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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.
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Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.[1] |
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I don't think that evolution is supremely important because it is my specialty; it is my specialty becuse I think it is supremely important.[2] |
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[edit] Publications
- 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)
- Splendid Isolation (1980)
- Concession to the Improbable (1978)
- The Dechronization of Sam Magruder (posthumously published novella, 1996)
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