Gould, James L. 1945-

PERSONAL:

Born July 31, 1945, in Tulsa, OK; son of James L. (an engineer) and Doris (a teacher) Gould; married Carol Grant (a writer), June 6, 1970; children: Grant Frazier, Clare Holly. Education: California Institute of Technology, B.S. (with honors), 1970; Rockefeller University, Ph.D., 1975.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544. E-mail—gould@princeton.edu.

CAREER:

Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, assistant professor, 1975-80, associate professor, 1980-83, professor of biology, 1983—. Military service: U.S. Army, Signal Corps, 1968-69.

MEMBER:

Animal Behavior Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellow of National Science Foundation, 1970-75, Guggenheim Foundation, 1987-88, and American Association for the Advancement of Science; Professor of the Year, Carnegie Foundation, 1996; Distinguished Teacher of the Year, Animal Behavior Society, 1997.

WRITINGS:

Ethology: The Mechanisms and Evolution of Behavior, Norton (New York, NY), 1982.

(With Carol Grant Gould and W.T. Keeton) Biological Science, Norton (New York, NY), 1986, 6th edition, 1996.

(With wife, Carol Grant Gould) The Honey Bee, W.H. Freeman (New York, NY), 1988.

(Editor, with Carol Grant Gould) Life at the Edge, W.H. Freeman (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Carol Grant Gould) Sexual Selection, W.H. Freeman (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Carol Grant Gould) The Animal Mind, W.H. Freeman (New York, NY), 1994.

(With son, Grant F. Gould) BioStats Basics: A Student Handbook, W.H. Freeman (New York, NY), 2002.

(With Carol Grant Gould) Animal Architects: Building and the Evolution of Intelligence, Basic Books (New York, NY), 2007.

CONTRIBUTOR

T. McGill, editor, Readings in Animal Behavior, 3rd edition, Holt (New York, NY), 1977.

D.R. Griffin, editor, Animal Mind—Human Mind, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 1982.

G. Ferry, editor, The Understanding of Animals, Basil Blackwell (Malden, MA), 1984.

P. Marler and H. Terrace, editors, The Biology of Learning, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 1984.

G. Lynch, J.L. McGaugh, and N. Weinberger, editors, The Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Guilford (New York, NY), 1985.

J.L. Kirschvink and others, editors, Magnetite Biomineralization and Magnetoreception in Organisms, Plenum (New York, NY), 1985.

P.J.B. Slater, editor, Animal Behaviour, Equinox, 1986.

R.J. Hoage, editor, Animal Intelligence, Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington, DC), 1986.

A. Kamil, J. Krebs, and R. Pulliam, editors, Foraging Behavior, Plenum (New York, NY), 1987.

R. Menzel and A. Mercer, editors, Neurobiology and Behaviour of Honey Bees, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 1987.

L.J. Goodman and R.C. Fisher, editors, The Behaviour and Physiology of Bees, CAB International (Wallingford, MA), 1991.

A.C. Lewis and D.R. Papaj, editors, Insect Learning: Ecological and Evolutionary Perspectives, Chapman and Hall (New York, NY), 1993.

C.F. Moss and S.J. Shettleworth, editors, Neuroethological Studies of Cognitive and Perceptual Processes, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1996.

Contributor to Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, International Encyclopedia of Communications, and Science Year. Contributor of chapters to books, including Systems with Learning and Memory Abilities, J. Delacour & J.C.S. Levy, editors, Elsevier (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1988; Readings on Human Behavior, A.L. Hammond and P.G. Zimbardo, with Carol Grant Gould, Scott, Foresman (Boston, MA), 1988; International Encyclopedia of Communication, E. Barnouw, editor, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1989; Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, G.L. Shaw, editor, World Scientific (Singapore), 1990; The Emergence of Language, W.S.Y. Wang, editor, with P. Marler, W.H. Freeman (New York, NY), 1991; Behavior and Evolution of Birds, D.W. Mock, editor, with P. Marler, W.H. Freeman (New York, NY), 1991; and Developing Biological Literacy, Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (Colorado Springs, CO), 1993. Contributor of more than sixty articles and reviews to scientific journals and popular magazines, including Natural History, Harper's, Psychology Today, and Science.

SIDELIGHTS:

James L. Gould, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University, has written or contributed to many books, including some he wrote with his wife, both for children and for adult readers. The Honey Bee, one of his and Carol Grant Gould's earliest efforts, provides a simple scientific overview of the insect. Ian Maione, in a review for the Skeptical Inquirer, praised the book for exemplifying "that rare ability to present complex scientific discoveries in detail, without either overwhelming the reader in esoteric details on one hand or oversimplifying complex issues on the other." Ted Kaehler, writing for WholeEarth Review, remarked: "This fascinating book makes a case for honey bees as the premier experimental animal for studying behavior and learning in ‘higher’ animals."

In Animal Architects: Building and the Evolution of Intelligence, Gould, again writing with his wife, looks at the incredible feats achieved by various members of the animal kingdom, and then goes on to examine how they have evolved to manage these tasks. Donald Michie, reviewing for Spectator, found the last chapter weak and the index insufficient, but overall felt that "the charm and humour with which the authors write and their close attention to verified fact redeem the faults of one the best popular science books of recent years."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Skeptical Inquirer, September 1, 1999, Ian Maione, review of The Honey Bee, p. 52.

Spectator, May 19, 2007, Donald Michie, "Not So Dumb."

Whole Earth Review, fall, 1989, Ted Kaehler, review of The Honey Bee.