He recalls that on the day of that trip he made the decision to devote his life to studies of geological periods. At the age of eleven, Gould became interested in the ideas of George Gaylord Simpson, who convinced his fellow paleontologists to accept Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by
natural selection in his book
Meaning of Evolution In an interview in
Science News, Gould said that he had two life-time heroes: "Joe DiMaggio is the first; I patterned my batting stance after him. George Gaylord Simpson is the second; I patterned my life after him." Disappointed with the treatment of evolution in his biology textbooks when he was still in high school, Gould also started to read Darwin.
After graduation, Gould attended the University of Colorado for the summer and then entered Antioch College, where he received his B.A. in 1963. Inspired by the collection of an Antioch professor, Gould began an investigation of fossil land snails in Bermuda when he enrolled for his doctoral studies at Columbia University. In 1966 he returned to Antioch to teach geology. Awarded his Ph.D. in paleontology from Columbia in 1967, Gould left Antioch to become assistant professor of geology at Harvard University, where he advanced to associate professor in 1971 and to full professor in 1973.
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