Talk:Stephen Jay Gould/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Stephen Jay Gould. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Politics

It's not clear that Gould was a "radical socialist", IMO. His parents were Communists and he knew and appreciated Marx, but as far as I know he was never a member of any socialist group. And of course, he was involved in anti-racist activism and (somewhat peripherally, I think) with Science for the People. But in Reinventing Darwin, Niles Eldredge says that Gould wasn't a Marxist. And when asked about his politics in a Skeptic interview, Gould said only that he preferred Clinton to Dole. He also wrote at least one mild defense of GM foods.

he was to some degree an admirer of Marxism, although he was by no means a communist

Should be reworded. 'Communist' is horribly ambiguous (Stalinist? Leninist? Marxist?). Maybe to something like:

politically, he sympathized with left-wing views, and was, to some degree, a Marxist.

Depending on the interpretation of the adjective 'communist', its inclusion becomes either redundant or unnecessary. Sir Paul 23:11, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

A quote from Gould illustrating his political views would provide bones for this rather flabby assertion. Not every progressive liberal humanist realist is a "Marxist"!

Gould said that he considered his views "a private matter" and chose not to discuss them in his writing. (See chapter 9 of the Structure.) So most of what we know about him comes from what his friends and colleagues said about him. He never denied being a Marxist (although he famously said that Eldredge was not one), but nor does it appear from my reading that he ever claimed to be one, either. 121a0012 03:43, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Commentary on Gould

Biologist John Maynard Smith has claimed that "Gould occupies a rather curious position, particularly on his side of the Atlantic. Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by nonbiologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists." He also claimed Gould "is giving nonbiologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory." (Both quotes appear in Robert Wright's essay The Accidental Creationist).

Summary of some points made (click "View Other Revisions" to see details of this discussion):

John Maynard Smith is is a biologist and not a popular science writer.
Gould's work may not be solidly in the biological mainstream, but it's still generally within the purview of legitimate science.
Robert Wright may be likelier to be the fringe figure here, not Stephen Jay Gould. A quick assay of Mr. Wright's work on the Web shows his positions lie on fairly shakey ground. For instance, he criticizes Gould for neglecting to notice that there is a general trend from simplicity to complexity in evolution, but this is a trend that is not there and not taken as a mainstream position.
The power of historical contingency is a major theme in Gould's popular writing, and his most famous professional work (punctuated equilibrium) too. He's the last person I'd have suspected of being tied to historical determinism.
Richard Lewontin was the chairman of Gould's department at Harvard, and made the claim, "There is nothing in Marx, Lenin, or Mao that is or can be in contradiction with a particular set of phenomena in the objective world." This may mean that Lewontin views science and ideology as separate domains, or perhaps mean that science that seems to contradict Marx, Lenin, or Mao is necessarily wrong.
Gould once used Lewontin's comment in a metaphorical talk on punctuated equilibrium many years ago, which made some view him as sharing Lewontin's political beliefs. However, Gould has commented that punctuated equilibrium was more Niles' idea than his. Niles has a different political background than Gould, so with regards to punctuated equilibrium, Gould's politics may in fact be completely irrelevant anyway.
Gould has been heavily involved in heated debates regarding sociobiology, and has a firm stance in the "anti" camp. Some have bashed Gould, claiming this "jihad" to be wrong and suggesting that Gould must be tainted by communist beliefs for taking the positions he has.

It seems to me that some of this would be good to place in the main article--how about that, some actual useful content coming out of mere dialectical wrangling... :-) --LMS

The second to last point is inaccurate. Suspicions that Gould's scienctific opinions are influenced by his politics arise in regards to his views on sociobiology, not punctuated equilibrium.

Not entirely so. See his discussion of the Beverly Halstead British Museum cladism controversy (Structure, pp. 984–85). 121a0012 03:48, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Archiving note: Here's the original text removed in this edit in August 2001. Graham87 (talk) 16:44, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Biologist John Maynard Smith has claimed that "Gould occupies a rather curious position, particularly on his side of the Atlantic. Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by nonbiologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists." He also claimed Gould "is giving nonbiologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory." (Both quotes appear in Robert Wright's essay The Accidental Creationist).

Isn't it kind of silly to be descrediting the man without even giving him a fair bio?

Besides, a person who expects accurate science from a pop sci writer may as well expect objectivity from newspaper columnists. ;-)

It may be silly, but I don't think we should exclude information that will be part of a full article just because the rest of the information in the full article has yet to be added. It is best to move from the general to the specific but if the general isn't done yet the specific shouldn't have to wait.

And John Maynard Smith is not a pop sci writer, he is a biologist.

- Tim

Without knowing enough about evolutionary theory to comment definitively, I believe Robert Wright is likelier to be the fringe figure here, not Stephen Jay Gould. A quick assay of Mr. Wright's work on the Web suggests to me a certain, errrr, obsessiveness with Gould that doesn't seem healthy, if you know what I'm saying.

My understanding of Gould is that his work is not solidly in the biological mainstream, but that it's still within the purview of legitimate science. John Maynard Smith I know nothing about, so I will keep quiet there.

A quick look at Wright's work shows his positions lie on fairly shakey ground. For instance, he criticizing Gould for neglecting to notice that there is a general trend from simplicity to complexity in evolution, but this is a trend that is not there. I am not a biologist, but in all the sources I have seen, including many that are not pop sci, it receives no mention with save the occasional refutation. This is decidedly not a mainstream position.

Wright's latest book was praised by Bill Clinton - I don't know if that makes Wright less of a fringe figure. I don't suppose it could make him more of a fringe figure.

A lot more could be said about Gould. His jihad against sociobiology makes him appear quite ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that his opinions are apparently determined by his political (Marxist) views.

- Tim

Bill Clinton isn't an evolutionary biologist either, so I'm not sure what his praise is worth in the matter.

Stephen Jay Gould as a Marxist is a bit surprising to me. The power of historical contingency is a major theme in his popular writing, and his most famous professional work (punctuated equilibrium) too. He's the last person I'd have suspected of being tied to historical determinism.

Claiming that Gould's views are determined by his (alleged) Marxism is a popular theme in Gould-bashing. It comes from a careless metaphorical comparison he made many years ago in a talk on punctuated equilibrium, and is completely baseless.

The article as it's now is ridiculously biased. I would suggest moving the long bashing paragraph to Talk until more content is added where information about the low esteem in which Gould is help by evolutionary biologists can be incorporated in a neutral manner. --AV

It comes from his association and affinity with Richard Lewontin, chairman of Gould's department at Harvard, who claimed "There is nothing in Marx, Lenin, or Mao that is or can be in contradiction with a particular set of phenomena in the objective world."

This shows that Lewontin views science and ideology as separate domains, independent of each other, thereby neatly disproving your own point (and Wilson, who quotes Lewontin with this, says as much). Besides, it says absolutely nothing about Gould. As I wrote, Gould-bashing at its finest. --AV

Or it means that science that seems to contradict Marx, Lenin, or Mao is necessarily wrong. In pratice, this seems to be Lewontin's meaning, as it is the thrust of his opposition to sociobiology. And it does say something about Gould, inasmuch as Gould was clearly in this camp throughout the sociobiology debates.

I'm referring to Gould as the pop sci writer; I've no idea who this smith fellow is, not being a biologist myself. Pointing out that someone who writes on evolution for public consumption may have confused some scientific facts ain't exactly an earth shattering revelation, regardless whether it's true or not. We may as well lament that Isaac Asimov's writings have lacked proper peer review and may be misleading to a lay reader. ;-)

I've moved the passage to this page and reworded it more neutrally without losing its main point (as I take it), that Gould might be wrong about some stuff (oh no!) Calling the guy a communist seems so 1950's, but what the hey, I'll stick that in there too. Maybe we should label all the 'gay' musicians, too? With enough irrelevancies we're sure to find the truth! ;-)

In a discussion of how someone's scientific opinions are shaped by his politics, mentioning his politics is not irrelevent.

The Cambridge Dictionary of Scientists says Stephan Jay Gould was born in 1941. Wikipedia says he was born in 1942. Which is correct? If Wikipedia is wrong, where did this misinformation come from?

Wikipedia also says Gould has been accused of being a Marxist. By whom? On what basis? Where did that information come from?

Above, Tim Shell said, "the fact that his opinions are apparently determined by his political (Marxist) views."

The birth date came from the original article, that was identified as overly biased.

Someone's politics is relevant IF their scientific opinions may have been shaped by; so far, other than the assertion to this regard, no one here has even attempted to make the case that this is true. We should wait for references or more detailed explanations.

Gould's own comment on the matter is that punctuated equilbrium was more Niles' idea than his, and Niles did not share the same political background. If this is indeed the case, than Gould's politics can be held to be fairly irrelevant to his biology.

re: baseball: actually, an entire book of his essays on baseball has just been published.

Some additional comments from a molecular evolutionist (JH Badger, read my papers in Journal of molecular evolution, Molecular Biology and Evolution, etc.)

The idea that "evolutionary biologists" as a group disrepected Gould is simply false. Of course partisians of sociobiology were not fans of Gould, as he harshly criticized their movement. But the vast majority of evolutionary biologists these days have no interest whatsoever in the sociobiological debate, which is far more prominent in the popular scientific literature than it is in serious scientific literature.

In addition, it's worth understanding that the forefront of evolution, like the rest of biology, is strongly molecular, and molecular evolutionists have long established that while natural selection is an important source of evolution, the majority of differences between species at a molecular level are not due to natural selection, but to other sources such as mutational bias and drift. Thus, Gould certainly was correct to question the degree of natural selection at higher levels as well.

Q: is Gould's name taken from Jay Gould, the robber baron? -Litefantastic 18:17, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Badger, does somebody somewhere actually give you a publicly funded tenure to write this Gouldian-style sophistry? After reading carefully through your paragraph, I have concluded that you have honestly said almost nothing at all and what you have said timidly plays with the ashes of Lysenko affectionately, much like Gould himself. Do they have a club where all of you wildly gesturing, gammy-eyed poseurs practice this stuff quietly to launch on an unsuspecting public when it is sufficiently polished? Sir, it is gibberish. (Anonymously contributed by Anonymous User:211.27.137.236, whose contribution can also be enjoyed at Talk:Impact event.)

"Dawkins...strongly advocated [Evolutionary Psychology]"

Can you give a reference for this? --163.1.97.11 18:07, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Re: Kevin MacDonald (1998). Culture of Critique. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-96113-3. p.30-38

I recommend removal of the Kevin B. MacDonald quotes. MacDonald has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "a professor who accuses Jews of devising an immigration policy specifically intended to dilute and weaken the white population of America." He does not represent mainstream evolutionary psychology, and he has been denounced by other evolutionary psychologists. I find his quotes here irrelevant, inflammatory, and offensive to Gould's memory. I'm no Gouldian apologist, either, but a reductionist-gradualist critical of Gould's work.

UPDATE: Removed!

Call for help with quotes

I have been working on greatly extending and improving the Wikiquote article on Gould. As I mention in the talk page there, one of the things we're lacking is more and better contra citations (right now both of the oppositional quotes we have can be traced ultimately to Maynard Smith). If some more Wikipedians can help out, I would be obliged. (I'm presently working my way through Gould's popular literature, and don't have a lot of exposure to other evolutionary biologists other than Dover so I'm not in a good position to do this myself.) 121a0012 15:56, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

Gould's website is down

On a number of articles there are links into a Gould website www.stephenjaygould.org. The website and, therefore, its contents are no more. Is anyone aware of mirrors of his site? Noisy | Talk 19:38, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

archive.org? --Rikurzhen 19:42, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

More on the controversies

One reason for such strong antipathies was that Gould presented his ideas as a revolutionary new way of understanding evolution that relegated adaptationism to a much less important position.

Is there a cite for this? I don't see this in any of Gould's books (of which I have read all but two); indeed, in The Structure of Evolutionary Theory he goes to some length to portray this view of his views as urban legend. (See the Appendix to chapter 9, pp. 972–1024.) He points out that punctuated equilibrium (the target of most of the attacks described in this section) makes no claims about microevolutionary mechanism, as it is a theory about how known microevolutionary processes scale in geological time resulting in macroevolution. As for adaptationism, he reiterates, throughout part II of the Structure, that his claim is only for a greater relative frequency of non-adaptive processes, not that adaptation is unimportant. His denial is specifically of panadaptationism, not of the importance of adaptation generally.

Regarding the attack of Maynard Smith, Gould writes:

Such statements stand in welcome contrast to the frequent grousing of strict Darwinians who often say something like: “but we know all this, and I said so right here in the footnote to page 582 of my 1967 paper; you have stated nothing new; nothing that can alter the practice of the field.“ I will never forget the climactic moment of the Chicago macroevolution meeting [in 1980], when John Maynard Smith rose to make such an ungenerous statement about punctuated equilibrium and macroevolutionary theory in general—and George Oster responded to him, “Yes, John, you may have had the bicycle, but you didn't ride it.” (Structure, p. 1023)

Gould attributes some of the negative reaction to punctuated equilibrium to a culture clash between paleontologists and neontologists (i.e., those who study living populations). The original paper was written for a paleontological audience, and uses words like sudden and rapid which mean something very different to paleontologists than they mean to most people. Some readers (so Gould says) who were unfamiliar with paleontological jargon mistook this to mean that he and Eldredge were making claims for truly saltational evolutionary change, which would be quite a radical notion.

121a0012 03:35, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Experimental Treatment for Abdominal Mesothelioma

Does anyone know what the experimental treatment was to treat Gould's abdominal mesothelioma? Cultofpj 14:19, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Apparently he received a form of the trimodal treatment, which consists of "(1) extra pleural pneumonectomy (removal of lung and lung linings and part of diaphragm, (2) followed by post operative chemo (doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, and cisplatin for 4 to 6 cycles), and (3) radiation therapy (55 Gy)." This information is gathered from [1]. The same source also mentions that he underwent an experimental form of chemotheraphy where the chemicals were applied directly through a tube in his abdomen. Shawn M. O'Hare 18:51 4 November 2005 (GMT)

I added a paragraph about his Gould's medicale marijuana usage. This can be considered part of his experimental treatment. Shawn M. O'Hare

Nonoverlapping Magisteria

Gould also wrote an essay entitled Nonoverlapping Magisteria where he essentially ceded the field of ethics to religion. I'm not sure I can write a properly impartial summary on this, but I do feel strongly that this essay is significant enough that it, and its consequences, deserve some mention here. Is anyone willing to rise up to this challenge? Alienus 20:48, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

More than just that essay; the books Rocks of Ages and The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox, both mentioned in the bibliography, treat the subject in extenso. I would not for a moment say that he "ceded the field of ethics to religion"; rather, he categorically excluded ethics and religion from the domain of science. I don't have the philosophy background to write an unbiased article or section on the topic, so I'm not volunteering, but I agree that it's an important idea and should be treated in more detail. 121a0012 04:54, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for adding that information. I have some of the background, but neither enough familiarity with nor impartiality towards this material to give a neutral description. We've got two people agreeing that the topic deserves a place. Anyone up to writing it? Alienus 19:53, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

More claims of political bias

Gould was not a practicing "socialist"? His attacks on Wilson and EP in general were clearly motivated by his Marxist belief. Gould and his cronies denied a genetic basis of human behavior chiefly because the Marxian dogma that human beings, whilst be a product of evolution as the rest of the animal kings, they are immune from instincts and are products of enviroment, or better yet - social engineering. The very same man who refused to entertain the notions of Creationism because of it's bunk science was guilty of similar chicanery.

I am no fan of McDonald, but I take issue with Wiki for censoring his quote because one person objected to his views on Jews and immigration etc or Morris Dees has.

(the preceding unsigned comment was contributed by anonymous user 66.142.213.73)

To avoid original research, it might help to ground this conclusion in some references. I'm betting that Pinker and Dennett are two people who have written on this, particularly in "How The Mind Works" and "The Blank Slate" (Pinker), and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" (Dennett). Alienus 18:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Of course, such attacks smack of armchair psychoanalysis. I'd consider E.O. Wilson's comments, if he has made any, as more relevant, since he was both the subject of Gould's criticism and a colleague of Gould at Harvard, and might therefore have actual direct knowledge of Gould's politics. (One presumes that the crowd who constantly raise this claim would not seriously consider the opinions of Richard Lewontin, Gould's department chairman and research collaborator, since he definitely is an eeeeeeeeevil Marxist and therefore not to be trusted.)

I would point out, by the way, that 66.142.213.73's claim that "Gould and his cronies denied a genetic basis of human behavior" is flatly false. Gould claimed, rather, that such a basis was trivially true, and therefore uninteresting. There are a number of quotations from Gould's essays which bear this out, available on Wikiquote. 121a0012 01:54, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you claiming that Gould's political beliefs are undocumented or that the idea that they impacted his writing on science is undocumented/suspect? Are you familiar with "Science for the People"? --Rikurzhen 02:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

It appears to be a blog with an ugly pink color scheme. If there's more to it than than, perhaps you should write an article on it.

Gould's political beliefs are not so much undocumented as inconsistently documented; there is more written by other people allegedly about his politics than he himself seems to have written, and even what he wrote was somewhat contradictory. I spent most of the past spring and summer reading Gould's published books and can state with some certainty that he rarely mentions his own political beliefs. (I also came to the conclusion that most of the attacks on Gould that I had seen were the result of not having read what he actually wrote. There are enough scientific and logical issues in his complete theory that there really is no need to invent Marxist conspiracies.) 121a0012 03:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Since you've read through his work recently, would you be willing to add something about nonoverlapping magisteria?

Try a Google search for Gould and "Science for the people". AFAIK, it was a movement/group/magazine(?) that Gould, Lewontin and others founded. They had somewhat regular meetings -- I imagine it would have been similar to the Vienna Circle. I know little more than that. John Carroll has a good essay critque of Gould [2] which points out John Alcock's book -- Alcock, John. The Triumph of Sociobiology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. -- as the source for the claim that Marxism motivated Gould's opinions. --Rikurzhen 08:14, 29 November 2005 (UTC)