Niles Eldredge is a paleontologist best known for a theory he developed with fellow paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould called punctuated equilibrium--an evolutionary theory that challenged Darwinian gradualism and changed the way scientists interpret the fossil record. A curator of invertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Eldredge has used the fossil record to improve current theories of evolution, and he has applied some of these theories to better understanding the problems faced by living species. Eldredge is a staunch opponent of the so-called "scientific creationism" movement, and he remains a prolific author.

Eldredge was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Robert and Eleanor Eldredge. His father was an accountant and his mother a homemaker. As a young boy growing up in the northern suburbs of New York City, he would sometimes venture into the city and visit the American Museum of Natural...