George Gaylord Simpson
Overview
 
George Gaylord Simpson was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the modern evolutionary synthesis
Modern evolutionary synthesis
The modern evolutionary synthesis is a union of ideas from several biological specialties which provides a widely accepted account of evolution...

, contributing Tempo and mode in evolution
Tempo and Mode in Evolution
Tempo and Mode in Evolution was George Gaylord Simpson's seminal contribution to the evolutionary synthesis, which integrated the facts of paleontology with those of genetics and natural selection....

(1944), The meaning of evolution (1949) and The major features of evolution (1953). He was an expert on extinct mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s and their intercontinental migrations. He anticipated such concepts as punctuated equilibrium
Punctuated equilibrium
Punctuated equilibrium is a theory in evolutionary biology which proposes that most species will exhibit little net evolutionary change for most of their geological history, remaining in an extended state called stasis...

 (in Tempo and mode) and dispelled the myth that the evolution of the horse
Evolution of the horse
The evolution of the horse pertains to the phylogenetic ancestry of the modern horse from the small dog-sized, forest-dwelling Hyracotherium over geologic time scales...

 was a linear process culminating in the modern Equus caballus.
 
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