SOURCE: Bethell, Tom. “Good as Gould.” American Spectator 24, no. 8 (August 1991): 9-11.

In the following essay, Bethell assesses how Gould uses evolutionary theory to support his own political beliefs throughout his body of work.

Stephen Jay Gould came out from behind a curtain and walked briskly to the podium, briefcase in hand. Good for Gould! He had already taken off his jacket, loosened his banker's tie, and rolled up his sleeves—the better to get down to the business of telling us what's right and what's wrong in evolutionary biology. Stretched out before him in the Memorial Auditorium was this huge shining sea of Stanford undergraduates, who had come to imbibe a little user-friendly political science from the hugely popular Gould. This was the opening session of the university's centennial symposium, “Ethnicity, Equity and Environment: Confronting a Global Dilemma.”

Mustachioed and a wee bit portly, Gould, who teaches biology...