Simpson, George Gaylord, 1902–84, American paleontologist and zoologist, b. Chicago, Ph.D. Yale, 1926. He became assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in 1927. From fossil material gathered on trips to the W and SE United States and to Argentina, he discovered migratory and evolutionary patterns of the prehistoric fauna of the Americas. His deductions that species reached adaptive peaks and suffered accidental dispersal contributed greatly to the study of evolution. He served as professor of vertebrate paleontology at Columbia (1945–59) and at Harvard (1959–70). He received many scientific awards. His works include Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1949), The Major Features of Evolution (1953); The Geography of Evolution (1965), and Biology and Man (1969).
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