NEWS HEADLINES
-
Assad regime planned US journalist's kidnap for weeks, BBC finds
Austin Tice’s abduction was approved by Syria’s former leader Bashar al-Assad, a source claims. read more
-
Uncontrolled AI could lead to 'silicon species' rivalling humans, warns Microsoft
Mustafa Suleyman says he believes rival AI firm Anthropic is in effect teaching Claude it "may be conscious". read more
-
Ninth woman's body found as South African police investigate string of deaths
South Africa police have cautioned against assuming that all the killings are linked but many women are afraid. read more
-
Swedish PM Kristersson resigns after election loss
Left-wing opposition parties led by Magdalena Andersson look set to form the next government. read more
-
EU announces plan to restrict social media access for under-15s
Under the plans, only children over 15 would be able to set up their own social media accounts. read more
ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY
STEPHEN JAY GOLD
BIOGRAPHY
Stephen Jay Gould was born and raised in the community of Bayside, a neighborhood of the northeastern section of Queens in New York City. His father Leonard was a court stenographer, and his mother Eleanor was an artist whose parents were Jewish immigrants living and working in the city’s Garment District.[6] When Gould was five years old his father took him to the Hall of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History, where he first encountered Tyrannosaurus rex. “I had no idea there were such things—I was awestruck,” Gould once recalled.[7] It was in that moment that he decided to become a paleontologist.
Raised in a secular Jewish home, Gould did not formally practice religion and preferred to be called an agnostic. Biologist Jerry Coyne, who had Gould on his thesis committee, described him as a “diehard atheist if there ever was one.
