Gould Will Address "Wonderful Life in a Full House"

Acclaimed evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University will lecture at St. Vincent Church, 1010 W. Webster Ave., at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 1 as part of a yearlong series of Centennial Laureate addresses at DePaul University.

The topic of Gould’s talk is "Wonderful Life in a Full House: The Surprising Pattern of Life’s History." The lecture is free and open to the public.

Gould has held a professorship at Harvard for more than 30 years and currently teaches geology, biology and the history of science. He is also the curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Gould regards himself primarily as an evolutionary biologist interested in mathematical problems of growth and form applied to evolution of lineages.

The author of more than 200 consecutive essays for Natural History magazine in a column known as "This View of Life," Gould is also a regular contributor to Discover magazine.

Gould received the Silver National Medal of the Zoology Society of London and the Edinburgh Medal from the city of Edinburgh. He won the National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism in 1980 and in 1981 received an American Book Award for "Panda’s Thumb" and the National Book Critic’s Circle Award for "The Mismeasure of Man." In 1982, Discover magazine named him its scientist of the year, and he was recently honored with the Phi Beta Kappa Award for Science.

His books include: "Ever Since Darwin," "The Flamingo Smile," "Hen’s Teeth and Horses Toes," "An Urchin in the Storm," "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History" and "Bully for Brontosaurus."

Gould was born in New York City in 1941. He received an undergraduate degree from Antioch College in 1963 and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1967.

DePaul’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will host Gould’s lecture as part of its autumn quarter of events and activities focusing on science and mathematics. His is the second in a series of public lectures by nationally known thinkers who have been chosen as Centennial Laureates by DePaul. The laureate lectures are part of the university’s yearlong commemoration of its 100^th anniversary.

Upcoming speakers include:

• Catharine Stimpson, prominent feminist scholar and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University, Feb. 10, 1999;

• Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a MacArthur Genius Grant winner who explores cross-cultural issues through a variety of artistic media, Feb. 24, 1999;

• William Julius Wilson, a Harvard sociologist who shaped the landmark 1996 Welfare Reform Bill and was chosen by Time magazine as one of the five most influential African-Americans in the United States, April 22, 1999.

For more information about centennial events, call DePaul’s Centennial Office at 312/362-8606.