But he is specifically rebutting Gould and Clive Bradley's (who as far as I can tell is not a scientist, but just a socialist *thinker*) claim that he thought that non-gradual evolution was heresy because of Dawkin's political beliefs..
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How the above can be interpreted as anything BUT a refutation of Gould and Bradley's specific allegation that Dawkins based The Selfish Gene on politics rather than science is beyond me.It is called a straw man argument. Clive's or Gould's quoted text in Dawkin's article is this in context.
| Moreover, in the course of this very full reply, I quote the First Edition of The Selfish Gene as making precisely the same points, in detail, as Gould himself was later to make. Not only is Bradley happy to endorse Gould's criticism of The Selfish Gene without bothering to read the book himself; it appears that Gould didn't read it either. Ah well, why bother to read a book, if the title alone tells you it must be the sort of book you disapprove of on political grounds? "Dawkins considers this [non gradual evolution] heresy…" No I don't (least of all "because it has a political dimension." If anything, politics might make me approve it, but the point is irrelevant because nature irritatingly neglects her Aesopian social responsibility to provide political allegories for the benefit of Homo sapiens). In The Blind Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable, I distinguish two kinds of non-gradual evolution, which I call (for reasons explained there) Boeing 747 and Stretched-DC8 evolution. 747 evolution is heresy by any secular standards (it amounts to sudden complex adaptive innovation, as if springing straight from the mind of God). DC8 evolution (sudden changes of large magnitude which do not include increases in adaptive complexity) is not heresy. It probably occurs from time to time. |
You will notice that the quotation, which I have highlighted and underlined, does not mention politics. The only conclusion I can make is that Dawkins left it out, if it was even there, yet he apparently adds "[non gradual evolution]". Why would he do that when it would be relevant to his argument to include the explicit mention of politics. No, he creates the politics argument along with his Ad Hominem attack here...Not only is Bradley happy to endorse Gould's criticism of The Selfish Gene without bothering to read the book himself; it appears that Gould didn't read it either.
"It is called a straw man argument."
It isn't. If you read Bradley's article which provoked the response by Dawkins, you will see that Bradley clearly implied that Dawkins was being influenced by his politics, which he thinks is right-wing. For instance, he says,
"Although, characteristically, Dawkins denies any meaningful political component to this debate, he and Dennett are explicitly opposed to Gould's view because it has a political dimension - i.e., that evolution itself follows a revolutionary, rather than gradualist, pattern."
He also links him to Tories,
"Partly for this reason, and partly because he is a skilful and readable writer, the Tories gave him the job of chief public educator on scientific matters."
to right-wing ideas,
"Nevertheless, the argument from The Selfish Gene runs through Dawkins' work, and he is a point of reference for broadly right-wing thought, including for example the philosopher Daniel Dennett, whose Darwin's Dangerous Idea is virtually a companion volume."
and to anti-socialist thought,
"The underlying thought, and certainly the use to which the theory is put, is that we are vehicles for fundamentally, implacably self-serving molecules. If the molecules are selfish, so are we - biologically, naturally, irremediably. Social organisation is an evolutionary accident, or arises only from some reproductive imperative. It is a world view in which socialism, plainly, is a utopian ideal. Dawkins et al explicitly refute the notion that the theory should be taken to have any ethical ramifications. But of course it does, ethical and beyond."
Dawkins was writing to an audience he assumed would have read or at least had access to Bradley's earlier article.
Here is the link to the Clive Bradley article;
http://archive.workersliberty.org/wlmags/wl59/clive.htm And I still don't know what any of this has to do with evolution (the biological theory) being the basis of Marxism.