This went down badly with the neo-Darwinists, though it struck a chord with many of Mr Gould's fellow palaeontologists.

ECONOMIST: Stephen Jay Gould

He believed to the end that natural selection was the motor of evolution and stood shoulder to shoulder with the neo-Darwinists against the common creationist enemy that continues to stalk parts of American society most worryingly its school system.

ECONOMIST: Stephen Jay Gould