Talk:Stephen Jay Gould

Darwinian Fundamentalism merge

The article, Darwinian Fundamentalism, discusses an article by Gould, but appears less than faithfully explain Gould's opinions on his fellow scientisits. It should be merge, unless expanded, and cleaned up. FGT2 20:53, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• Merge FGT2 20:53, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge -- I don't see any real point to it as a stand-alone. --Christofurio 21:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose -- The pseudo-controversy over the so-called "Darwinian Fundamentalism" is a canard, and is quite simply irrelevant to the actual work of Stephen Jay Gould. Blind designer 20:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose -- The existence of a "Darwinian Fundamentalism" is independent to Stephen Jay Gould. However, the entry of DF should be expanded, cleaned and should mention that there would be DF even if Stephen J. Gould would never existed.
• Oppose -- My feelings here are mixed. First of all Gould's "Darwinian Fundamentalism" isn't significant enough to have a stand alone article. It's an entertaing read, surely, but it's certainly no Origin of Species, or "A structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid." Secondly, even within Gould's own body of work it doesn't stand out. It is nothing more than a book review. Now everyone who cares about evolutionary theory should read it of course, but it's not like it marked a turning point in Gould's career. It was a review. A response to Dennet. Not only that, how often have you encountered the word "Darwinian Fundamentalism" in the literature, that is, outside people discussing that particular paper? Answer, not very often! Best, Miguel Chavez 08:08, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose -- One actually rather wonders if this article should be deleted. It's not a notable work of Gould's. Adam Cuerden ^talk 08:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I think Adaptationism would be a better merge candidate than this page. Pete.Hurd 15:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Cut section

Stephen Wolfram, mathematician and physicist has also publicly criticized Gould for his idea that natural selection is necessary to pare down evolution to a few robust forms. In his doctoral thesis on shells, Gould notes that while there are thousands of potential shell shapes, only a half dozen actual shell forms exist in the world, and he uses this fact as evidence of natural selection paring down variability. Wolfram's interests lie in studying how complexity can arise from the interactions of simple rule sets. From this, he shows that not only is there a mathematical error in Gould's argument, but that there are only six possible shell shapes, all of which exist in the world. Inverting Gould's idea, Wolfram suggests that natural selection, rather than paring down evolution to a few robust forms, instead evolves organisms outwards to fill all the possible forms available to them by the rules of cellular automata.

The more I read this, the less it makes sense. Adam Cuerden ^talk 10:59, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Simpsons Appearance

It has always troubled me that in the Simpsons episode Lisa the Skeptic, Gould appears to do himself a disservice. He initially asserts that scientific testing on a supposed angel skeleton was "inconclusive". Yet at the end of the episode Gould admits to never testing the sample. It always seemed incredibly inexplicable to me, as if there was more going on offscreen than was shown. Did Gould or any associated parties ever explain why this was so? Even if it was nothing more than bad writing on the part of the makers, it's not a great advert for Gould's adherence to scientific method. ClarenceAtomkraft 11:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think anyone liked the ending. But it was nice to see Gould on one of my all time favorite shows. According to Shalini Bhargava, of The Stanford Daily, "Gould agreed to work on the episode because the script was 'interesting,' and it only took 10 minutes, he said. 'I didn't see it initially until the day it was shown,' he said." Best, Mchavez 23:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, the episode itself was from Season 9 of the series, one of the weakest seasons in the show's history. Shrumster 10:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

GA Passed

It is a pleasure to pass such a good article. It clearly meets all the GA criteria. It does a particularly good job of maintaining NPOV in discussing the numerous controversies in which Gould was involved, and I can tell from reading some of the comments on this page that it was not easy getting there :) I do have a couple of suggestions for the Controversies section. It should say something about what his objections to Sociobiology were. In particular it should have a couple of sentences linking his opposition to sociobiology to the opposition to biological determinism and the concern over the historical misuse of science (or psuedoscience) in support of racism and sexism that are mentioned elswhere in the article. The connections may not be obvious to people not already very familiar with these topics. The discussion of his opposition to gene selectionism is better, but it seems to me that he emphasized selection at the organism/phenotype level more than the species level. In fact I seem to recall that at times he was quite critical of group selection. Despite these minor concerns, I want to say again that this is a wonderful article.Rusty Cashman 08:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. And your suggestion's are right on the mark. I've briefly taken care to eliminate the confusion over Gould's views on selection. When time permits, I, or one of the regular contributors here, will clarify the areas you mentioned. Thanks! Mchavez 09:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

John Maynard Smith and Human Sociobiology

[This is in response to someone who deleted Maynard Smith because they believed he was not critical of Human Sociobiology]

Let me say first that the dichotomy between Gould, Lewontin, and Maynard Smith compared to Pinker, Dawkins and Dennett is misleading. Between them all exist a wide range of opinion—and even some surprising overlap on important points, along with nontrivial disagreements among supporters. However the division, as expressed in the article, is not totally unfair. John Maynard Smith has frequently made his objections to human sociobiology (or evolutionary psychology, if you prefer) known. In a revealing interview, he states:

I'm very interested in evolution of social behavior of animals. I think that human beings are actually so different from other animals in the degree of cultural and ethical and mystical and religious and political concepts which influence their behavior that it isn’t widely fruitful to think about them just as if they were another animal. I think that what Ed Wilson has done for us by introducing the term ‘sociobiology’ is to make it harder to think clearly about human behavior. And I suppose I’m showing another aspect of my upbringing. I was a young man when Hitler was in power, I was in Berlin in 1938 just leading up to the Munich Settlement, and the whole of my thinking about the world has been much influenced by belonging to that generation. For me, the application of biology to human beings means Rosenberg and the race theories, so I’m obviously a bit reluctant to get involved in biological applications to human behavior. "Making it formal” interview with Maynard Smith in Lewis Wolpert and Alison Richards, A Passion for Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 132-133.

In Maynard Smith's moderately critical review of E. O. Wilson's On Human Nature, he expresses his general skepticism, while displaying some openness to certain cases:

To me, the most interesting question is how far evolutionary biology can contribute to the human sciences. As I have explained, I am a doubter. But I have been wrong on this issue before. Ten years ago I regarded incest avoidance as an entirely cultural phenomenon; only a bigot could hold this view now. "Contraints on Human Behavior" republished in Did Darwin Get it Right? 1989, p. 85.

In 1985 Philip Kitcher wrote—according to Maynard Smith—an "admirable book," called Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature, which was a technical critique of current sociobiological arguments for human behavior. Part of Kitcher's critique was to divide the field into two styles or spheres; first, those who argue as E.O. Wilson do (which is to say, naively), and second, those who argue with more rigor, as Richard Alexander, relying on testable relationships of human behavior and inclusive fitness. Referring to the latter form, Maynard Smith writes: "Unlike Wilson's arguments, which seem to me generally ill-formulated and empty of content, this claim is worth taking seriously, even though it is probably false." And to reiterate the point again: "This school of sociobiologists do say things about real societies that are testable; I find it hard to believe that they are right, but at least they are not vacuous." ("Biology and the Behavior of Man" ibid. p. 92). And finally this video clip from the Peoples Archive is rather interesting.

Even Dennett has expressed criticism of human sociobiology, calling it a form of "greedy reductionism," but has also expressed sympathy towards the explanations proposed by evolutionary psychology. Intern, Gould himself has expressed strong support for the sociobiological explanations of altruism proposed by Robert Trivers. Clearly the issue is more complicated than the article implies, but when introducing difficult subjects it is convenient sometimes to set up a controversy in a dialectical way. Miguel Chavez 05:30, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

historian of science

Did Gould get a degree as a science historian? If not, why is he listed as a science historian?

If he never got a degree as a science historian, does this blurb in the article justify the title "historian of science" :

Gould was also a considerably respected historian of science. Historian Ronald Numbers has been quoted as saying: "I can't say much about Gould's strengths as a scientist, but for a long time I've regarded him as the second most influential historian of science (next to Thomas Kuhn).

Travb (talk) 02:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Unlike, say, law, a degree in history is not required to practice the subject. The existence of specific academic programs in History of Science or Science Studies is a relatively recent phenomenon. The claim that he was a historian of science is amply justified by the source from which that quotation is taken (the citation includes a link), which documents the sheer volume of Gould's output in the field. One might be left, from his monographs, with the impression that he was primarily a historian, and only secondarily a paleontologist, rather than the reverse. I believe it is possible to find scholarly articles by Gould published in academic history-of-science journals, and in one of his books he criticizes the HoS community for generally refusing to cite his Natural History essays even when he established priority in that forum rather than in a peer-reviewed journal. 121a0012 (talk) 05:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

There have been quite a few notable, even famous, historians (in all disciplines of history) who did not get degrees in history. The only history discipline that requires a degree in history would be college level teaching in history. Natalie (talk) 15:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I might add that Thomas Kuhn, without question the most prominent historian of science, was a trained physicist. Additionally Gould wrote over 100 scholarly papers as well as several books on the subject. He also taught the subject at Harvard for several years. Miguel Chavez

The Mismeasure of Man

The paragraph about the reception of this book doesn't explain why there were different viewpoints, and the only reference for the comments is a link that doesn't work. --Parkwells (talk) 01:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Removed quotation re: sociobiology

I removed this paragraph: But Gould also writes: "Sociobiologists have broadened their range of selective stories by invoking concepts of inclusive fitness and kin selection to solve (successfully I think) the vexatious problem of altruism—previously the greatest stumbling block to a Darwinian theory of social behavior. . . . Here sociobiology has had and will continue to have success. And here I wish it well. For it represents an extension of basic Darwinism to a realm where it should apply." Gould, 1980. "Sociobiology and the Theory of Natural Selection" In G. W. Barlow and J. Silverberg, eds., Sociobiology: Beyond Nature/Nurture? Boulder CO: Westview Press, pp. 257-269. ... as I beleive it was incorrectly interpreted by the previous editor. Gould is not talking about sociobiology as applied to humans - the word was originally used to mean all studies of animal social behaviour, and this is the definition that had currency in 1980. Also, he doesn't mean "altruism" the way a Wikipedia reader would understand it. He means "altruism" in the context of eusocial animals like bees and ants - it has a very different definition and meaning. Dissembly (talk) 11:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Project Steve

Shouldn't Project Steve get some tiny mention in this article? (If it is there, I couldn't find it while looking for information on the project) Huw Powell (talk) 20:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Good idea, I'll try to integrate. WLU (talk) 23:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Lead

Is it not blindingly obvious to all that the lead section of this article is too short by a country mile? And yes, that is part of the GA criteria. Please, somebody expand it to meet the requirements of WP:LS so as to avoid having it delisted.

I also note that a familiar someone has noted this in the to-do list already, yet it still seems to have escaped everyones' notice. It seems no amount of effort I make is making people more aware of the requirements of lead sections (or the GA requirements). Richard001 (talk) 07:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

What a coincidence. I added a paragraph to the lead before I even read this comment. I've got a lot of experience working with leads, and this one could be better still. Leads should be able to stand alone as concise summaries of their topics. Leadwind (talk) 19:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It could still be slightly longer perhaps, but that's more than enough to avoid delisting. Thanks. Richard001 (talk) 06:48, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Still working on the lead, plus reorging the body. Interesting topic. Leadwind (talk) 13:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

zxvsdbdbc —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.30.99.249 (talk) 20:14, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

What?

What does this even mean?

"Gould championed biological constraints as well as other non-selectionist forces in evolution. In particular, he considered higher functions of the human brain to be the byproduct of natural selection and not its selected result. This understanding undermines an essential premise of human sociobiology and evolutionary psychology."

I see how the first sentence downplays sociobiology's importance by saying "No, sorry, some biological components of our psychology are strongly influenced by constraints, so you're theory can't fully handle such components". Yes, that makes sense but it doesn't "undermine an essential premise" does it? Do relativity & quantum mechanics "undermine" one another?

I'm afraid the second sentence doesn't make much sense period. Gould certainly knew that some aspects of cognition were "selected for."

Well, I'm afraid the whole section sounds like OR currently. Can we just quote his own words? I mean, he's got plenty of word on the subject! 67.85.188.249 (talk) 02:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)