Word: gould
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...Although Gould does have his detractors, his impressive ability to synthesize massive amounts of information is unparalleled. This rapid-fire ability to bridge and link vastly different topics is what defines Gould’s astonishing prolificacy as a writer. “I just see connections among things for some reason,” he gloats. “Anything I’ve ever read I can access or find it. Mention any topic and I can relate it to 10 or 15 things. That’s how I construct the essays, I get an idea...
Just how does Gould shuttle so effortlessly between writing for the layperson and for an evolutionary biologist? He cites Wonderful Life and Full House as the two books written for a “popular” audience of which he is most proud, saying that “there should be no difference in conceptual depth between so-called popular and technical writing.” Gould merely makes a distinction in the words that he uses. “I think that I don’t … write any different[ly] for a popular audience...
...like an intelligent person. The sign of a good writer—of which he is one—is that [he doesn’t] need the jargon of the field to explain clearly what the concepts are.” Wrangham echoed these sentiments: “[Gould] is a thoroughly lively and engaging writer who deserves enormous credit for translating a lot of ideas into language that untrained readers can enjoy. He is so widely read and enjoyed that any such themes that he repeats must surely become accepted by much of the educated public...
With such sway, does Gould foresee himself publishing another book of such mammoth proportions? “[It] depends on how much time they give me,” he jokes, but admits that he has at least two more “really big” projects in mind. “If I get 30 more years, I’ll write them,” he says. “See, Ontogeny and Phylogeny is about the organism, and The Structure of Evolutionary Theory is about theory. I should write one on patterns in the history...
...Much as Gould likes to dodge the term “scientific celebrity” during the interview, his popularity and his widely publicized anti-creationist, anti-sociobiological arguments have lent that very term to his persona. As George V. Lauder, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, commented in an email, “[Gould] is probably the best known evolutionary biologist of his generation. His popularity is due to his ability to choose what seem like small features of the biological world…and use these examples as a launching...