sketch of Hawes on Gould

[Chuck Grimes]

In short form, Hawkes' argument comes down to the idea that Gould's
hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium, opens the door to external forces
effecting the evolutionary processes. Hawkes then gives the mass
extinctions caused by an asteroid (K-T event, Alvarez hypothesis) as
such a potential external force and argues that evolutionary theory
has been in trouble making the necessary modifications to a dogma of
gradualism.

``...paleontology testifies that evolutionary stasis is the norm, and
that change takes place in abrupt bursts, as though suddenly spurred
forward by some external stimulus...''

This possibility then argues against Darwin's position that
competition and incremental natural selection was the sole arbiter of
evolution.

Hawkes argues, once the door of external causation is open, it allows
Gould to go beyond Darwin and effect a paradigm shift. Hawkes then
intimates but doesn't quite say, that once that causal door is open,
there is a much bigger problem waiting, which he accuses Gould of
dodging, and that is the re-entrance of metaphysics into the room.

I already know from past e-mail exchanges on Bad and reading his book
that Hawkes wants to go after a purely mechanistic, material, and
reductionist world view---essentially to re-open the doors of the
natural world to a credible examination by philosophy---based roughly
on the idea that being or the non-material can not arise solely from
the material.

That is probably a poor rendition, but it sketches it out. I'll have
to read Gould to find out more and refresh my memory of some of these
arguments.

There are a lot completely material and empirical routes out of these
dilemmas that neither Hawkes or (possibly Gould) has explored. 

Chuck Grime