My interview on Age of Discovery

February 2, 2014 • 7:19 am

Adrian Smith, a postdoctoral fellow in entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, came to my lab last week to interview me for his website, Age of Discovery Podcast.  His aim is to collect a series of interviews with ecologists and evolutionary biologists, and he’s already collected Eric Pianka, Joan Strassmann, Bert Hölldobler, May Berenbaum, and entomologist/photographer Alex Wild, whose photos often appear here.

You can listen to my interview here, and there are links to download the mp3 and get it (presumably free!) through iTunes.  It’s 53 minutes long.

As usual, I can’t bear to listen to these things, but, as I recall, Adrian had some great questions: he’d clearly done his homework. And I do remember getting a bit purple-y passionate about biology at the end.

19 thoughts on “My interview on Age of Discovery”

  3. Adrian & Jerry. Great interview, particularly the second half re getting into Harvard & the character of your mentors/colleagues.

    Interesting to find out about Richard Levins who is totally new to me.

    Couple of surnames I couldn’t figure out:-
    38:56 Dobzhansky student Timothy who? [sounds like Prow]
    47:58 Dave who? [sounds like Hiller or Hillel]

  7. You might say more about this in the last few minutes of the interview, but you mentioned off-hand that, while you were getting your hands dirty with your own research in the lab alongside your students, you learned a lot of science from them at the same time they were learning from you.

    I’d love to know a bit more about some of what your students taught you.

    b&

  8. A very interesting interview. I particularly enjoyed the description of your experiences at Harvard during the Sociobiology days.

  9. Good interview! And there’s nothing “purple-y” about your closing comments at all. Love the Mencken quote.

  10. I appreciated the comments on Gould, whom I never warmed to, when others were enraptured by him. I’m not at all convinced that his arguments on IQ will stand the test of time.

  11. Interesting factoid in the interview:

    Jerry uses the term “blogging” to refers to writing-outreach like his WEIT website (at 46:00).

    Further unambiguous proof: I have WEIT bookmarked in a folder labeled “blogs”. That is the real clincher.

  12. The pleasure of hearing Jerry Coyne! Enjoyed so much taking in your words just now. And especially thank you for mentioning, quoting, Richard Feynman. A hero of mine. How lucky we are to be able to so easily hear you, and others, talk to us…whether in a book or on air.
    I had some good science teachers in elem school, and U of C survey courses as an undergraduate – but credit Feynman, via Surely You’re Joking etc , and his bio, Genius, with
    my more recent devotion to reading about things scientific. And likewise Dr Coyne.
    Vast appreciation.

  13. Excellent interview Jerry! I enjoyed the below-the-fold stories about your undergrad days and the personalities at Harvard. I met Wilson at a SETAC meeting in Portland (OR) and found him to be very cordial. I was somewhat surprised about Gould’s demeanor. He seemed nice when I met him after his talk at U of C (hosted by David Raup), as he signed my copy of Bully for Brontosaurus.

  14. Some strange comments from a fellow who cannot type afterwards – as written –
    “I think his criticisms of goulds writing style are probably simple human jealousy.I cannot countenance his calling NCSE accomodationists.Its a waste of time, and energy-its really quite petty. I have commented on site, and have been viciously flamed by his devotees, who generally fall all over themselves trying appease the master.”

    !!! Now we are appeasers!

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