UBB.Developers Forums Announcements Announcements Team UBBDev Stephen Jay Gould

Today cancer claimed my favorite scientist, Stephen Jay Gould, who died at the age of 60.

Gould was one of the better scientific writers, he had an uncanny ability to translate the complex in to things the average person could understand.

I've had the pleasure to read his books as well as hear some of his lectures. He will sorely be missed.



http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/05.16/99-gould.html

I always feel a sence of failure when somebody dies to cancer.

Gould also appeared as a guest star in one of the episodes of the Simpsons.

It was the one where they found the skeletal remains of what appeared to be an angel. Lisa was skeptical that the angel was real, and went to the Springfield museum to ask paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould if it was real or not.

Dr. Gould died from metastasized lung cancer, which seems to have struck him during the past couple of months.

Dr. Gould battled cancer for over 20 years, when he was first diagnosed with abdominal mesothelioma, a rare and uncureable cancer usually associated with asbetos. The 'median mortality rate' he was given was 8 months.

To Dr. Gould this meant that half of the people lived longer than that, and we was determined to be part of that group.

The following link is an inspirational essay about his battle with cancer: http://cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html