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."
Based on your strict interpretation of the bible, I assume you are a 6K year old universe person. Answer these queries or I will think you are a total crackpot like Gore3K.
1) Explain how the photons of light from millions of light years away are hitting my eyes when I look at the Andromeda Galaxy.
2) If the Earth is only 6,000 years old, find me a fossilized Rottweiller, Great Dane, Bull Dog, Pug, etc... Because man bread the hundreds(thousands?) of different varieties of dogs within the past 2 thousand years, where are all of those breads in the fossil records? Since some of those breads have existed for 1/3 of the total age of the universe there should be some found under layers upon layers of sediment.
3) Where did Cain's wife come from in Genisis 4:17? And what of the origins of her people?
Not exactly. The claim is that there was a single female who occurs in everyone's ancestral tree. It's a simple cladistic artifact. -dr stochastic-
Nice attempt at obfuscation, but it does nothing for your side. If man had descended from a prior species there would have had to be numerous males and females able to mate with each other to produce the new species. The one "Eve" totally disproves atheistic evolution's primary premise - that man is a descendant far removed of one celled organisms.
I think we can agree that, while quite functional in academe, and talented enough as a writer to be a frequent dilletente d'jour among the syncophantic self aggrandizement set, the gouldster's cranuim is rather a tedius organ.
Save the ego therein contained, now, this massive conviction in personal grandeur defies the descriptive capacity of mere words.
You got the point! Amazing! Yes, to be an evolutionist you have to reject the Bible. To be an evolutionist you have to reject the Word of God.
Now with this I could hardly more profoundly disagree.
It is my best understanding that evolution was the process whereby the Almighty created me.
Yes, it could be other things, I will not presume certitude, it is simply the most consistent answer I can find.
Sounds like a missle homing problem. Try those algorithms.
There's quite a few problems with the statement above.
1. Christians are not screaming about anyone going to hell if you do not believe how they do. They are pointing out to you that you are rejecting Christianity. Now if you do not like to hear the truth, that is your problem. If your conscience bother's you, do not blame others.
2. Evolutionists always call their opponents crazy. In this thread, the article itself started those attacks - and the evolutionists on the thread continued them.
3. Some evolutionists here, who are definitely atheists, keep trying to pass off evolution as no threat to religion while attacking religion and religious people visciously. This is blatant hypocrisy, blatant dishonesty and needs to be pointed out so that others will not be misled into believing they can make a pact with the devil and not lose their soul.
4. The evolutionists keep using any excuse to avoid engaging in a discussion of the scientific facts behind the question. Your post is such an evasion. If you wanted to, you could have instead given proof for your side, no one is stopping you.
For the Creationists that have totally failed to respond, the missle has hit it's target!
So would you care to share with us this great knowledge that has been imparted to you by the pompous ass? Care to share with us the great and fantastic proof of evolution he has given you that will silence all opposition?
No, they were not interested in solving your personal problems. I answered to end the harangue.
1. Natural selection is based on the discredited chicken-little theory of Malthus that we would all be starving in a short time if we did not kill each other off.
2. The earth's bounty is tremendous. There are far more plants and food to be eaten than those to eat it.
3. Although according to natural selection, species that do not advance are supposed to be replaced with more advanced species, we still see living, growing, breathing and reproducing all kinds of species from the simplest one celled creatures to the most advanced - man living side by side and not killing each other off.
4. No species has ever been known to transform itself into a more advanced species. Now this, though you will deny it, is very strong proof against natural selection. A scientific theory rests on evidence, and selection has no evidence to support it, none at all.
You claim to believe the bible word for word, so why do you accept this 50,000 year old evidence(it's actually 200,000 years but you do not do any research). I thought he bible but the age at around 6,000 years?
Do you not believe in the bible?
The above statement is absolutely false even though it is endlessly repeated by evolutionists. Christians do not "presume" to know how God brought about creation, they just take the Lord at his Word - the Bible.
How can you call yourself a Christian if you reject the Bible, the Word of God?
What a pile of dung! What great scientific achievements has evolution wrought? None at all. In fact, if science had followed Darwin we never would have discovered genes, we never would have discovered DNA, we never would have discovered the interrelationships within the human body because according to Darwinian theory there is no such things as genes, DNA or interrelationships within the body, they make evolution too impossible. A nice dumb theory that traits merge and are easily passed on from generation to generation is what evolution requires. Luckily for humanity, real scienitists did not listen to the charlatan Darwin.
What a load of crap! The evolutionists are often so incredibly deluded with their bizarre theories, that "in their minds, they are trouncing everyone."
One such intellectual idiot, Professor Fortey ("Evolution is not just a theory, it's as much of a fact as the existence of the solar system.") is a perfect example.
I agree with you though that many are die-hard evolutionists solely as an excuse to ignore God and that a faith-like belief in evolution is responsible for most of the last century's suffering.
I am also coming to conclude that the description of the creation in Genesis -- that God created Man (and the rest of life) directly -- is the correct explanation.
But I'm not going to discount evolution and if it should be established without doubt -- which it in no way has been -- I will believe it and my faith will not be affected.
There's no attempt at obfuscation. If you don't understand cladistics, there are several texts and at least two refereed journals. I made no reference to prior species. You made that up. One "Eve" is a consequence of the tree structure. I made no reference to one-celled organisms. You made that up.
In the future, please respond to what's posted without making up things that aren't there.
No, they were not interested in solving your personal problems. I answered to end the harangue.
They did not answer because the could not.
And that is the tragedy of this subject.
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