Van de Schoonheid en de Troost — Season 1, Episode 13: John the Myth: Stephen Jay Gould

Episode synopsis

Interview with Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist (in his office at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, part of the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Jordan Hall of the New England Conservatory in Boston). Gould talks about sports, baseball, Joe DiMaggio, modern heroes and myths, science, evolution, the theory of evolution, humanity, childhood memories, eternity and infinity, beauty, regularity, calendars, scientific questions and answers, the land snail, biological diversity, death, Johann Sebastian Bach's 'St. John Passion', religion and music.

About Van de Schoonheid en de Troost

To his guests – artists, scientists, writers, philosophers and musicians – Wim Kayzer in Of Beauty and Consolation asks the philosophical question: What makes this life worth living?

More episodes from Season 1

• E1Fathers Roses: Wole Soyinka
• E2Homecoming: Roger Scruton
• E3Alone on the mountain: Jane Goodall
• E4The Code of Pasternak: George Steiner
• E5The End of the Thirteenth: Vladimir Ashkenazy
• E6Thor, Newton, Einstein: Steven Weinberg
• E7Guilt: Martha Nussbaum
• E8You Are There and You Are Not: Karel Appel
• E9The Greatest Mystery Is Not the Universe: Edward Witten
• E10Dear Mother: Elizabeth Loftus
• E11When My Father Was Still Big: Rutger Kopland
• E12What's Mary Doing in the Cave: Gary Lynch