RE: Gould

[Nick Longrich <nrlongri@midway.uchicago.edu>]

        I went through my idolizing Gould phase (taught me the basics of
evolution). Then I went through a disenchantment with Gould phase, after I
read _The Beak of the Finch_, which talks about how evolution really works
(it's about observing evolution in real time). These days I've swung back
quite a bit as I've come to understand more of his contributions, e.g. his
work with Eldridge on punctuated equilibrium (the observation that for long
periods of time, stuff stays mostly the same, is a pretty important one),
and he's done much to keep people from getting lazy with their adaptive
explanations. But one problem is, I think it's gone a little too far, to
where "adaptationist" is almost a racial slur. Also, some of the
exaptationist stories sin just as much as the adaptationist ones- look at
the kiwi. Supposedly, it's related to the moas, and became reduced in size,
but retained the moa's large egg for reasons unrelated to survival of the
fittest. Well, these days not many people appear to believe that kiwis and
moas are closely related anymore, and there is apparently some work out
there that suggests that unusual population structure of kiwis (saturated
environment because of few predators) made it adaptive to invest as much
resource as possible into one huge egg so that the big chicks can compete
in a highly competitive environment. If we can't find an adaptive
explanation for something, one possibility is it doesn't exist- but maybe
we just aren't being creative enough, or don't have enough of the pieces.
        So to get a balance of perspectives, I'd try some Dawkins (for a
heavily adaptationalist and gradualist or "incrementalist" point of view),
check out Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee for some first-rate
sociobiology (and just about any of his essays in Natural History or
Discover. Diamond is vastly talented), and maybe Dennet's _Darwin's
Dangerous Idea_ which looks at some of the implications of Darwinism.

        Gould and Dawkins are part of a very big fight indeed, but it's
something that goes far beyond personal disagreements. I think it could be
reduced down to determinism vs. free will/contingency but that might be
oversimplifying stuff a bit. It's more complex, but along those lines.
Gould basically dislikes Darwinism, which is why he's constantly writing
about what it can't explain, and pursues the idea that something
fundamentally other than Darwinian natural selection drives evolution. This
may stem from a dislike of the idea that the way the world is, it was
destined to be. Either because it's tantamount to surrendering to fate, or
that it justifies all the terrible things that happen in this world. You
know Wonderful Life, where even the tiniest change can cause massive
changes in outcome? Remember that Gould is (or at least has been, I don't
know what his professed politics are now) a Marxist. It seems to me that a
philosophy of class struggle might much prefer a science that talks about
contingency. If the present order of life is largely a result of accident
rather than underlying constraints and necessities, then perhaps the
present distribution of power and capital are as well- and that bodes well
for the success of progressive and revolutionary movements, no? Whereas if
they represent the probable outcome of highly deterministic processes, our
chances of distributing wealth equitably and setting up a more just and
humane society might greatly decrease.
        Whereas Dawkins, our computer programmer (a world where you punch
in the code and out pop the results in a nice neat orderly fashion), is
very much towards the deterministic pole. For him, everything can be
explained by Darwinism. Not to say that contingency doesn't play a role,
but Darwinism is all you need to explain the order we have- there isn't
something else out there actively driving speciation, or evolution. It's a
pretty stark and cold worldview, to be honest. There's a bit in one of his
latest books where he asks his daughter what flowers are for, and she says
"to look pretty, and for the bees to feed on". Naturally, he says, he was
disappointed to tell her this wasn't the case. One feels a little sorry not
only for this 9-year-old, but for ourselves as well.

anyhow, my 2¢.

-Nick