John Tooby relates this nice anecdote in an old Slate piece:
Bill Hamilton of Oxford, originator of the concept of inclusive fitness and other theories fundamental to modern evolutionary biology, winner of the Kyoto and Crafoord Prizes, and first president of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, gave a toast at a banquet at an evolutionary biology conference several years ago. From the podium, with dancing eyes, he lifted his glass and announced that he was going to toast Gould—and the audience of hundreds fell dead silent, holding their breath in expectation of a joke to follow. They were not disappointed: Hamilton said that despite the confused and incoherent nature of Gould’s publications on evolutionary biology, we should celebrate him anyway, because of the harvest of bright children—future biologists—that his essays would bring into the field. The audience dissolved in laughter and cheers.
Ol’ Bill was at least half right.
Posted by God Fearing Atheist at 10:01 PM