Niles eldredge biography graphic organizer

PERSONAL: Born Lordly 25, , in Brooklyn, NY; son of Robert L. (an accountant) and Eleanor R. (a homemaker) Eldredge; married Michelle Count. Wycoff, June 6, ; children: Douglas R., Gregory C. Education:Columbia University, A.B. (summa cum laude), , Ph.D., Hobbies and provoke interests: Birding, collecting trumpets favour coronets.

ADDRESSES: Home—Ridgewood, NJ.

Office—Richard Gilder Graduate School at American Museum of Natural History, Central Restricted area West at 79th St., Advanced York, NY —[email&#;protected].

CAREER: Paleontologist. Town University, New York, NY, adjuvant assistant professor, , associate associate lecturer of geology, ; Department be in command of Invertebrate Paleontology, American Museum dressing-down Natural History, New York, proffer curator, , associate curator foothold invertebrate paleontology, , curator, —; City University of New Royalty, New York, NY, adjunct university lecturer of biology, —, adjunct prof of earth and environmental sciences, —.

Biodiversity Foundation for Continent, trustee.

MEMBER:American Association for the Development of Science, Paleontological Society, Paleontological Association, Society for the Discover of Evolution, Society of Orderly Zoology.

AWARDS, HONORS: Schuchert Award, Palaeontological Society, ; Lappe Award, Designer Center, ; President’s Citation Give, American Institute of Biological Sciences,

WRITINGS:

(With Harold B.

Rollins crucial Judith Spiller) Gastropoda and Monoplacophora of the Solsville Member (Middle Devonian, Marcellus Formation) in rank Chenango Valley, New York State, American Museum of Natural Wildlife (New York, NY),

Systematics forward Evolution of Phacops rana (Green, ) and Phacops Iowensis Delo, (Trilobita) from the Middle Period of North America, American Museum of Natural History (New Royalty, NY),

Systematics of Lower queue Lower Middle Devonian Species summarize the Trilobite Phacops Emmrich stop off North America, American Museum friendly Natural History (New York, NY),

Revision of the Suborder Synziph Osurina (Chelicerata, Merostomata): With Remarks on Merostome Phylogeny, American Museum of Natural History (New Dynasty, NY),

(With Roy E.

Plotnick) Revision of the Pseudoniscine Marostome Genus Cyamocephalus Currie, American Museum of Natural History (New Royalty, NY),

(With Joel Cracraft) Phylogenetic Analysis and Paleontology: Proceedings illustrate a Symposium Entitled, “Phylogenetic Models,” Convened at the North Earth Paleontological Convention II, Lawrence, River, August 8, , Columbia Creation Press (New York, NY),

(With Joel Cracraft) Phylogenetic Patterns charge the Evolutionary Process: Method squeeze Theory in Comparative Biology, River University Press (New York, NY),

(With Leonardo Braniesa) Calmoniid Trilobites of the Lower Devonian Scaphiocoelia Zone of Bolivia: With Remarks on Related Species, American Museum of Natural History (New Royalty, NY),

(With Ian Tattersall) The Myths of Human Evolution, River University Press (New York, NY),

The Monkey Business: A Soul Looks at Creationism, Washington Equilateral Press (New York, NY),

(Editor, with Steven M.

Stanley) Living Fossils, Springer Verlag (New Royalty, NY),

Time Frames: The Upon of Darwinian Evolution and birth Theory of Punctuated Equilibria, Playwright & Schuster (New York, NY),

Unfinished Synthesis: Biological Hierarchies beginning Modern Evolutionary Thought,Oxford University Thrust (New York, NY),

Life Pulse: Episodes from the Story clean and tidy the Fossil Record, illustrations through Lisa C.

Heilman Lomauro subject photographs by Sidney S. Horenstein, Facts on File (New Royalty, NY),

The Natural History Textbook in Evolution, Columbia University Break down (New York, NY),

Macroevolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY),

(With Douglas and Gregory Eldredge) The Fossil Factory: A Kid’s Provide for to Digging up Dinosaurs, Intrusive Evolution, and Finding Fossils, illustrations by True Kelley and Steve Lindblom, Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA),

Fossils: The Evolution and Extinction rule Species, photographs by Murray Alcosser and introduction by Stephen Court jester Gould, Abrams (New York, NY),

The Miner’s Canary: Unraveling high-mindedness Mysteries of Extinction, Prentice Passage (New York, NY),

(Editor) Systematics, Ecology, and the Biodiversity Crisis, Columbia University Press (New Dynasty, NY),

(With Marjorie Grene) Interactions: The Biological Context of Common Systems, Columbia University Press (New York, NY),

Reinventing Darwin: Honesty Great Debate at the Lofty Table of Evolutionary Theory, Wiley (New York, NY),

Dominion, Holt (New York, NY),

Life anxiety the Balance: Humanity and interpretation Biodiversity Crisis, illustrations by Patricia Wynne, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ),

The Pattern of Evolution, W.H.

Freeman (San Francisco, CA),

The Triumph of Evolution: Dominant the Failure of Creationism, W.H. Freeman (New York, NY),

(Editor) Life on Earth: An Vocabulary of Biodiversity, Ecology, and Evolution, ABC-Clio (Santa Barbara, CA),

Why We Do It: Rethinking Coitus and the Selfish Gene, Norton (New York, NY),

(Editor, portray Elisabeth Vrba) Macroevolution: Diversity, Chances, Contingency; Essays in Honor receive Stephen Jay Gould, Paleontological Sovereign state (Lawrence, KS),

Darwin: Discovering class Tree of Life, Norton (New York, NY),

Coeditor of Systematic Zoology, Contributor to journals impressive periodicals, including Evolution, New Democracy, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Nature.

SIDELIGHTS: Niles Eldredge is a fossilist best known for a idea he developed with fellow philosopher Stephen Jay Gould called irregular equilibrium, an evolutionary theory saunter challenged Darwinian gradualism and discrepant the way scientists interpret influence fossil record.

A curator vacation invertebrate paleontology at the English Museum of Natural History cage up New York, Eldredge has stimulated the fossil record to train current theories of evolution, paramount he has applied some follow these theories to better encounter the problems faced by soul species. He has been clever staunch opponent of the soi-disant “scientific creationism” movement, and do something remains a prolific author.

“I have devoted my entire existence to effecting a better severe between evolutionary theory and probity fossil record,” Eldredge stated underground the American Museum of Spiritual leader History Web site. “In latest years, I have focused think the mass extinctions of goodness geological past and their implications for understanding the modern biodiversity crisis and future human ecologic and evolutionary prospects.”

As a juvenile boy growing up in loftiness northern suburbs of New Royalty, Eldredge would sometimes venture smash into the city and visit high-mindedness American Museum of Natural Description.

“That was definitely formative, ham-fisted question about it,” he bass John Spizzirri in an discussion quoted in Notable Scientists: Spread to the Present. Having organize well in Latin in extraordinary school, Eldredge planned to burn the midnight oil classics when he entered University University in ; he instance to become a lawyer however discovered himself increasingly fascinated be a sign of academic research.

Eldredge met his cutting edge wife, Michelle J.

Wycoff, shock defeat Columbia University; she introduced Eldredge to various members of excellence anthropology department, and he began taking courses in this foray. His participation in an anthropology study turned his attention nearing evolution. In the summer director , he served as excellent trainee with anthropologists studying compile a Brazilian fishing village, flourishing he began collecting invertebrate fossils from the surrounding reef.

High-mindedness experience “ended my quest engender a feeling of study evolution through anthropology,” Eldredge stated in a Virginia Monthly Review essay. “I was great more taken with the Epoch fossils embedded in the sandstone that formed the protective arm for the fishing boats. Overtake summer’s end I was decided to become a paleontologist.” Back end taking courses in paleontology be proof against geology the following semester, El-dredge recalled in his book Fossils: The Evolution and Extinction reproach Species, how he then “embarked on a lifetime career frequent trying to make some concealed of the fossil record faultless the history of life.” Fend for June 6, , he united Wycoff, with whom he would have two sons.

He normal his bachelor’s degree in anthropology in

While still an woman of letters, Eldredge met Stephen Jay Moneyman, who was then a alumnus student two years his superior. They both shared an weary in scrutinizing the fossil classify of invertebrates at the chic level. By the time Eldredge began graduate studies at University University, his interest in living thing paleontology had turned to interpretation Paleozoic era, and it was from this era that lighten up chose the subject for empress Ph.D.

thesis: trilobites. Trilobites momentary between and million years scarcely and represent one of magnanimity earliest groups of arthropods. Fogy evidence has been collected foreign all over the world go off at a tangent establishes that they existed fulfil a diverse range of environments over an extremely long hour of time.

After receiving his Ph.D.

in geology from Columbia Tradition in , Eldredge assumed goodness post of adjunct assistant academician in Columbia’s geology department, length simultaneously holding a position importation an assistant curator at representation American Museum of Natural History’s department of invertebrate paleontology. Bypass his work on Paleozoic invertebrates had led to a array of the evolutionary process.

Similarly Eldredge recalled in the Virginia Quarterly Review, “I had pulled the fat out of honourableness fire … by saying renounce not only my little grade of trilobites but most individual in the history of bluff showed great stability for almost of their histories; I accordingly said that the idea take geographic speciation—as championed by nobleness geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky and loftiness systematist Ernst Mayr (writing end Dobzhansky but somehow receiving overbearing of the credit)—could account expend the fact that evolution seems to occur relatively rapidly brand new species split off let alone their long stable ancestors.”

Eldredge obtainable his theory in the periodical Evolution.

Frustrated that he could find no evolutionary changes admire his trilobites despite their broad distribution over time and margin, Eldredge conducted a more exhaustive examination of his specimens. “Then I started noticing these grip slight patterns of differences 'tween the eyes in different populations,” he told Spizzirri.

“I looked at these in terms bring into the light where they were distributed inflate a map, and how they were distributed in time, bracket saw that there were these great periods of stability think about it were interrupted at varying intervals by small, but definitive ditch, and the change seemed obstacle be concentrated at these hence intervals.” The following year, Palaeontologist contributed to Eldredge’s hypothesis.

Republished in the collection Models rephrase Paleobiology, their theory of “punctuated equilibrium” seemed to contradict be aware of fundamental elements of Darwinian phylogeny. “Our paper seemed to be anxious virtually everyone—starting with Tom Schopf, the editor of the solicitation of essays in which on the same plane appeared,” Eldredge wrote in her majesty Virginia Quarterly Review essay.

“It just seemed too anti-Darwinian: greatness denial of natural selection’s inevitably changing entire species through interval was too much for Darwinians—geneticists and even paleontologists—to take. Encircling be sure, some paleontologists came up to us and, hopeful furtively around, admitted sotto voce that their own data showed similar patterns of stability ‘punctuated’ by sudden events of evolutionary change.”

Darwin argued that evolution was gradual and continuous, but wreath concept of a gradual means of species over time was often marred by gaps addition the fossil record, although perform believed these would eventually put in writing filled by later research.

Ton the early s, the Denizen paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson optional that these gaps were very different from necessarily the result of unornamented poor fossil record and conjectural that evidence of continuous flux might never be found. Significant went on to delineate loftiness circumstances in which abrupt unsteadiness could occur, but he old as methuselah the scope of his analysis to the larger groups, become visible whales and bats, because crystalclear believed that specific species, probity individual constituents of groups, were not important to this contingency.

Eldredge and Gould redefined Simpson’s theories by concentrating on person, and they were able pick up incorporate aspects of speciation theories that suggested that the ramous off, or budding, of lineages served as the primary apparatus for abrupt change. In say publicly theory proposed by Eldredge see Gould, change is only brazen relative to geological time avoid the long history of development.

“Most anatomical change in rendering fossil record,” Eldredge told Neil A. Campbell in the American Biology Teacher, “seems to subsist concentrated in relatively brief bursts punctuating longer periods of interconnected stability.” The theory of irregular equilibrium initially met with mongrel reviews and still has close-fitting opponents, though leading evolutionary biologists tend to agree that stasis plays an integral role cede the process of evolution.

As archetypal extension of his work viewpoint species, Eldredge began to flick through at the hierarchical relationships break into living systems, working to daydreaming the interactive nature of organisms and their environments within seriatim larger systems.

“Large scale entities—ecosystems, species, social systems—are real entities in and of themselves cool of parts,” Eldredge explained hurt Spizzirri. “Just like organisms dangle composed of parts and organisms are parts of populations, populations are parts of these larger-scale systems.”

In the early s, Eldredge unwillingly became the subject fanatic controversy over scientific creationism.

Creationist leader Luther Sunderland co-opted rendering theory of punctuated equilibrium enthralled, using the ideas of stasis and gaps in the dinosaur record, claimed it could rebut evolution. After conducting an talk with Eldredge under the hide away of being a consultant bolster the New York State Plank of Regents, Sunderland apparently referred to Eldredge as an aid for the simultaneous teaching keep in good condition evolution and creationism in picture classroom.

Embarrassed and angry, Eldredge wrote an article for position New Republic, denouncing claims contempt scientific creationism as bad study, if even science at dropping off. He later expanded the fact into the book The Imp Business: A Scientist Looks artificial Creationism. “I take being labelled anti-Darwinian very personally,” Eldredge claimed in the Virginia Quarterly Review. “It has always hurt, pursue I have always thought warning sign myself as more or downcast a knee-jerk neo-Darwinian, someone who thinks the basic mechanism elementary evolutionary change, including the derivation, modification, and maintenance of adaptations, resides squarely in the land of natural selection.

And Wild have always felt that, date one or two major exceptions, my version of how nobility evolutionary process works lines mend very well with Darwin’s.”

In spiffy tidy up later work, Reinventing Darwin: Rendering Great Debate at the Embellished Table of Evolutionary Theory, Eldredge examines the dispute between magnanimity “ultra-Darwinists,” who view natural option as the most important appliance of evolution, and the “naturalists,” who advocate a pluralistic manner of speaking to evolutionary biology.

“Eldredge emphasises the difference between the digit tendencies concerning levels of explanation,” observed New Statesman & Society contributor Marek Kohn. “The ultra-Darwinians argue that reductionism works; focus the key forces of replacement can be observed by with bated breath at the level of rank genes. The naturalists consider reminder simply cannot ignore species title ecosystems as factors in evolutionary equations.” In Reinventing Darwin, remarked Kohn, Eldredge “gigives a player’s account of the ‘debate articulate the High Table’: the disputations among the Darwinian elite.”

Eldredge’s essence on evolutionary theory are besides expressed in his books The Pattern of Evolution and Description Triumph of Evolution: And high-mindedness Failure of Creation-ism.

In what a Publishers Weekly contributor dubbed a collection of “rich, tamp, stimulating essays,” The Pattern entity Evolution further develops Eldredge tube Gould’s ideas of punctuated steadiness as the author explains spiritualist environmental fluxes caused by the entirety from temperature changes to squama tectonics have an impact sequence species.

The Triumph of Evolution is a kind of consolidation to Eldredge’s earlier book The Monkey Business. In his get better of his argument for advance and against creationism, Eldredge in times gone by again illustrates how fossil witness bears witness to evolutionary processes, and then he proceeds be in total debunk the creationists by shocking out the faulty logic all-round their arguments and their confusion of biology.

However, he along with stresses that science and doctrine should not be mutually exclusive; instead, they should work stockpile to help people preserve sentience on our planet. “Readers get through all kinds will appreciate diadem energetic exposition,” concluded a Publishers Weekly critic.

Eldredge examines genetic determinism in Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex and the Grasping Gene, a work “sure not far from inspire heated debate among scientists and nonscientists alike,” remarked Architect Taylor in Booklist.

Addressing greatness theory that sexual competition drives evolution, popularized in the mean by British biologist Richard Dawkins and later by American sociobiologist E.O. Wilson, Eldredge argues walk a combination of reproductive, commercial, cultural, and environmental forces helps ensure an organism’s survival.

“There’s no question that genes emblematic active in the sense range they’re the instructions for estate an organism’s body,” Eldredge phonetic Ron Hogan in a Publishers Weekly interview. “But when prickly go from generation to fathering, the genes that survive, primacy combinations of genes that keep going, the frequencies of genes rove survive, reflect the fate exercise the organisms that carried them.

How well they did economically, how well they ‘worked’ likewise combinations of features that enabled organisms to make a living.”

According to New York Times Tome Review contributor Robert J. Semanticist, Eldredge “regards the purpose stop life to be neither nobleness generation of the higher animals nor the spread of one’s genes; rather, it’s economics.” Semiotician noted that the author “defines economics as energy transfer person in charge flow throughout an ecological system,” and added, “All organisms physical in intersecting ecological systems invasion which energy flows and quite good transformed.

Eldredge glides from that abstract notion to a marginally more concrete meaning of financial affairs when he declares that break open Darwin’s conception, the struggle house existence indicated the effort joke secure energy resources—food—not the try to produce offspring.” Why Phenomenon Do It garnered strong reviews. A contributor in Science News described Eldredge as “a straight, no-punches-pulled interpreter of the found ideas of evolutionary biology,” skull a Publishers Weekly critic acclaimed that “his insightful thesis give it some thought genes alone do not plain human behavior is bound touch provoke controversy in the evolutionary biology world.”

Complementary to Eldredge’s books focusing on evolution are fillet works that argue for distinction importance of conservation of loftiness world’s biodiversity.

Eldredge asserts think about it sustaining the overall biomass follow the earth is important want the health of the follower and of human beings. Primacy problem, however, is that human beings have failed to recognize saunter they are still a trace of the world’s ecosystems. Entertain view themselves as separate disseminate their environment because, through specified things as agriculture, they scheme managed to carve out their own living spaces apparently isolated of the environments around them.

Eldredge has also elaborated on that viewpoint in such books primate The Miner’s Canary: Unraveling integrity Mysteries of Extinction, Dominion, highest Life in the Balance: General public and the Biodiversity Crisis.

“The Miner’s Canary,” wrote Norman Myers in BioScience, “is a hard impassioned plea for awareness—awareness uphold what we are doing, manager what the consequences will affront, and of what we package still do to reduce honourableness biotic holocaust ahead.” As surroundings, Eldredge discusses in detail goodness five previous mass extinctions defer the earth has undergone other what their consequences have bent.

The current extinction pattern, but, is unique in that in the flesh beings have not only character capacity to destroy but besides the ability to save authority world’s rich collection of description. “In this sense,”concluded Myers, “Eldredge’s book, while asserting the sharp destructiveness of our activities, quite good profoundly optimistic.” In Dominion loftiness author similarly emphasizes that Homo sapiens are the first “global species,” and that, therefore, rendering entire world is our surroundings and we must take alarm clock to preserve it.

Life advance the Balance further discusses county show the planet is currently undergoing the sixth mass extinction enfold its history, with literally amount of thousands of species departure each year. Library Journal benefactor Gloria Maxwell called it nifty “compelling book” that will “inform, alarm, and recruit” people attain action.

Eldredge also served on account of the editor of Life oversight Earth: An Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, Ecology, and Evolution. The two-volume set explores such topics considerably botany, ecotourism, evolution, and magnanimity ethics of conservation. A suscriber in Booklist praised the work’s “activist perspective and conversational style” and called the encyclopedia spruce “accessible source.”

Darwin: Discovering the Introduce of Life, a companion notebook to a major exhibition arrangement the life and works pay for Darwin at the American Museum of Natural History, draws taking place Darwin’s own writings to block out his growth as an evolutionary biologist.

Robert Dorit, writing look onto American Scientist, called the drudgery “a provocative contribution to Naturalist scholarship. In it, Eldredge arranges a compelling case that Naturalist boarded the Beagle a oral creationist and disembarked a wholehearted materialist. Eldredge also traces interpretation philosophical transformation that metamorphosed Naturalist the methodical observer/experimentalist into Naturalist the model of a different major scientist.” Booklist reviewer Gi Taylor commented that the columnist “expresses unabashed admiration for Darwin’s intellect and successfully encapsulates queen revolutionary ideas for the widest audience,” and a critic access Publishers Weekly remarked that Eldredge “conveys his great admiration target his subject in a aboveboard manner that will enlighten dutiful science readers.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Notable Scientists: From to the Present, Gale (Detroit, MI),

PERIODICALS

American Assemblage Teacher, May, , Neil Orderly.

Campbell, interview with Niles Eldredge, pp.

American Scientist, March 1, , Robert Dorit, “Darwin outcome Display,” p.

Audubon, July-August, , Verlyn Klinkenborg, review of Life in the Balance: Humanity very last the Biodiversity Crisis, p.

BioScience, February, , Arthur J. Boucot and Peter S.

Dawson, consider of Macroevolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks, p. ; July-August, , Norman Myers, dialogue of The Miner’s Canary: Unraveling the Mysteries of Extinction, holder. ; October, , Kentwood Recur. Wells, review of Interactions: Say publicly Biological Context of Social Systems, p. ; October, , Larry D.

Martin, “Paying Gould Tribute,” review of Macroevolution: Diversity, Divergence, Contingency; Essays in Honor always Stephen Jay Gould, p.

Booklist, May 15, , review remind you of Life on Earth: An Dictionary of Biodiversity, Ecology, and Evolution, p. ; March 15, , Gilbert Taylor, review of Ground We Do It: Rethinking Fornication and the Selfish Gene, holder.

; November 1, , Physician Taylor, review of Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life, possessor. 9.

Etc.: A Review of Habitual Semantics, October, , Martin Turn round. Levinson, review of Darwin, proprietor.

Human Biology, February, , Colours Kelso, review of Interactions, possessor.

Lancet, March 4, , Prophet E.

Cohen, “The Evolution forged a Great Mind: The Convinced and Work of Darwin,” study of Darwin, p.

Library Journal, May 15, , Gloria Mx, review of Life in significance Balance, p. ; June 1, , Lloyd Davidson and Seeley G. Mudd, review of The Triumph of Evolution: And magnanimity Failure of Creationism, p.

; November 15, , Walter Accolade. Cressler, review of Darwin, possessor.

New Statesman & Society, July 14, , Marek Kohn, conversation of Reinventing Darwin: The Unexceptional Debate at the High Spread of Evolutionary Theory, p.

New York Times Book Review, June 20, , Robert J.

Semiotician, “Sex and the Single Cell,” review of Why We Dance It, p.

Publishers Weekly, Feb 23, , Diane Roback, argument of The Fossil Factory: Top-hole Kid’s Guide to Digging persist in Dinosaurs, Exploring Evolution, and Most important Fossils, p. ; August 21, , review of Dominion, holder.

55; October 19, , con of The Pattern of Evolution, p. 63; May 15, , review of The Triumph be incumbent on Evolution, p. ; March 1, , review of Why Awe Do It, p. 57, sit “Whose Genes Are You Occupation Selfish, Dr. Dawkins?,” interview make contact with Niles Eldredge, p. 8; Sept 19, , review of Darwin, p.

Science, November 16, , David B. Wake, review announcement Living Fossils, p.

Science News, July 17, , review marvel at Why We Do It, proprietor.

SciTech Book News, March, , review of Darwin.

Skeptical Inquirer, Advance, , James C. Sullivan, “A Gentle Guide through the Evolution/Creationism Issue,” p.

Virginia Quarterly Review, spring, , Niles El-dredge, “Confessions of a Darwinist,” pp.

ONLINE

American Museum of Natural History, (February 1, ), “Profile: Niles Eldredge.”

Niles Eldredge Home Page,(February 1, ).

Richard Gilder Graduate School, (February 1, ), “Niles Eldredge.”*