ABSTRACT
In this essay, we compare the careers of Frederick R. Schram and Stephen Jay Gould and their views and influence on the importance of paleontological data in evolutionary (historical) biology. Both scientists have consistently advocated the importance of the fossil record, but both have also perceptibly changed their views and approaches throughout their careers and in very different directions. Gould initially advocated a model-based approach to historical biology in an apparent attempt to increase the status of an endangered discipline in a difficult political and financial environment. Later, he largely redirected his focus away from these model-based approaches and instead emphasized the ‘contingency’ perspective as of vital and overlooked importance in biological evolution. Schram only gradually moved from a ‘Mantonian’ view on arthropod evolution into being a convinced ‘computer-based’ cladist, but changed early enough to have immense influence on the development of phylogenetics of both arthropods and the Metazoa in general. We try to analyze how and why these changing views took place by plotting them against the socioscientific background of the two scientists.
