Family of Stephen Jay Gould Files Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Tampa Bay On Line (AP) ^ | May 20, 2005 | By Mark Pratt, Associated Press Writer

[ClearCase_guy]

"All of a sudden, it was like out of the head of Zeus, he's got fourth-stage cancer," Gould's wife, Rhonda Roland Shearer, said

There's just layers of irony in that sentence.

[Gondring]

Gould's cancer history "was a literal flashing red light warning," according to the lawsuit.

Wow, cool...it was literally a flashing red light warning!! Wish I coulda seen THAT!

[TFine80]

I actually took Gould's last go of his famous introductory evolution class at Harvard. The other final class was cancelled.

A few weeks before he died I saw him alone walking along and was able to thank him personally. He was a great teacher.

[Windsong]

Personally I think the world is much better off without the pompous ass. Ive seen a few lectures of his and his unwaivering resentment of Christianity was just revolting.

[acapesket]

My beloved Dad, who was a General Practitioner and one of the BEST diagnosticians of all time initially read his own chest X-ray incorrectly and assured me that all would be well. A mere three months later, through his diabetically, Macular degenerative challenged eyesight, he saw his latest chest xray and said "I'm a Goner"!
He saw the best of the best at Mass General and Dana Farber. They were wonderful, professional caregivers, did all they could!. We were priveledged enough to have him with us through fourth of July Family reunion.
He died some 12 days later after saying goodbye to all.
You never know!
Every single Dr. concurred,, it initially looked like pneumonia...... was Adinocarcinoma of the Lung!
Sometimes God takes us when we are ready, other times are meant to be a challenge to our personal fortitude and spirit!

Sometimes people are too stupid to realize that and go looking for money as some type of salvation, recompense, whatever.

ALWAYS THERE IS AN ATTORNEY MAKING MONEY SOMEHOW!!

Won't say there are not mistakes made but ..generally
folks seem to see personal injury lawsuits as equivalent to winning the lottery!

[InABunkerUnderSF]

Bad news, the prognosis for stage 1 non small cell lung cancer is 3% survival after 5 years, assuming surgery and chemotherapy. slightly better for women. New drugs like Larissa and Angiogenesis Inhibitors are adding months to that but it's a bad condition and an earlier diagnosis may have had no effect. If I were a lawyer I could argue that.

Besides, Gould was a good rational atheist and evolutionary biologist. He should have accepted the end of his life as part of the natural biological process.

[Billthedrill]

MacDonald said. "If it had been recognized, professor Gould would still be teaching at Harvard College today."

I suspect that's going a bit far, actually. He might still be fighting it but he'd be a very sick man at the very least. The assumption is that it hadn't metastasized at that point, and there's simply no way you can be sure of that.

[Pharmboy]

Gould is dead. And I will not speak ill of the dead, but just state the facts. He was a self-proclaimed "great biologist" who perverted science to fit with his self-professed socialist world view.

In my opinion, that was his greatest flaw.

[The Red Zone]

The doctors all failed to recognize a 1-centimeter lesion on a chest X-ray taken of the Harvard professor in February 2001, according to Alex MacDonald, the lawyer for Gould's survivors.

Evolution wasn't kind to him, I guess.

[Tribune7]

ALWAYS THERE IS AN ATTORNEY MAKING MONEY SOMEHOW!!

Bingo

[Gondring]

I would emphasize the "self-proclaimed" and although I am geologist, not an evolutionary biologist, some of his stuff went so far out of line that even I could smell its stench.

One of the great ironies is that he attacked other biologists so strongly that many creationists were able to misportray the state of evolutionary theory as "in disarray" or "debatable"...

[Tall_Texan]

Somehow the phrase "God's will" seems appropriate and ironic.

[feedback doctor]

Survival of the Fittest

[Pharmboy]

Yep...for a "scientist" he was driven by emotion. Socialism had to make sense since it felt right to him. He was an intellectual bully and had a closed mind.

And he used his knowledge of baseball to make himself seem "one of the people." I am sorry that he is dead, but he was an bad influence on on scientific thought and debate.

[Tacis]

Let's not always look at the dark side, the morbid side. This represents a wonderful opportunity to replace the late Professor with a diversity of female type person. How hard can teaching evolution be? Harvard can make their numbers look so much better by hiring a black woman, so long as she understand what being a black woman means to Harvard. They don't want a Cndi Rice or Judge Owen, they want Ms. Berry, who I understand is looking.

Now, f Harvard can get rid of more of these evil white men, they have the opportunity to have the faculty look like it should.

[TFine80]

He was very sick the year before as well. He had to cancel several classes at one point. Probably the same time they took this X-ray.

[killermosquito]

And as an atheist evolutionist he had nothing to fear when he died. Yet I have no doubt that as he died he had his doubts.

[Gondring]

A lot like Carl Sagan.