Eric Taylor · Public domain

A paleontologist and one of the most widely read science writers of his generation, Gould developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium with Niles Eldredge in 1972, arguing that evolution proceeds mostly in long stable stretches broken by rapid bursts of change rather than smooth, constant drift. He spent his career at Harvard and the American Museum of Natural History, wrote decades of popular essays translating evolutionary biology for general readers, and was an outspoken public critic of creationism and of deterministic claims about human behavior.