[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I think it is indicative of the malaise that afflicts Brin-L. Several of our
favorite posters are gone, and to fill the void several of us share things
we have seen or are interested in.
Some of us are not gone just lurking (well maybe I wasn't anyone's favorite
poster). I would like to share one little story. As those of you who
remember me know, I am interested in natural history, evolution etc. So
anyway I have a second cousin who was (and still is the family genius).
Graduated from our little urban high school at 15 perfect SATs when that
meant something, off to Harvard to do great things. What a pain for me; the
somewhat smart but by no means a genius kid who was about 5 years younger.
One day I asked my dad what had happened to Danny (Dan Simberloff) and he
replied with obvious disappointment "He is studying ants". That was it, no
more Danny stories, no more impossible standards to live up to. Years later I
encountered his name in one of Stephen Gould's essays. After that I saw it
quite regularly. He had gone on to become chairman of the biology department
at Florida State and was (and is) a world expert on ecology and introduced
species in particular. He was also near the center of the Sociobiology wars
of the late 70s and early 80s. He was a good friend of Gould's but he was a
student of Wilson's. So I emailed him out of curiosity. I hoped he would give
me some of the inside dope on what went on. I actually expected nothing in
return (except maybe a knock on the door from the cops telling me not to
harass the famous scientist anymore) . What I got was a wonderful reply and
some back and forth emails that filled much family history and gave me some
insights into evolutionary biology. He will be in New York next month and we
will be getting together. I don't know how interesting or relevant this is to
anyone else but I thought there might be a few people on the list who would
find this cool.
