George Gaylord Simpson | |
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| Born | June 16, 1902 |
| Died | October 6, 1984 (aged 82) |
| Alma mater |
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| Known for | Modern synthesis; quantum evolution |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Paleontology |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
| Doctoral advisor | Richard Swann Lull |
George Gaylord Simpson (16 June 1902 – 6 October 1984) was a paleontologist – perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century. He was an expert on extinct mammals and their migrations, especially the Great American Interchange between the Americas. Simpson opposed Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift. He was a major participant in modern evolutionary synthesis theory.
George Simpson dispelled the myth that the evolution of the horse was a linear process culminating in the modern Equus caballus.
He coined the word hypodigm, referring to a sample from which the characters of a population are to be inferred, in 1940.
He published extensively on the taxonomy of fossil and living mammals.
George Simpson was born in Chicago, Illinois, although he was raised primarily in Denver, Colorado. He earned his degrees from Yale University in 1923 and 1926. His dissertation, American Mesozoic Mammalia (1929), was about the evolution of mammals in the Mesozoic period. His dissertation advisor at Yale University was Richard Swann Lull.
After a post-doctoral year at the British Natural History Museum, George Simpson returned to the United States in 1927, to work at the American Museum of Natural History.
During World War II, in 1942, George Simpson enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he served first as a Captain, and then as a Major, in Army intelligence. George Simpson served with American forces in North Africa and western Europe until 1944, when he resigned due to a severe case of hepatitis. He returned home to America with two Bronze Stars.
Upon his return from military service, George Simpson was promoted to Curator (head) of the Department of Geology and Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. He also held a post as Professor of Zoology at Columbia University from 1945–1959. While in that position, he did extensive paleontological work on early mammals as well as the Palaeocene and Eocene faunas of the San Juan Basin in New Mexico.
George Simpson was Curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University from 1959 to 1970. Later, he was a Professor of Geosciences at the University of Arizona, until his retirement in 1982.
In the 1940s, George Simpson produced three major works: Tempo and mode in evolution (1944), Principles of classification and a classification of mammals (1945) and The meaning of evolution (1949). Simpson provided a popular account of modern evolutionary theory with emphasis on evidence from the fossil record.
George Simpson was awarded the Linnean Society's Darwin-Wallace Medal in 1958. In 1962, he received the Royal Society's Darwin Medal "In recognition of his distinguished contributions to general evolutionary theory, based on a profound study of palaeontology, particularly of vertebrates". He was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Science in 1965.
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