Stardate 20020520.1415

(On Screen): One of my readers joked once that I spent a lot of time channeling James Burke. Actually, if I've intentionally been channeling anyone it's been both Isaac Asimov and Stephen Jay Gould.

Asimov was the one-and-only, the most knowledgeable man alive, and the most prolific author of the modern era. He may well have been the last man in history who knew everything, the last Renaissance man. He was, of course, a superb writer but his writing always had a bit of an edge.

Stephen Jay Gould's writing was different. Reading Asimov felt like sitting in a classroom listening to a superb professor. Reading Gould was like having coffee with an old friend. Gould's knowledge was perhaps not as encyclopedic as Asimov's, but his writing was more friendly, more accessible.

In 1982, Gould was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a form of cancer usually caused by exposure to asbestos. It also is among the most lethal forms of cancer there is, with a median survival time from diagnosis of just eight months at that time.

But Gould was young (40) and healthy and had access to an experimental treatment program for the disease, and survived it. We were granted the gift of another 20 years of his writing.

That 20 years has now ended. Stephen Jay Gould has died of cancer, at age 60.

Gould never met me, never knew I existed. But I feel as if an old friend has gone. I will miss him greatly.