Stephen Jay Gould, photo from New York Times obituary
Q. Why is your work so popular?
A. It’s the subject more than anything else. I often say there are about half a dozen scientific subjects that are immensely intriguing to people because they deal with fundamental issues that disturb us and cause us to wonder. Evolution is one of those subjects. It attempts, insofar as science can, to answer the questions of what our life means, and why we are here, and where we come from, and who we are related to, and what has happened through time, and what has been the history of this planet. These are questions that all thinking people have to ponder.
— Stephen Jay Gould, interviewed by Daniel S. Levy, for Time Magazine, published Monday, May 14, 1990
