Biography Case

I was born on August 25, 1943 in Brooklyn, New York to my wonderful parents Robert and Eleanor Eldredge. As a young child living in the suburbs, I found that my curiosity always got the best of me; I always managed to venture into the city and visit the American Museum of Natural History. In 1961, I had planned on studying classics at Columbia University with the intention of becoming a prolific lawyer, yet I was increasingly becoming fascinated with academic science research.

While studying at Columbia, I met beautiful wife to be, Michelle. She was actually the one who got me interested in anthropology. The interest I developed led me to courses at Columbia on this subject. While taking these courses, I participated in an ethnographic study which led me to gain a keen interest in evolution. In the summer of '63 I found myself in Brazil collecting fossils of invertebrate. At that specific point time I began my career of trying to make sense of fossil records and the history of life. In 1965 I received my bachelor's degree in anthropology and graduated summa cum laude.

I then met Stephen Jay Gould, a graduate student two years older than me. We both had much in common, including the analysis of invertebrate fossils. My interest in invertebrate paleontology gradually developed to the Paleozoic era. From this specific era I chose for my Ph.D. thesis, trilobites (an extinct marine arthropod). I received my Ph.D. in geology from Columbia University in 1969.

Since my main passion in life was evolution, I began to repeat patterns in the history of life to refine ideas on how the evolutionary process actually works. The theory of "punctuated equilibrium," developed with Stephen Jay Gould in 1972, was an early milestone of my work. Gould and I observed that evolution tends to happen in fits and starts, sometimes moving very fast, sometimes moving very slowly, or not at all. Yet, when my partner and I first proposed this theory there was a general air of uncertainty about Neo-Darwinism and the association of our theory with left-wing radicalism affecting the reception of punctuated equilibrium, for Darwin himself viewed evolution as a slow, continuous process, without sudden jumps; being a scientist and trying to disprove such an iconic theory was definitely a tedious task. I then went on to develop a hierarchal vision of evolution and ecological systems. I 1999 wrote a book titled The Pattern of Evolution where I unfolded the "sloshing bucket" theory; it specifies the impact the environment plays on evolution. I am also a critic of the gene-centric view of evolution (gene selection theory) and the belief that evolution theory can be held accountable to patterns of historical data.

I now reside in Ridgewood, New Jersey with my wife and two sons. I enjoy playing the jazz trumpet, and I am an avid collector of 19th century cornets (an instrument similar to the trumpet). I have a chart of the historical