Table of Contents
THE FOX, AND THE MAGISTERS POX
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]
STEPHEN JAY GOULD
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England
For the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a truly exemplary organization, serving so well as the official voice of professional science here and elsewhere. With thanks for allowing me to serve as their president and then chairman of the board during the millennial transition of 19992001. This book began as my presidential address in 2000. The address is then traditionally published in Science magazine, the associations official organ, and Americas best general journal for scientific professionals. And with apologies to the editor, Don Kennedy, one of the finest people I have ever known in the world of intellectuals. I promised to follow the tradition, but failed because I soon realized that I needed to write at greater length than I could ever ask you to publish. Thus, I now present the printed version of my presidential address (obviously greatly expanded, for I did not filibuster on your podium), and I dedicate this book to AAAS. It was truly a pleasure and privilege to servea line often intoned as the boilerplate of a meaningless clich, but stated, this time in a heartfelt manner, by a quintessential non-joiner who enjoyed the work and truly gained more than he could ever give.
A NOTE TO THE READER
The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magisters Pox is the last of the seven books that Stephen Jay Gould contracted to write for Harmony Books. It was my privilege to be his editor, and it is an honor to have been asked to write a brief note for this signal volume.
Several years ago, I received a catalog for an auction of decommissioned museum pieces. Being especially interested in amber and fossils, I flipped through the catalog pages, marveling at the amazing variety of pieces that included triplets of trilobites and other vanished creatures frozen in tumbling poses like puppies in strange prehistoric attitudes of play. In the middle of the catalog, I came upon a letter penned by Charles Darwin to an unknown correspondent. I have an enormous admiration of the great man, instilled in me by dedicated science teachers and by years of reading Goulds essays and books, but I had never imagined that such a relic could be owned and contemplated by a layperson. I had to have it.
Months later, having happily triumphed in the auction, I received the letter, framed with glass on both sides to enable a full view. I was excited, yet, as I tried to read it, was immediately dismayed to find that I could barely make out two words in succession. Darwins penmanship was atrocious. After poring over the letter and drawing up a map of those words that I felt sure Id interpreted correctly, juxtaposed with many guesses and question marks and not a few blanks, I still had very little sense of the meaning of my prized possession.
At that time, I was working with Steve on his book Rocks of Ages. I mentioned my acquisition as well as my frustration to him; he was interested to see the letter and generously agreed to try to help me figure it out. He told me that Darwin was renowned for his illegible script and that he was one of the few people who had ever had the talent for deciphering it. This he did for me, writing the missing words on my map in his own (somewhat) clearer hand, along with a couple of notations, reproduced here in brackets.
Down Bromley Kent
Ap 30/81
My Dear Sir
I must send you a line to thank you for your Ice & Water which I also saw with interest very much [This sentence doesnt make much sense, so I may well be wrong here. I think everything else is pretty surely right. The also saw words are particularly badly scrawled]; though I believe we split a little about solid glacier ice and icebergs.Thanks, also for extract out of newspaper about Rooks and Crows[Leslie: This must be right. Darwin was interested in the taxonomy and names of these birds] I wish I dared trust it. I see in cutting pages half-an-hour ago, that you fulminate against the skepticism of scientific men.You would not fulminate quite so much, if you had had my many wild-goose chases after facts stated by men not trained to scientific accuracy. I often vow to myself that I will utterly disregard every statement made by any man who has not shown the world he can observe accurately. I wish I had space to tell you a curious History, which I was fool enough to investigate on almost universal testimony of Beans growing this year upside down.I firmly believe that accuracy is the most difficult quality to acquire.I did not, however, intend to say all this.I very thoroughly enjoyed my half-hours talk at your pleasant House.I have been corresponding with Mr. Davidson on the genealogy of Brachiopods; and he will someday, I believe, discuss subject as we wish. He has seen Galtons talk of species grouped like a tree. Mr. D is not at all a full believer in great changes of species which will make his work all the more valuable.I have also written to Mr. Jamison, urging him to take up Glen Roy. My dear Sir Your very sincerely C Darwin
As Steve told me, its a nice letter, a good letter, an interesting letter, although not an important letter. But, it was written only a couple days before an important letter. He was happy to have had the opportunity to read it. Along with his translation, he sent me a photocopy of a catalog page and wrote, This is the author Darwin refers to in your letterDavidson/ Brachiopods. Pretty pricey and a classic work. Indeed, T. Davidsons British Fossil Brachiopods, with 234 plates, six volumes in seven, cloth, 185186, was priced at 490 pounds sterling about four years ago, confirming another Darwinian prediction.
Steves death still seems impossible. He was at the fulcrum of so much activity. For almost a decade, Id been speaking with him and his literary agent, Kay McCauley, about a book he planned to write, centered on the intense, early twentieth-century correspondence, which he owned, of two paleontologists. He also planned to write about realized geniuses unrecognized in their time. But these are the unrealized books of a recognized genius. It is a tragedy for readers that we have lost Stephen Jay Gould, the great writer, the irreplaceable teacher, the pioneering researcher and creative thinker, the champion and defender of scientific education. Even given the wealth of brilliant work he has left us, his death is made worse by our loss of his unwritten thoughts, his unrecorded insights, the connections that only he could make, but had yet to make. To borrow a verse, Gould thou shouldst be living at this hour, The world hath need of thee...
Yet Stephen Jay Gould has indisputably left behind many great treasures, one of the last of which you hold in your hands. The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magisters Pox is of particular interest because it is an original book, not a collection of his previously published essays from Natural History magazine, and his last book on natural history. Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville,
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