George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American
paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the
modern synthesis, contributing Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944), The Meaning of Evolution (1949) and The Major Features of Evolution (1953). He was an expert on
extinctmammals and their intercontinental migrations.[2] Simpson was extraordinarily knowledgeable about
Mesozoic fossil mammals and fossil mammals of North and South America. He anticipated such concepts as
punctuated equilibrium (in Tempo and Mode) and dispelled the myth that the
evolution of the horse was a linear process culminating in the modern Equus caballus. He coined the word hypodigm in 1940, and published extensively on the
taxonomy of fossil and extant mammals.[3] Simpson was influentially, and incorrectly, opposed to
Alfred Wegener's theory of
continental drift,[4] but accepted the
theory of plate tectonics (and continental drift) when the evidence became conclusive.
In the 1960s, Simpson "rubbished the then-nascent science of
exobiology, which concerned
itself with life on places other than Earth, as a science without a subject".[12]
He was raised as a Christian but in his early teens became an
agnostic, nontheist, and philosophical naturalist.[13]
^Simpson G.G. 1940. Mammals and land bridges. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences30: 137–163. See Charles H. Smith's website for full text:
[1]
^Simpson G.G. 1953. Evolution and geography: an essay on historical biogeography with special reference to mammals. Oregon State System of Higher Education: Eugene, Oregon.
^Léo F. Laporte, ed. (1987).
Simple Curiosity: Letters from Gaylord Simpson to His Family, 1921-1970. University of California Press. p.
16.
ISBN9780520057920. By his early teens, Simpson had given up being a Christian, although he had not formally declared himself an atheist. At college he began the gradual development of what might best be called positivistic agnosticism: a belief that the world could be known and explained by ordinary empirical observation without recourse to supernatural forces. Ultimate causation, he considered unknowable.
Further reading
Aronson, J. (2002). "'Molecules and monkeys': George Gaylord Simpson and the challenge of molecular evolution". History & Philosophy of the Life Sciences. 24 (3–4): 441–465.
doi:
10.1080/03919710210001714503.
PMID15045833.
Gershenowitz, H. (1978). "George Gaylord Simpson and Lamarck". Indian Journal of History of Science. 13 (1): 56–61.
PMID11615952.
Olson, E. C. (1991). "George Gaylord Simpson: June 16, 1902-October 6, 1984". Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences. 60: 331–353.
PMID11616139.
Laporte, Léo F. (1991). "George Gaylord Simpson as mentor and apologist for paleoanthropology". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 84 (1): 1–16.
doi:
10.1002/ajpa.1330840102.
PMID2018099.
Laporte, L. F. (1983). "Simpson's Tempo and Mode in Evolution revisited". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 127 (6): 365–417.
PMID11611330.