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Apr 8, 2024 · George Gaylord Simpson (born June 16, 1902, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—died Oct. 6, 1984, Tucson, Ariz.) was an American paleontologist known for his contributions to evolutionary theory and to the understanding of intercontinental migrations of animal species in past geological times.
- Education in Colorado and at Yale
- Simpson as Professional Paleontologist
- Contributions to Evolutionary Thought
- The Halcyon Period
- The Later Years
- Further Reading
George Gaylord Simpson was born in Chicago on June 16, 1902. While he was still very young, his parents, Julia Kinney and Joseph Alexander Simpson, moved to Denver, Colorado, where his father first worked as a railroad claim adjuster and later speculated in irrigation, land development, and mining. George frequently accompanied his father on travel...
Simpson had begun his professional career even before finishing graduate school. In the summer of 1924 he accompanied William Diller Matthew, paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, on a collecting expedition to Texas and New Mexico. Returning to Yale, Simpson continuedhis study of Mesozoic mammals—the oldest fossilized mammals, o...
Simpson's life changed in two major ways late in the 1930s. First, his marriage failed. It had been a tumultuous one nearly from its beginning in 1923. In 1938 Simpson remarried, and his second wife, a childhood friend, Anne Roe, an academic psychologist, collaborated with him on a textbook, Quantitative Zoology(1939). This book was an outpouring o...
Simpson called the period 1944 to 1956 the halcyon period of his life. He continued studies in evolution, participated in the founding of the Society for the Study of Evolution, and wrote two books on this subject. The Meaning of Evolution (1949) was written for a wide audience and became Simpson's most popular book. Major Features of Evolution (19...
In 1967 the failing health of both Simpson and his wife forced them to move to Tucson, Arizona. Simpson remained employed half-time by the Museum of Comparative Zoology and continued his research under its auspices until 1970. In addition, he served as part-time professor at the University of Arizona, where he remained until full retirement in 1982...
There is not much secondary literature on Simpson's life and work. Further details can be found in his autobiography, Concession to the Improbable (1978). Stephen Jay Gould has written a short article on Simpson's role in the union of paleontology and theoretical evolution in The Evolutionary Synthesis, edited by Ernst Mayr and William B. Provine (...
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GEORGE GAYLORD SIMPSON. June 16, 1902-October 6, 1984. BY EVERETT C. OLSON 1. G EORGE GAYLORD SIMPSON'S passing in 1984 brought an era in vertebrate paleontology to an end. Along with Edward Drinker Cope, Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Alfred Sherwood Romer, Simpson ranks among the great paleontologists of our time.
Portrait of the American palaeontologist, George Gaylord Simpson (1902-84), with a bushbaby. Simpson got his PhD from Yale University, USA, in 1926. After working as a curator at the American Museum of Natural History he became Agassiz Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology at Harvard University, USA.
Aug 20, 2021 · George Gaylord Simpson (1902–1984), together with Julian Huxley, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dobzhansky, helped transform the theoretical foundations of the neo-Darwinian evolutionary paradigm into what Huxley named the Modern Synthesis.
June 16, 1902-October 6, 1984. BY EVERETT C. OLSON1. GEORGE. GAYLORD SIMPSON'S passing in 1984 brought an era in vertebrate paleontology to an end. Along with Edward Drinker Cope, Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Alfred Sherwood Romer, Simpson ranks among the great paleon-tologists of our time.
