Scientific Achievements
Newell was an eminent paleontologist and systematist of Upper Paleozoic and Mesozoic bivalves. He taught geology and paleontology at Columbia University from 1945 to 1977. During his tenure at Columbia he trained a number of students who later became prominent paleontologists, including Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, Steven M. Stanley, Alan Cheetham, Alfred Fischer, and Don Boyd. Stephen Jay Gould remarked, "The work of graduate students is part of a mentor's reputation forever, because we trace intellectual lineages in this manner. I was Norman Newell's student, and everything that I ever do, as long as I live, will be read as his legacy."
An important part of his research was the study of mass extinctions on the history of life, publishing on the topic well before the Alvarez hypothesis made such theorizing respectable.
Newell was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Philosophical Society. He was also the author of numerous scientific papers and several books including On Creation and Evolution, which criticized the arguments of creationists. In 1961 Newell was awarded the Mary Clark Thompson Medal from the National Academy of Sciences. His numerous awards include accolades from Yale University, the American Geological Institute, and the American Museum of Natural History.
Read more about this topic: Norman D. Newell
Famous quotes containing the words scientific and/or achievements:
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“Fathers are still considered the most important “doers” in our culture, and in most families they are that. Girls see them as the family authorities on careers, and so fathers’ encouragement and counsel is important to them. When fathers don’t take their daughters’ achievements and plans seriously, girls sometimes have trouble taking themselves seriously.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)