PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Stephen Jay Gould was a paleontologist, biologist, and scientific historian born on September 10, 1941 and died May 20, 2002. He was one of the most notable and influential writers on the topic of science in this generation.
One of his most famous and known discoveries is the punctuated equilibrium. With the help of Niles Eldredge, he made this theory well known and accepted by many scientists.
Another thing credited to him was non-overlapping magisteria in his 1997 essay in the Natural History magazine and his book Rocks of Ages in 1999.
Stephen Gould also wrote a book called Structure of Evolutionary Theory, which was the last book he had written before his death two months after the books release.
The punctuated equilibrium theory states that many kinds of species will show signs of no more than a little evolutionary change for the remainder of that particular species geological history and existence. The species will be put in a sort of stasis until the species undergoes a special evolutionary change called cladogenesis.
Cladogenesis is when that said species split into two different species, but still closely related. This theory shows that there are many kinds of species in the world, and most of them are put into some sort of family and have a lot in common. Like different kinds of species of eagles for example.
This information gives us a good idea that a family of birds can be so close to one another in genetics, even though it doesn’t seem like it. There are many kinds of frogs and toads out in the world, being many different species of that frog.
