Scientists have power by virtue of the respect commanded by the discipline... We live with poets and politicians, preachers and philosophers. All have their ways of knowing, and all are valid in their proper domain. The world is too complex and interesting for one way to hold all the answers.

Examples include the "masculinized genitalia in female hyenas exaptive use of an umbilicus as a brooding chamber by snails the shoulder hump of the giant Irish deer and several key features of human mentality. Marriage and family
Gould was married twice. Technical work on land snails
Most of Gould's empirical research pertained to land snails.

Most of Gould's empirical research was based on the land snail genera Poecilozonites and Cerion. Many of Gould's essays for the magazine Natural History were reprinted in collections such as Ever Since Darwin and The Panda's Thumb. He also contributed to evolutionary developmental biology and has received wide praise for his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny.