HOME  INTERVIEWS  RESOURCES  NEWS  ABOUT

View by:  Subject  Theme  Question  Term  Person  Event

Niles Eldredge

Niles Eldredge

When Niles Eldredge was in school, his favorite subject was Latin. He claims that he was not a science person”. Today he is a well-known evolutionary biologist and the author of dozens of books for adults and children, students and scientists, and the general reading public. The subjects he writes about range from trilobites to patterns of extinction, from evolution to biodiversity. 

What Drives Evolution?

He has worked at the American Museum of Natural History for nearly 30 years, doing research and teaching. He is a Curator in the Department of Invertebrates and heads the team of curators who made the new Hall of Biodiversity at the Museum. He has devoted his entire career to affecting a better fit between evolutionary theory and the fossil record. In recent years, he has focused on the mass extinctions of the geological past and their implications for understanding the modern biodiversity crisis and future human ecological and evolutionary prospects. He attended Columbia, where he studied languages, then met the woman who is now his wife, who was hanging out with a bunch of anthropology majors, so he left Latin and switched over to anthropology. Niles was still an undergraduate when he came to AMNH to work on a project sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The Museum was a place he had loved since he was a child growing up in Westchester County. As a Columbia doctoral student, he continued his research at AMNH. Then, in 1969, when he was looking for a job in his field, he was asked to stay on at the Museum. To Niles, being a paleontologist is not all that different from being a historian or studying Latin. He believes that if you are passionately interested in something, it’s not hard. 

               To return to previous topic, click on your browser's 'Back' button. Email link

Niles Eldredge

All People

Full Picture Index
Nancy Ellen Abrams
Richard Address
Stacey Ake
David Albertini
Jensine Andresen
Lori Andrews
Munawar Anees
George Annas
Beth Arnold
Francisco Ayala
Anindita Balslev
Ian Barbour
John Barrow
Michael Behe
Gaymon Bennett
Eric Beresford
Charles Birch
Baruch Blumberg
David Brook
John Hedley Brooke
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
David Byers
Lisa Sowle Cahill
Brian Cantwell-Smith
Anna Case-Winters
Audrey Chapman
Jose Cibelli
Philip Clayton
Jane Maslow Cohen
Jonathan Cohen
Ronald Cole-Turner
Francis Collins
George Coyne
Francis Crick
Antonio Damasio
William Damon
Richard Davidson
Paul Davies
Richard Dawkins
Charles DeLisi
William Dembski
Demetrios Demopulos
Daniel Dennett
Alnoor Dhanani
Elliott Dorff
Freeman Dyson
Celia Deane-Drummond
Irven DeVore
Thomas Dixon
Peter Dodson
Willem Drees
William Durham
Noah Efron
Arnold Eisen
Paul Ekman
George FR Ellis
Wesley Elsberry
Sandra Faber
Carl Feit
Anna Foerst
John Gabrieli
Scott Gilbert
Owen Gingerich
Duane Gish
Medhi Golshani
Ursula Goodenough
Steven Jay Gould
Colin Gracey
William Grassie
Ronald Green
David Ray Griffin
Michael Grodin
Bruno Guiderdoni
Alan Guth
Robert Hamerton-Kelly
John Haught
Sandra Harding
Stephen Hawking
Richard Hayes
Philip Hefner
Peter Hess
Martinez Hewlett
Peter Hodgson
Nancy Howell
Sir Fred Hoyle
William Hurlbut
Wentzel van Huyssteen
Chris Isham
Antje Jackelén
Joseph Jacobs
Robert Jastrow
Calestous Jouma
Bill Joy
Solomon Katz
Donald Knuth
Melvin Konner
Judith Jenkins Kohatsu
Edward Kolb
Stephen Kosslyn
Job Kozhamthadam
Sheldon Krimsky
Lawrence Kushner
David Latham
Karen Lebacqz
John Leslie
Andre Linde
Amory Lovins
Marty Maddox
Randy Maddox
Mitch Marcus
Daniel Matt
Tsevi Mazeh
Sallie McFague
Alister McGrath
Paul McHugh
Michael Merzenich
Stephen Meyer
Mary Midgley
Jim Miller
Kenneth Miller
William Mobley
Jürgen Moltmann
Nancey Murphy
Paul Murray
David Myers
Naoki Nabeshima
Ronald Nakasone
Ken Nealson
Michael Robert Negus
Andrew Newberg
William Newsome
Warren A Nord
Ronald Numbers
Edward Oakes
Laurence O’Connell
Ayub Khan Ommaya
Lawrence Osborn
Eric Overström
Kuruvilla Pandikattu
Wolfhart Pannenberg
Arthur Peacocke
Jaroslav Pelikan
George Pell
Mark Pesce
Karl Peters
Ted Peters
Sir John Polkinghorne
Mike Poole
Stephen Post
M.G. Prasad
Joel Primack
V.S. Ramachandran
Asif Razvi
James Robl
Holmes Rolston
Steven Rose
William Stoeger
Rustum Roy
Pauline Rudd
Michael Ruse
Robert John Russell
Norbert Samuelson
Allan Sandage
Robert Sapolsky
Jeffrey Schloss
Seth Shulman
Eugenie Scott
Bonnie Joy Sedlak
Thomas Shannon
Vandana Shiva
Lee Silver
Seth Shostak
Barbara Smith-Moran
Robert Song
Christopher Southgate
Father Robert Spitzer
Russell Stannard
Jacqui Stewart
Lawrence Sullivan
Jill Tarter
Sir John Templeton
Trinh Xuan Thuan
George Tinker
Frank Tipler
Thomas Tracy
Roger Trigg
Thomas Turano
Neil Turok
Jean Vanier
Howard Van Till
Faraneh Vargha Khadem
Sara Via
Keith Ward
Brent Waters
Fraser Watts
Kirk Wegter McNelly
Steven Weinberg
Wesley Wildman
E.O.Wilson
Margaret Wertheim
Sondra Ely Wheeler
Mary White Scharf
Preston Williams
Everett Worthington
Adrian Wyard
Ronnee Yashon
Michael Zigmond
Laurie Zoloth
Biography Index