an old paper by ernst mayr (i think in the 70's, in science) argued basically that the neodarwinian synthesis really did not exclude punctuated equilibrium---gradualism and rapid change both could be accomodated in the theory. Gould it seemed to me was really marketing or branding his approach, to make it look more important an advance than it was. However, because incrementalism for many was taken to be dogma, maybe his 'aggresive' marketing campaign was neccesary to get heard. More recently many mathematical models make punctuaTEd equilibrium quite plausible for many simple genetic models. This idea is similar to mathematical chaos (ie apparently random behavior of deterministic systems) which previously was thought to be nonexistant or uncommon (with the view that the Newtonian universe was clocklike---it can be seen that way, but like real clocks they eventually accumulate small errors that diverge to infinity, and hence are apparently random.
Even planetary motions often are chaotic over long periods of times).
I thought that 'species selection' was gould's most interesting idea because that seems to really stretch evolutionary theory conceptually outside the way its usual way of thinking, of acting on individuals, or groups. Its possible to conceive of that in the usual gene-based terms, but its a stretch (to me). My impression is Gould really did not enter or give justice to group selection controversies/arguments, even though he did write on units of selection. He seemed to stay out of that debate (possibly because it was heated, between d s wilson and dawkins, williams, etc.)
Lewontin said in NYRB that he had fired Rashevsky at U Chicago in the 60's and also that Rashevsy's work (in math biol) has had zero impact on the literature. That I think shows lewontin's limitations. Rashevsky pretty much was a pioneer in what is now called complexity theory, and even cultural evolutionary theory, systems biology and evolutionary game theory. He has math models in the 50's which use an older notation but conceptually are similar to what is state of the art (including I gather ones done by authors who are mentioned in Kenneally's book). Lewontin is a molecular biologist essentially and isn't really into the big picture, and even stifles it a bit (as was done by Cjhomsky for language evolution). (While he doesn't acknowledge rashevsky---who was pretty out there at times---i did see lewontin a few years ago and he seemed to have relaxed a bit, saying actually biology, and science, is what biologists and scientists do, so today
that might incklude rashevsky).
I think it can also be pointed out that while Mismeasure of man by gould and lewontin is a classic, it hasn't made much of a dent in behavior genetics research, and is in need of updating if that is possible. (The factor analyses discussion i think is a classic, even if it might need updating.) They emphasized gene-environment interactions, but the math involved in that, and experimental designs to test for it, is very difficult (if even possible) and so is its infancy. They really didn't develop their critique into a powerful form. Lewontin's Not in Our Genes had one equation basically saying you have 3 terms (genes, environment, and interaction) and left it at that; just saying this refutes all behavior genetic studies. It doesn't cut it.
--- On Sat, 7/11/09, Chuck Grimes <cgrimes at rawbw.com> wrote:
> From: Chuck Grimes <cgrimes at rawbw.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] More on Kenneally
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Saturday, July 11, 2009, 6:00 PM
> Chuck, have you read Gould's The
> Str5ucture of Evolutionary Historey?
> Have you read the various reviews in NYRB by Gould,
> Lewontin, & other
> biologists. Have you read several critiques of
> evolutionary
> psychology? Carrol
>
> -----------
>
> I've read though several sections of Gould's SEH, but not
> cover to
> cover because it was too long and too wordy. So I use it
> like a
> reference text to consult. I've also read about half a
> dozen of
> Gould's other books over the years. I've spent hours and
> hours talking
> with my former in-laws who were experts and professors in
> co-evolution
> of plants and their pollenators, and read through many of
> their
> technical papers. Their husband and wife team published
> several
> journal pieces a year for something like twenty or more
> years on
> evolution and co-evolution studies.
>
> When I gave some of my favorite Gould books to Herbert my
> father-in-law to read for Christmas we discussed the
> problem with
> punctuated equilibrium versus incrementalism. The finesse
> of H's work
> in the co-evolution of the biochemistry of diet and food
> sources,
> between pollenators and their associated plants argues for
> incrementalism as opposed to punctuated equilibrium. So
> Gould had a
> controversial position with established bio-science
> evolutionary
> studies. Gould's humor and popular style gave a lot of
> bio-science
> types the willies. A fair number of the older generation
> like H,
> suspected Gould might be something of a fraud, too much
> showmanship,
> not enough science.
>
> Carrol I understand many details about evolutionary
> biology, down to
> the metabolic pathways, physiological and anatomical
> details of
> several species of plants and animals and their habitats.
> Dude I have
> been there and done some of this. I know what is
> specifically involved
> in these kinds of studies, and how to analyze their
> conclusions,
> materials, methods, and discussions. I know how to take a
> very narrow
> topic in biology and track its bibliographic history
> through the major
> associated journals, collate the material and figure out
> the state of
> knowledge and the possible potential direction for new
> research. I was
> lucky enough to get a low wage tech job doing this sort of
> thing at
> UCB Koshland in the Plant and Microbial Biology Department
> for three
> years.
>
> So stop with this fraud business.
> Or, if you want to insist there is something fraudulant
> about
> Kenneally, then start acting like a scholar and explain
> exactly what
> you mean and then demonstrate it. Hand waving and name
> calling is no
> argument and no demonstration. If you don't want to do
> that, then give
> me a link to read something written by somebody who has
> demonstrated
> what you claim.
>
> Let's get to how I think Gould would put down a lot of the
> work
> Kenneally is briefly reviewing. Gould's primary
> contribution to
> evolutionary work was to propose a punctuated equilibrium
> theory that
> evolution through natural selection proceeds in a cycle
> from stable
> slow plateaus then sudden jumps of great activity, then
> back to a
> semi-equilibrium and low levels of incrementalism.
>
> If I think about some of the evolutionary linguistics and
> allied
> studies in bio-sciences, these look very much like
> incrementalist
> theories that depend on small steps of finely nuanced
> changes under a
> natural selection regime. Where Gould and Chompsky might be
> in accord,
> is that incrementalism does not account for the spectacular
> difference
> between humans and other animals, between language and
> culture we
> have, and the merely social communication systems and
> allied learning
> that all other animals have. This difference implies that
> something
> sudden, unique, and destablized happened in our
> evolutionary
> history. Gould was against almost any form of
> incrementalism on
> principle---well because he was at war with established
> thought.
>
> Now, so far Kenneally hasn't developed the differences in
> evolution
> theory schools and their side of the picture. Perhaps that
> will turn
> out to be a critical flaw in much of the recent social
> science
> dabbling with biology. But I am not committed to either PE
> or
> Incrementalism. My theory says these are not in opposition
> nor are
> they mutually exclusive. In Nature anything that can
> happen, will
> happen.
>
> So to summarize the way I look at this whole topic. The
> hominid line
> co-evolved with their social, psychological, linguistic,
> cultural (or
> symbolic systems) and their associated phenotypic anatomy
> and
> physiology. This co-evolutionary process was characterized
> by both
> schools of evolution, at some periods by jumbs or PE and at
> other
> times by incrementalism. There maybe only a distantly
> related genetic
> basis for much of these developments because our
> psycho-social
> cultural-language complex can evolve on its own without
> much genetic
> change in DNA sequences or with very little measurable
> differences in
> say skull morphology or artifactual remains in the
> archaeological
> record.
>
> One of the deepest problems with Gould's PE hypothesis was
> that he
> gave very little account of the external or environmental
> or causal
> side of why PE might happen. Dawkins on the other hand
> exploits this
> weakness by insisting on a gene-only reductionist
> arguments.
> So I did your homework. Here is a link to that whole other
> side that
> Kenneally hasn't dealt with:
> http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/gould/commentary/thurtle.html
>
> ``DNA is important for Dawkins, however. Well, at least the
> idea of
> DNA. Dawkins isn't interested in actual DNA sequence or DNA
> folding or
> protein DNA interactions; he is interested in the idea of
> the DNA as
> linear binary code. This allows Dawkins to make the leap
> from gene as
> material entity to gene as information. In Dawkins'
> writings the DNA
> is the digital information `river' that programs the messy
> analogue
> world that we inhabit. "Success in evolution is building
> programs that
> don't crash [...] The best way to look at an individual
> animal is as a
> robot survival machine carrying around its own building
> program."5
>
> Gould's hyphenated modifier, `hyper', refers to Dawkins'
> explanations
> of evolutionary theory using the smallest possible units of
> analysis
> and for his single minded reliance on the theory of
> natural
> selection.6 Although some of his later books layered rich
> interpretations over his `selfish gene' argument, Dawkins'
> established
> his modus operandi early: explanatory power through
> reduction. As even
> his friend and admirer the philosopher Daniel Dennett has
> noted
> ``[s]ome people object to Dawkins as being what I now call
> a greedy
> reductionist--that is, they think he's vastly
> oversimplifying, trying
> to get the job done with too few levels of explanation.
> Even though
> some version of that objection may be true, it's not a big
> deal. [...]
> Dawkins is not wrong--he's just been too optimistic
> sometimes.''7
>
> As the debates documented in the `G Files' testify, Stephen
> Jay
> Gould's modus operandi is the scholarly antithesis to
> Dawkins:
> explanatory power through synthesis. True to the modifier
> `pluralist,'
> he has embraced a number of intellectual traditions in his
> efforts to
> broaden our understanding of evolutionary mechanisms. For
> example,
> Gould relies heavily on multidisciplinary analysis,
> personal anecdote,
> and historical and literary references in his writing.
> Gould's use of
> history is especially sophisticated. He not only recognizes
> current
> historical methods and issues; he has contributed solid
> scholarship in
> the history of biology. Where Dawkins looks toward the
> computer
> sciences for inspiration, Gould turns toward literature and
> history.
>
> Although Gould recognizes the primary importance of natural
> selection
> in evolution, he has lobbied freely and eloquently for
> complicating
> simple accounts of natural selection. He has supplemented
> the
> customary argument that populations gradually gain in
> adaptive fitness
> through competition with bold complications and detailed
> exceptions. The complications appear under three main
> themes: offering
> exceptions to the account of evolution as gradual
> cumulative change
> (evolution as progress), pointing to the importance of
> historical
> contingency (thus leaving room for catastrophic climatic
> changes, such
> as the impact of a large comet), and establishing the
> importance of
> non-adaptive side consequences of variation (biological
> structures
> that constrain function even though they were not
> specifically
> selected for)....''
>
> So to conclude. I don't recommend you read this book,
> unless you want to. But in the mean time, let's allow others
> to discuss these issues and works
> with some open minds.
>
> CG
>
>
>
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