a communist father. A New York magazine article called Gould's politics "socialist" and his view of human history "Marxist." I've discovered an interview for Skeptic magazine where Gould is quoted as saying "It's true, my father was a Marxist so I had that background," but he also said he's proud of his "conventional liberal political attitudes." In a Washington Post obituary, it states, "Critics sometimes called him a Marxist" (emphasis mine). Then there is an essay in Gould's The Panda's Thumb where he parallels his "punctuated equilibrium" with Marxist dialectics.

This is a start, but it's not definitive. It appears Gould kept his politics rather private, but with the numerous essays he wrote there has to be something where his political worldview stands out. Please keep the e-mail coming. We'll get to the bottom of this.

"Political Scientist"

"Look Who's Stalking" [thanks Rick]

"An Urchin In A Haystack"

"The Scientist Who Wrote Rings Around The Earth"

"Stephen Jay Gould, Punctuationalism, and Dialectics"