But SoET was written in the last 10 years, yes? (its easy to suggest that I check SoET ;-) but the thing, IIRC, is 10000 pages long, and frankly, much as I respect Gould, I wouldn't turn to it as my most reliable source of evolutionary theory).
I was talking about the rough general consensus (until recently) on the unit of selection (with various caveats, I am sure, but none that placed species level selection as the most significant), and the source of any alternate viewpoints.
I am glossing over details, certainly: for instance, Hamilton did some significant work to demonstrate inclusive fitness (arguably wrongly restated as "kin selection" by Maynard Smith, Dawkins et al), the finding that inspired Maynard Smith (and George C. Williams?), back in the 60s or 70s to work out the mathematical model for general group selection... which he/they found could play a part only in very particular and unlikely conditions.
Fast forward to the next decade after that and you can read the first attempts to come up with a different version of the action of group selection ("trait selection", which you could argue is an extension or variation of inclusive fitness theory), worked out by D.S.Wilson [partly] expressed elegantly in the book "Unto Others" co-authored with the philosopher Elliott Sober. Nevertheless, AFAIK, group selection (or multi-level selection theory) is a minority position (if you leave out inclusive fitness).
Here are Dawkins and Jerry Coyne on the current situation:
> Evolutionists agree that natural selection usually acts on genes in
> organisms - individuals carrying genes that give them a reproductive
> or survival advantage over others will leave more descendants,
> gradually changing the genetic composition of a species. This is
> called "individual selection". But some evolutionists have proposed
> that selection can act at higher levels as well: on populations
> (group selection), or even on species themselves (species
> selection). The relative importance of individual versus these
> higher order forms of selection is a topic of lively debate.
And Gould, in 1980, criticising Dawkins' Selfish Gene, starts out:
> “Yet, just as individual selection emerged relatively unscarred
> after its battle with group selection from above, other
> evolutionists launched an attack from below. Genes, they argue, not
> individuals are the units of selection."
and goes on:
> No matter how much power Dawkins wishes to assign to genes, there is
> one thing he cannot give them — discrete visibility to natural
> selection. Selection simply cannot see genes and pick among them
> directly. It must use bodies as an intermediary. A gene is a bit of
> DNA hidden within a cell. Selection views bodies. It favors some
> bodies because they are stronger, better insulated, earlier in their
> sexual maturation, fiercer in combat, or more beautiful to behold.
Here is D.S. Wilson and E.O. Wilson's earth-shattering ;-) collaboration on "Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology":
> Current sociobiology is in theoretical disarray, with a diversity of
> frameworks that are poorly related to each other. Part of the
> problem is a reluctance to revisit the pivotal events that took
> place during the 1960s, including the rejection of group selection
> and the development of alternative theoretical frameworks to explain
> the evolution of cooperative and altruistic behaviors. In this
> article, we take a “back to basics” approach, explaining what group
> selection is, why its rejection was regarded as so important, and
> how it has been revived based on a more careful formulation and
> subsequent research. Multilevel selection theory (including group
> selection) provides an elegant theoretical foundation for
> sociobiology in the future, once its turbulent past is appropriately
> understood.
You can point to Wynne-Edwards, Hamilton, perhaps even Robert Trivers for advancing this or that notion of selection acting at a level above the individual, but Gould (and punctuated equilibrium) as the source? I seriously question that. There was strong opposition to genic selection from Gould along with the usual suspects (Lewontin, Levins) ;-), perhaps even Wilson, reflecting Mayr's unity of the genotype at the higher level of unity of the Harvard biology department ;-), but again, the banner was the unity of the genotype (not the species), and was a fight against 'beanbag genetics'. I could be wrong -- I am no historian of Biology.
--ravi