12 Facts About Niles Eldredge

Niles Eldredge is an American biologist and paleontologist, who, along with Stephen Jay Gould, proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium in 1972.

In 1969, Niles Eldredge became a curator in the Department of Invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, and subsequently a curator in the Invertebrate Paleontology section, a position from which he recently retired.

Niles Eldredge was an adjunct professor at the City University of New York.

Niles Eldredge's specialty was the evolution of mid-Paleozoic Phacopida trilobites, a group of extinct arthropods that lived between 543 and 245 million years ago.

Niles Eldredge went on to develop a hierarchical vision of evolutionary and ecological systems.

Niles Eldredge is proponent of the importance of environment in explaining the patterns in evolution.

Niles Eldredge is a critic of the gene-centered view of evolution.

Niles Eldredge has published more than 160 scientific articles, books, and reviews, including Reinventing Darwin, an examination of current controversies in evolutionary biology, and Dominion, a consideration of the ecological and evolutionary past, present, and future of Homo sapiens.

Since 2013, Niles Eldredge has been listed on the Advisory Council of the National Center for Science Education.

Niles Eldredge enjoys playing jazz trumpet and is an avid collector of 19th century cornets; he has more than 500 in his home in Ridgewood, New Jersey.

Niles Eldredge possesses a chart of the historical development of cornets, which he uses as a comparison with that of the development of trilobites.

In January 2017, Niles Eldredge became an 'Initiator' for the Refuse Fascism movement launched in the United States just months after the 2016 US Presidential Election.