David Raup, famed UR paleontologist, dies at 82

David Raup, whose influential career in paleontology included 13 years at the University of Rochester, died July 9 at age 82.

Raup was a professor in the UR geology department from 1965 until 1978, chairing the department the last three years before moving on to the University of Chicago. He was famous in his field for pioneering the use of statistical analysis of the fossil record and for his unique knack for questioning received wisdom.

"He was one of the most important paleontologists of his generation," said Roy Plotnick, who studied under Raup at the UR and is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "The field has never been the same as a result of his work."

Unlike most paleontologists, Raup spent little time with a shovel. He set his sights on big questions and brought innovative tools to their pursuit.

In the introduction to one of Raup's books, Stephen Jay Gould wrote: "If Dave has any motto, it can only be: 'Think the unthinkable (and then make a mathematical model to show how it might work); take an outrageous idea with a limited sphere of validity and see if it might not be extendable to explain everything.'"

Plotnick recalled taking a course in paleontology that didn't involve looking at a single fossil.

"He did not get tied down to a group and a time period — he thought more broadly than that," Plotnick said. "He would think about things like: What if evolution worked like games of chance? And rumor had it he was a damn good poker player."

Among Raup's achievements was discovering in 1983 the still-controversial theory of extinction periodicity. In examining the fossil record, he found that mass extinctions tend to happen approximately every 26 million years. A debate has raged ever since on the merits and possible causes of that trend.

Raup was an instrumental figure in what is known as the "paleobiological revolution." He looked at fossils to learn about past evolutionary and biological processes rather than just geology.

"Before Dave, much of the discipline was centered on describing what was," his former student and colleague, Charles Marshall, said in a statement distributed by the University of Chicago. "Dave taught the discipline to think about the processes that might have generated the past record."

While in Rochester, Raup won the Paleontological Society's Charles Schuchert Award for outstanding young paleontologists, then served as the society's president in 1976-77.

Plotnick said a number of UR graduate students from Raup's tenure at the university ended up with long careers in paleontology. His departure in 1978 was a blow to the department.

"To this day, I remember one of the other (UR) faculty coming up to us and saying, 'Dave's leaving.' And one of my fellow students sat down and started thinking about where else to go to grad school," he said. "We had some superb scientists there, but he was the heart and soul of the program."

Raup wrote two books for lay readers, "The Nemesis Affair" and "Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?" He is survived by his wife, a son, a stepson and a grandson.

JMURPHY7@DemocratandChronicle.com