Re: Book recommendation

From: Anon. (bob.ohara_at_NOSPAM.helsinki.fi)
Date: 03/03/05 

Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 16:35:23 -0500 (EST)

Larry Moran wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 23:01:19 -0500 (EST),
> name_and_address_supplied@hotmail.com
> <name_and_address_supplied@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>
>>Yes, Gould opposed evolutionary psychology. I'm not a fan myself. Yes,
>>Cosmides and Tooby are evolutionary psychologists. Yes, this is almost
>>certainly what motivated this review. But, still, their discussion of
>>Gould's place in evolutionary biology is, in my experience,
>>representative of the consensus view of the field. Cosmides and Tooby
>>quote Maynard Smith on Gould, and even if you ignore the remainder of
>>the essay on the basis that it comes from crack-pot evolutionary
>>psychologists, you still have JMS's remarks, which are unequivocal:
>>
>>"Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by
>>non-biologists 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."
>>
>>and
>>
>>"[Gould] is giving non-biologists a largely false picture of the state
>>of evolutionary theory"
>>
>>and the late Ernst Mayr, on Gould and his cronies:
>>
>>"[they] quite conspicuously misrepresent the views of [biology's]
>>leading spokesmen."
>>
>>I've lifted these straight from the essay. It is definitely worth a
>>read.
>
>
> There are two separate issues here.
>
And I'm afraid I'm going to come across as being rather partisan, but
this is in response to Larry's comments which are similarly partisan.
So, in the interests of full disclosure, I am naturally inclined towards
the British school of evolutionary biology that grew from the likes of
Fisher and Haldane being (a) British, and (b) numerate.

> 1. Is Gould mostly correct when it comes to evolutionary theory?
> 2. Do the majority of evolutionary biologists appreciate the
> contributions that Gould made?
>
> As far as I'm concerned the answer to the first question is "yes."
>
I would give a different very different answer to the first question,
and this then implies a different answer to the second.

I Gould pretty much irrelevant to my work as in evolutionary biology,
and hence would not view his representation as correct. I can't recall
ever having seen any scientific discussion of his ideas outside of the
time he visited Helsinki.

It may be that his ideas are considered more seriously in the evo-devo
or paleontology fields, but I don't inhabit either of them.

> The second question is more difficult. It's clear that John Maynard Smith
> never understood the points that Gould was making and neither does his
> friend Richard Dawkins.

I'm intruigued to see your evidence in this regard (especially with
regards to JMS).

It's no suprise that these Ultra-Darwinians mostly
> talk to people who agree with them. It's no suprise that those other
> evolutionary biologists also have difficulty understanding Gould's ideas.
> (As a group the Ultra-Darwinians consistently misrepresent and distort Gould.
> Daniel Dennett has been completely bamboozled by them.)
>
> However, I note that any discussion of modern evolutionary theory now
> includes a debate about adaptionism, the pros and cons of punctuated
> equilibria, the relevance of hierarchical theory, the importance of
> contingency, the role of ontogeny and development, and the illusion of
> progress. That's not a bad legacy for someone whose "ideas are so confused as
> to be hardly worth bothering with."
>
Strange. Not one of these is in the index of Fichard Fortey's "Life: An
Unauthorised Biography". Are you suggesting then thart this is not a
discussion of modern evolutionary theory? Some (but not all) get into
his book on trilobites (entitled "Trilobite!"). It may be that these
issues are discussed in the US, but I'm not aware of them being
important over here - indeed, I don't even know what you mean by
"hierarchical theory".

> Are there any objective measures? Perhaps. I looked at the list of
> references in the back of Futuyma's textbook. There are 16 with Gould as
> first author, 19 for Maynard Smith, and 17 for Mayr. (Dawkins has 3.) Why
> would there be 16 references to Gould if he's really giving everyone a false
> image of the state of evolutionary theory?
>
Because he's a fairly easy read, so is worth citing in a textbook, on
those occasions when he says something correct? It might be interesting
to make a similar survey of journals such as Evolution, TREE and J.
Evol. Biol., and see how often Gould, Maynard Smith, Mayr and Dawkins
are cited.

Bob 

-- 
Bob O'Hara
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 68 (Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2b)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
Telephone: +358-9-191 51479
Mobile: +358 50 599 0540
Fax:  +358-9-191 51400
WWW:  http://www.RNI.Helsinki.FI/~boh/
Journal of Negative Results - EEB: www.jnr-eeb.org