Posted on 04/09/2002 11:31:41 AM PDT by JediGirl
Stephen Jay Gould, one of the great evolutionary biologists of our time, will publish his "magnum opus", this month, in which he lambasts creationists for deliberately distorting his theories to undermine the teaching of Darwinism in schools.
Professor Gould accuses creationists of having exploited the sometimes bitter dispute between him and his fellow Darwinists to promulgate the myth that the theory of evolution is riven with doubts and is, therefore, just as valid as biblical explanations for life on Earth.
The distinguished professor of zoology at Harvard University, whose 1,400-page book, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, has been 10 years in the writing, was intimately involved with the fight against creationist teaching during the 1970s and 1980s in the American Deep South.
The arguments have resurfaced in Britain after the news that a school in Gateshead has been teaching creationism alongside evolution, arguing both are equal valid viewpoints.
Creationists still use Professor Gould's theory of "punctuated equilibrium" – which argues for the sudden appearance of new species – to support their view that Darwinism is being challenged by some of the leading thinkers in biology.
Although Professor Gould never disputed the central tenet of Darwinism, natural selection, his explanation for how new species might rapidly arise is often presented by creationists as a direct challenge to the scientific orthodoxy at the heart of Darwinism.
Evangelical creationists in particular have argued the universally accepted gaps in the fossil record and the frequent absence of intermediate forms between fossilised species are evidence that evolution cannot fully account for the diversity of life on Earth.
They have used Professor Gould's theory – which proposes long periods of stable "equilibrium" punctuated by sudden changes that are not captured as fossils – as proof that Darwinist "gradualism" was wrong and it should therefore be taught, at the very minimum, alongside creationism in schools.
Stephen Layfield, a science teacher at Emmanuel College in Gateshead, which is at the centre of the row, used the lack of intermediate fossils between ancestral species and their descendants to question Darwinist evolution.
Professor Gould says creationists have unwittingly misinterpreted or deliberately misquoted his work in a manner that would otherwise be laughable, were it not for the impact it can have on the teaching of science in schools.
"Such inane and basically harmless perorations may boil the blood but creationist attempts to use punctuated equilibrium in their campaigns for suppressing the teaching of evolution raise genuine worries," Professor Gould said.
Fundamentalist teaching reached its height in the United States in the early 1920s and culminated in the famous Scopes "monkey" trial in Tennessee in 1925 when John Scopes, a biology teacher, was arrested for teaching evolution in contravention of state law.
A second creationist surge occurred in the US during the 1970s, which led to the "equal time" laws for the teaching of creationism and evolution in the state schools of Arkansas and Louisiana. The rule was overturned in two court cases in 1982 and 1987.
At the same time, Professor Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium was being debated among scientists. With the fellow Darwinist, Niles Eldredge, who cited the unchanging nature of Trilobite fossils in support of the idea, Professor Gould presented the theory at a scientific conference in 1971. A seminal scientific paper followed a year later.
"But I had no premonition about the hubbub that punctuated equilibrium would generate," Professor Gould said. Some "absurdly-hyped popular accounts" proclaimed the death of Darwinism, with punctuated equilibrium as the primary assassin, he says.
"Our theory became the public symbol and stalking horse for all debate within evolutionary theory. Moreover, since popular impression now falsely linked the supposed 'trouble' within evolutionary theory to the rise of creationism, some intemperate colleagues began to blame Eldredge and me for the growing strength of creationism.
"Thus, we stood falsely accused by some colleagues both for dishonestly exaggerating our theory to proclaim the death of Darwin (presumably for our own cynical quest for fame), and for unwittingly fostering the scourge of creationism as well," he said.
Not every scientist, however, would agree that Professor Gould was innocent in the dispute, which was exploited by evangelical creationists.
What was essentially an arcane argument between consenting academics soon became a public schism between Gould and his Darwinist rivals, whose position was best articulated by the Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins.
At its most simplistic, the idea of punctuated equilibrium was presented as an alternative to the "gradualism" of traditional Darwinism. Rather than species evolving gradually, mutation by mutation, over a long period of time, Professor Gould argued they arose within a period of tens of thousands rather than tens of millions of years – a blink of the eye in geological terms.
Professor Dawkins savaged the Gould-Eldredge idea, arguing gaps in the fossil record could be explained by evolutionary change occurring in a different place from where most fossils were found. In any case, Dawkins said, we would need an extraordinarily rich fossil record to track evolutionary change.
Gould and Eldredge could have made that point themselves, he said. "But no, instead they chose, especially in their later writings, in which they were eagerly followed by journalists, to sell their ideas as being radically opposed to Darwin's and opposed to the neo-Darwinian synthesis," Dawkins writes in his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker.
"They did this by emphasising the 'gradualism' of the Darwinian view of evolution as opposed to the sudden 'jerky', sporadic 'punctuationism' of their own ... The fact is that, in the fullest and most serious sense, Eldredge and Gould are really just as gradualist as Darwin or any of his followers," Professor Dawkins wrote.
The subtleties of the dispute were, however, lost on commentators outside the rarefied field of evolutionary theory.
It was certainly lost on many creationists who just revelled in the vitriolic spat between the leading Darwinists. (The dispute was so vitriolic it became personal – in his book, Gould relegates his critics to a section titled "The Wages of Jealousy".)
Richard Fortey, the Collier Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Bristol University, says Professors Gould and Dawkins are closer than many people realise.
With some of Britain's leading scientists and theologians writing to the Prime Minister to voice their concerns about the teaching of creationism, the issue has come to the fore.
"It's absurd we are now facing this creationist threat," Professor Fortey said. "It's a debate that belongs to the 1840s. Evolution is not just a theory, it's as much of a fact as the existence of the solar system."
Was this software the result of Intelligent Design, or random processes?
If you're looking for "evolution," why write software? Why not just throw a floppy in the swimming pool a few thousand times? Or bake it in the sun?
I suspect you're not distinguishing between "process" and "evolution," two quite different ideas with SOME shared characteristics.
"Scientist"? Gould's and your beliefs in the religion of evolution require every bit as much faith as a belief in creation.
Regardless, if you really thought the Creator would or should be off-topic in a thread entitled "Gould Strikes Back At Creationists," you set yourself on the course to disappointment.
I'll decide what has a place in my posts on any given thread. Thanks just the same. I haven't told you to keep your ideas to yourself; I shouldn't have to expect any less from you.
Please identify the "intelligent design" aspects (yes, there are some) verses what can be found in nature.
Obviously, my limiting the population to 200 for each generation and forcing each pair to product two children were ID choices. My computer may have lots of RAM, but I have to place some limits.
Oh, and I obviously messed up with the step numbering when I was typing the algorithm, but the error should be apparent.
Maybe so, but it's exactly as much faith, and the same kind, as I need for any other kind of science. You know, examining evidence, making a guess, reasoning as though the guess were true, testing the same, over and over.
Q: How much faith does it take to believe that of all the species of mammal, five (human, chimp, gorilla, et al) share the exact same mutation (that prevents synthesis of ascorbic acid)?
A: As much as it does to believe that the speed of light is 186000 mps, or that an electron weighs about 1/1800 as much as a proton; I have no reason to doubt the general accuracy of peer-reviewed work.
Q: Given the above fact, how much faith is involved in deducing that the five species of ape (including us) share an ancesor?
A: Nothing beyond Occam's razor; inheritence in the normal way expains it perfectly. Otherwise you have to postulate a way of sharing genetic material that was working a few million years ago, but can't be observed now, and also have to try to try to explain why this 'designer' worked within the bounds of Darwinian theory.
So you rule out the possibility that evolution is the method whereby God created all life on Earth?
You have more scientific data than I, or a strong religious conviction upon which to rely.
I have no ax to grind or loyalty to any scientist or theory. I just use what works to accomplish tasks that I am assigned.
The theory of evolution has helped me today and has a practical application.
Frankly, I could not care less if Gould if a fake or not. I just want results when applying concepts in the real world.
Once again, if you have a better idea that can be applied, I will be the very first to applaud you.
Unfortunatly, telling me that God waved a magic wand and made things happen does not help me one bit in solving my software problems. Explain how God did it, and you have my absolute attention!
Now, I guess I'm free to pick and choose, a.k.a. Cafeteria Christianity (believe what sounds good, dismiss what doesn't).
Thanks. It feels much better this way.
Now, how about that "virgin" Mary stuff and this "resurrection from the 'dead' (that was a hoot, eh?!)," what's up with... whoops, I sense I'm straying off-topic, and that's definitely not allowed on this thread (or, so I've been told)... Oh, I know: those ignorant, young-earth Creationists believe in that so-called "worldwide flood" to explain the fossils. Scientists, as you know, have proven -- yes, proven -- they're millions of years old. That's like, cool, huh?
I read some of his books (Pandas Thumb, Hens Teeth) years ago, and thought they were fine **when he stuck to natural history**. A lot of his essays on the history of science, etc, leave me cold.
I really don't know. What does seem clear is that natural selection, without miracles, suffices once life gets going.
Assuming that's true, it proves... what?
and also have to try to try to explain why this 'designer' worked within the bounds of Darwinian theory.
I'd quote a verse or two here but, I'd get a tongue-lashin' from theys that don't take to "preachin'" in these parts. 'Sides, that's just plain foolishness t'you high-falootin' scienteests who gots a answer to everthin.
Extremely.
The geologic record has nothing to with evolution. What has to do with evolution is whether the fossil record shows the gradual transformation of species into more complex ones. The fossil record shows no such thing and is therefore proof against evolution. That is the reason why Gould violently attacked gradual evolution, he knew it was a lost cause.
It's still a directed process designed by an intelligent mind with a highly specific end-target in mind, in an environment that rewards change rather than stasis (unlike nature)and no intervening threats of lethality. How many generations would it take to produce a program that would cause the cameras to take wing and fly around Comerica Park? If this is "evolution," such an outcome SHOULD BE CONCEIVABLE, even if it took a trillion generations, but is it?
Your program (I'm not knocking it,it DOES sound fascinating) is similar to dog or rose breeders. There is significant manipulation that can be had through mixing and matching the elements of the designated "universe" of the genetic material, but dog breeders are not going to come out with a flying dog or a rose with grapefruits on its stems. And this is in a CONTROLLED, FOCUSED process. In undirected nature, there is the huge problem of massive lethality from almost every quarter to disrupt the process (making "transitionals" extremely and particularly vulnerable).
That's an ideological, not scientific, statement of faith.
It is not a lie to repeat the words someone has said. It is not a lie to use the words which caused Gould's split with the Darwinians against the Darwinians. Seems the evolutionists think that they can lie all they want but no one is allowed to call them on what they say. Well, the best evidence is that provided by the opposition, and Gould's remarks on the fossil record are diamonds for those who wish to show up evolutionism for what it is - an atheist hoax.
"I dont know" is the honest answer of an ethical scientist.
The remainder of your statement is an untethered baloon.
And that is fine, what may seem to be or not to be is fertile ground for untethered speculative baloons, all well and good.
It is the false assertion of utter certitude excluding the possibility of the existence of God based upon our miniscule (albeit impressive from where I stand) comprehension of the grandeur of our universe that is the very height of bestial hypocracy.
It amusees me no end to hear occupants of the most respected heights of the scientific community hold forth their views on God and reveal kind of ignorance one might expect of a drooling idiot.
Only a fool rules out that which cannot be proven or disproven, leave science to science and let it be mute with respect to religion.
Why? How would that address the issue I raised?
Let me spell it out again: We share a genetic disease with the rest of the great apes. To me, that's very strong indication of common descent. It's also confirmation Darwinian evolution: a prediction was made on anatomical grounds that people and chimps are related. Now it's seen we carry the exact same mutation. That is evidence of relatedness.
What is it to you? A five-fold coincidence? A miracle? Were you on the OJ jury? (rhetorically speaking)
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