George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American
paleontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the
modern synthesis
Modern synthesis or modern evolutionary synthesis refers to several perspectives on evolutionary biology, namely:
* Modern synthesis (20th century), the term coined by Julian Huxley in 1942 to denote the synthesis between Mendelian genetics and s ...
, contributing ''
Tempo and Mode in Evolution
''Tempo and Mode in Evolution'' (1944) was George Gaylord Simpson, George Gaylord Simpson's seminal contribution to the Modern synthesis (20th century), evolutionary synthesis, which integrated the facts of paleontology with those of genetics and ...
'' (1944), ''The Meaning of Evolution'' (1949) and ''The Major Features of Evolution'' (1953). He was an expert on
extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
mammal
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
s and their intercontinental migrations. Simpson was extraordinarily knowledgeable about
Mesozoic
The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...
fossil mammals and fossil mammals of North and South America. He anticipated such concepts as
punctuated equilibrium
In evolutionary biology, punctuated equilibrium (also called punctuated equilibria) is a Scientific theory, theory that proposes that once a species appears in the fossil record, the population will become stable, showing little evolution, evol ...
(in ''Tempo and Mode'') and dispelled the myth that the
evolution of the horse
The evolution of the horse, a mammal of the family Equidae, occurred over a geologic time scale of 50 million years, transforming the small, dog-sized, forest-dwelling '' Eohippus'' into the modern horse. Paleozoologists have been able to piece ...
was a linear process culminating in the modern ''
Equus caballus
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...
Tempo and Mode in Evolution
''Tempo and Mode in Evolution'' (1944) was George Gaylord Simpson, George Gaylord Simpson's seminal contribution to the Modern synthesis (20th century), evolutionary synthesis, which integrated the facts of paleontology with those of genetics and ...
'' (1944)
* ''The Principles of Classification and A Classification of Mammals (1945)
''The Meaning of Evolution'' (1949, 1951)
* ''Horses'' (1951)
* ''Evolution and Geography'' (1953)
* ''The Major Features of Evolution'' (1953)
* ''Life: An Introduction to Biology'' (1957)
* ''Quantitative Zoology'' (1960)
* ''Principles of Animal Taxonomy'' (1961)
* ''This View of Life'' (1964)
* ''The Geography of Evolution'' (1965)
* ''Penguins'' (1976)
* ''Concession to the Improbable'' (1978) (an autobiography)
* ''Fossils and the History Of Life'' (1983)
* ''Splendid Isolation'' (1980)
* ''The Dechronization of Sam Magruder'' (posthumously published novella, 1996)
See also
*
Annie Montague Alexander
Annie Montague Alexander (29 December 1867 - 10 September 1950) was an explorer, naturalist, paleontological collector, and philanthropist.
She founded the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoolo ...