(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . White to move and mate in two #560 - Happy Birthday Stephen Jay Gould [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-09-10 Let’s celebrate the 83rd Birthday of Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002), American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. I suspect most of us here have read one or more of his many popular science books. About Gould’s illness and death — In 1982, Gould was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma, a deadly form of cancer affecting the abdominal lining (the peritoneum). This cancer is frequently found in people who have ingested or inhaled asbestos fibers, which was used in the construction of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. Gould was also an advocate of medical cannabis. When undergoing his cancer treatments he smoked marijuana to help alleviate the long periods of intense and uncontrollable nausea. According to Gould, the drug had a "most important effect" on his eventual recovery. He later complained that he could not understand how "any humane person would withhold such a beneficial substance from people in such great need simply because others use it for different purposes. Gould died in 2002 of an aggressive form of lung cancer, which was unrelated to his previous bout of abdominal cancer, though it is also associated with asbestos exposure. Here are a few words of wisdom from Gould that will live forever — “We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a ‘higher answer’– but none exists” “We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life's continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to it, but here we are.” “Our planet is not fragile at its own timescale and we, pitiful latecomers in the last microsecond of our planetary year, are stewards of nothing in the long run.” “If we use the past only to creature heroes for present purposes, we will never understand the richness of human thought or the plurality of ways of knowing.” “We are storytelling animals, and cannot bear to acknowledge the ordinariness of our daily lives.” “In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.” “We do not usually surrender the intellectual system of a lifetime for one bit of information that does not fit.” “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” “Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism — and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency.” “When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.” “The most important tactic in an argument next to being right is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without an embarrassing loss of face.” “Bless all the women of this world who nurture our heritage while too many man rush off to kill for ideals that might now be deeply and personally held, but will often be viewed as repugnant by later generations.” Now, let’s apply our “glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence” to today’s puzzle composed in 1961 by noted Dutch chess composer and Grandmaster Jacobus Haring (1913 - 1989). P.S. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/10/2269015/-White-to-move-and-mate-in-two-560-Happy-Birthday-Stephen-Jay-Gould?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/