George Gaylord Simpson was an American paleontologist. He was an expert on extinct mammals and their intercontinental migrations.

Simpson was the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century and a major participant in the Modern synthesis. He was Professor of zoology at Columbia University and curator of the Department of Geology and Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1945 to 1959. He was curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University from 1959 to 1970.

His main publications were Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944) and Principles of Classification and a Classification of Mammals (1945).

Further Quotation

"Man stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long, unconscious, impersonal, material process with unique understanding and potentialities. These he owes to no one but himself, and it is to himself that he is responsible. He is not the creature of uncontrollable and undeterminable forces, but is his own master. He can and must decide and manage his own destiny."