Would Gould Have Signed the Steves List?

Give it a few years and we'll have creationist/ID sites claiming that Gould recanted evolution on his death-bed.

"Is this colossal misunderstanding innocent incompetence, or a soviet style paradigm takeover?"

Lysenko ... had the benefit of education, but the peasant style of thought survived the years he spent at the Kiev Agricultural Institute. What he did learn very well---unless it was the gift of his genes---was the art of self-advertisement. ... [T]he young man's masterful way with journalists, his skill at using newspapers to make scientific discoveries of great practical importance, this was not ephemeral. It would be a constant feature of Lysenko's entire career ... The reporter of 1927 confessed that he stared at Lysenko's notebook with ignorant awe. He did not understand the "scientific laws" by which the barefoot scientist had quickly solved his problem, without trial and error. ... He made a primitive error in statistical reasoning, and he paid almost no attention to the lessons learned by previous investigators of this problem. ... Lysenko then revealed another of his chief and lasting characteristics: a total, angry refusal to give any thoughtful consideration to criticism.

Has anyone bothered to see whether this guy "Pivar" exists?

Remember, it's not easy to tell hoaxes from creationism; nor is there much difference, most of the time.

EVEN IF Steven J. Gould did recant evolution, so what? Since when is science about appeal to authority? O'Leary is barking up the wrong tree.

I have solid evidence that if Issac Newton had lived to hear of Darwin's theory of natural selection instead of dying in 1727, he would have abandoned creationism and signed on as an evolution supporter. My evidence is that I think he should have done so, and I once ate a fig newton.

I am sorry, Bayesian Bouffant, but your claim is preposterous. In order to be credible, you must prove you spent week-ends at the beach with Newton, or went skinny-dipping with him at least once.

I am sorry, Bayesian Bouffant, but your claim is preposterous. In order to be credible, you must prove you spent week-ends at the beach with Newton, or went skinny-dipping with him at least once.

Coincidentally, I recently read Gould's Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, which contains several essays on the 'creation science' battles of the 1980s, including Gould's essay, "Evolution as fact and theory". He remarked at how little had changed between the Scopes trial of 1925 and the then current confrontation. Deja vu all over again.

Posted by Bayesian Bouffant, FCD on October 26, 2005 09:24 AM (e) (s)

Coincidentally, I recently read Gould's Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, which contains several essays on the 'creation science' battles of the 1980s, including Gould's essay, "Evolution as fact and theory". He remarked at how little had changed between the Scopes trial of 1925 and the then current confrontation. Deja vu all over again

That last comment made me giggle.
I must try and use it in future.

"Deja vu all over again".

Coined by "Yogi" Berra I think

I note that the "ID the Future" blog is trying to spin this by claiming that Gould argued all sides of the question in his later years. It's sad and rather pathetic to see them try to implicate Gould as irrational, rather than accept the fact that he never would have accepted Pivar's nonsensical statement.

I just read somewhere that Gould recanted evolution on his death-bed.

I certainly believe it, because I once saw Elliott Gould in Hollywood, and he created some great characters (some of them were very intelligent, too).

I would say this is another example of the IDC crowd not being able to distinguish religion and science. Once again they're looking for the 'silver bullet' that will slay Darwinism, and since in religion it's an accepted debating tactic to attack a belief by attacking its founder or a prominent follower of it, then if you can cobble together a case that somehow a prominent 'evolutionist' didn't really believe evolution, then you can sink evolution this way. Further proof that these people well and truly do not have a clue how science proceeds.

And it's all the more pathetic that the IDC folks are reduced here to an argument in the form of "this guy I knew said, like, Gould stayed at his beach house, and he, like, totally didn't believe in natural selection".

What's ever more pathetic is that they'll be exhuming this as 'evidence' against evolution for the next ten years.

It's been over two years since Project Steve was first announced. I find it rather convenient for Pivar's statements, particularly his suggested rewording, to see the light of day NOW rather than soon after the project's announcement.

We also see Pivar misreading the project's statement, where the phrase "a major mechanism" becomes "the primary cause" and "the mechanical process" under Pivar's perception.

Finally, we should note Pivar is not suggesting that Gould would not sign the statement, based upon its labelling of intelligent design as "pseudoscience." This may be the most important point, given the nature of O'Leary's position in the cultural debate.

I note that the "ID the Future" blog is trying to spin this by claiming that Gould argued all sides of the question in his later years. It's sad and rather pathetic to see them try to implicate Gould as irrational, rather than accept the fact that he never would have accepted Pivar's nonsensical statement.

BTW, the Project Steve Steve-o-Meter is now at 649. Steve #649 is not only a Steve, he is also a Bright.

Well, here is an interesting little piece by Pivar, Shopping with Andy [Warhol].

Hmm... Does Denise know her new pal, Stuey, used to hang with that rascal Warhol?

Is the anti-evolution/family values crowd going to hug Stuey to their collective bosom?

Actually, it would seem that Paul agrees with us...

Stuart Pivar... says that his old friend Steve would not have signed the NCSE's Project Steve statement, because he doubted the efficacy of natural selection as a mechanism. That may be -- indeed, I'm quite sure Pivar... is right.

With his subsequent documentation that Gould did recognize the importance of natural selection. Paul?

Although this whole argument borders on the surreal I don't think it's possible to know whether or not Gould would have signed the list; maybe he would have, maybe not. The poor guy is dead, for goodness' sake. But regarding natural selection and the importance of its role in evolution, I wonder if anybody is in touch with Gould's wife? She might be interested in knowing how her husband is being misrepresented, and may be able to set the record straight.

When asked to name a supporter of ID who did not believe in the Christian God, Mark Ryland of the Discovery Institute cited Aristotle and Plato!

What is it with the DI that the only supporters of ID they can dig up are dead? Now, Steve Gould?

Will the DI start a petition "Dead People who Support ID?"

(reference for Ryland remark - 3rd segment, very near the end.)

What ....is.... this??

Change the wording?
Oh I get it change the meaning... stupid me.

A new divide and conquer strategy ???
Is that from the Bible or "The Art of War"

What is the the problem with these people??

Are they so bent on using science to prove the unprovable god/creator that in the end all they are going to do is destroy god/creator and their own belief??

PSSSST... its in the Bible and every other religious text
"Do not Question My Existence." "Take Joy in My Creation" Means just what it says yes "Literally". (That includes science(knowledge,revelations) and scientists" don't take my word for it? Check out what Pope Benedict says and if you look, every other faith as well.
-No ticking off from Buddhist's either please...I get it:)

As Dr Phil says (according to my kids)
"I know I'm never going to get a call from the shampoo corporations...get over it".

Froth,Froth,Froth rant rant

I think it's entirely possible that Gould privately said very skeptical things about natural selection to Pivar, which he [SJG] would never repeat in public, and might actually contradict in his published writings.

— Paul Nelson

So Pivar can be telling the gospel truth about what Gould told him, in person, and yet that testimony of personal interactions can be (indeed, is) contradicted by Gould's published statements.

Paul:

As I mentioned in a note on O'Leary's blog, to suggest that Gould would privately express very different scientific opinions than those he expressed in public is simply ridiculous.

To suggest that he would do so out of fear of professional damage is not only ludicrous, since Gould was pretty much professionally and financially untouchable, but it truly sullies Gould's professional and scientific integrity.

I understand that unscrupulous anti-evolutionists would want nothing better than tarnish Gould's reputation, but that someone who claims to have been Gould's friend would do so in order to push their own personal agenda seems simply unconscionable. I hope O'Leary is misrepresenting Pivar's position on this.

By this new view of biology, the forms of plants and animals were not selected from random mutations as Darwin believed, but rather that living nature is a perfect platonic universe where all species are related through a common geometric ancestor. An important corollary of this theory is that life elsewhere must be like ours. The large brained vertebrate is a biological inevitability.

Re "a common geometric ancestor."

geometric?? Is that plane or solid geometry?

Henry

But it's not really correct, because the chance part is not natural selection. Natural selection is actually a locally deterministic force. If you want to say the Darwinian evolution has a component of chance, and a component of local necessity, that's quite accurate. But the basic argument goes like this: Because natural selection doesn't make anything, natural selection is an eliminative force. Natural selection can only differentially preserve certain variations in a spectrum of variation within a species. Now some other process produces that variation; ultimately it's mutation. And mutation is spread around through recombination and sexual organisms.

"local" phenomenon

Many biologists have long suggested that the origin of organic form lies in the self-assembly of unseen patterns or structures in the egg cell. Until now, no model system with actual form-predictive power has been proposed. This book presents such a model system. It makes the hypothesis that: The animal and plant body is formed by the expansion of the membrane that encloses the egg cell, shaped by an ingrained, self-organized pattern.

This lavishly illustrated text represents the publication of a theory of biological self-organization based on the discovery of a unique geometric configuration with the property to generate the shape of all animal and plant form. The theory of biological self-organization maintains that body form results from patterns arising in living tissue due to simple mechanical forces rather than by genomic code; the genes are responsible only for individual traits.

Maybe, but I offer what I consider something more plausible: Pivar himself does not accept natural selection, in favor of divine providence or some other formulation.

As I mentioned in a note on O'Leary's blog, to suggest that Gould would privately express very different scientific opinions than those he expressed in public is simply ridiculous.

To suggest that he would do so out of fear of professional damage is not only ludicrous, since Gould was pretty much professionally and financially untouchable, but it truly sullies Gould's professional and scientific integrity.

Pivar and Gould were close friends, and I think it's entirely possible that Gould privately said very skeptical things about natural selection to Pivar, which he [SJG] would never repeat in public, and might actually contradict in his published writings.

Oh baloney. Gould's reputation is quite secure, and will be unaffected by these trivial blog dust-ups. What will be interesting to see is if Pivar has private documentation or materials (from his friendship with Gould) that support the former's understanding of Gould's skepticism about natural selection. Maybe. He's a shrewd cat and doesn't give a damn about what anyone says about him, least of all the people who post here.

He may not give a damn what anyone says about him, but his prounouncements about Gould are directly contrary to what Gould writes. Why should he be given any credibility given his apparent lack of reading comprehension?

Gould does indeed make an effort to consider issues from all angles. In any sincere disagreement, there's always a good deal to be said for all sides; it's never a matter of right/wrong, especially in the messy world of biology. Those attempting to project or impose a dichotomy are going to perceive Gould as being all over the map. Genuinely nuanced understandings are damn near impossible to communicate effectively to the nonspecialist. They are even MORE impossible to communicate to someone pre-equipped with a simplistic model and thus inclined to be highly selective of what material gets through the filter. We're all quite accomplished at hearing what we expect to hear and what we know is the case beforehand.

Can something be central to a process, and overblown at the same time? Absolutely, if one can imagine any difference between some phenomenon explaining 30% of variation (more than any other factor) being different from something explaining 90%. Gould was able to think in these terms. Perhaps Paul Nelson is not.

I finally figured out who he reminds me of. Pivar, I mean. Chris Lagnan. Self-proclaimed smartest guy in the world. General nutcase. Nutcases normally don't care what people think about them, so I guess it fits...

[Side note: lots of scientists trim or censor what they say in public, if they worry that it could be misunderstood or misused. One of my Chicago advisors told me about a conversation he had with a famous geneticist, who told him that the evidence supported a very high heritability for human intelligence [as opposed to environmental factors]. 'But I could never say that in public,' said the geneticist, 'because evil people would exploit the information for bad ends.']

Try reading The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, and you'll see what I mean. Not exactly limpid argumentation. I found a passage strongly endorsing the centrality of selection, but I'll bet in a few minutes, I can find another denigrating it as an overblown mechanism.

Paul,

What evidence have you that Pivar ever met Gould? Just curious.

Paul Nelson wrote: Andrea wrote: As I mentioned in a note on O'Leary's blog, to suggest that Gould would privately express very different scientific opinions than those he expressed in public is simply ridiculous.

Try reading The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, and you'll see what I mean. Not exactly limpid argumentation. I found a passage strongly endorsing the centrality of selection, but I'll bet in a few minutes, I can find another denigrating it as an overblown mechanism.

[Side note: lots of scientists trim or censor what they say in public, if they worry that it could be misunderstood or misused. One of my Chicago advisors told me about a conversation he had with a famous geneticist, who told him that the evidence supported a very high heritability for human intelligence [as opposed to environmental factors]. 'But I could never say that in public,' said the geneticist, 'because evil people would exploit the information for bad ends.']

Oh baloney. Gould's reputation is quite secure, and will be unaffected by these trivial blog dust-ups. What will be interesting to see is if Pivar has private documentation or materials (from his friendship with Gould) that support the former's understanding of Gould's skepticism about natural selection. Maybe. He's a shrewd cat and doesn't give a damn about what anyone says about him, least of all the people who post here.

Every statement SJG ever made rejects natural selection, and none can be found in its support

Steve could not shoot his mouth off with the public hearing that there is no explanation for design. you could not and still cannot speak against natural selection in the academic situation without censorship

Under the Nelson assumption that Gould held numerous self-contradictory/confused beliefs, wouldn't the intellectually honest approach be to ignore Gould rather than make or take seriously appeals to his authority?

What I am appalled about, though, is that someone who was his personal friend would work so hard to publicly sully it.

What I am appalled about, though, is that someone who was his personal friend would work so hard to publicly sully it.

Flint:
I don't think Pivar is doing this for money. First of all, he's already rich. Second, I doubt any of the Creationist cheerleaders for his revisionist campaign would read, let alone buy or promote, his book, which apparently is openly atheistic.

Andrea Bottaro:

I'm fresh out of viable motivations, then. Any suggestions?

vanity:

didn't someone mention something about a book Pivar was pushing?

I think it's entirely possible that Gould privately said very skeptical things about natural selection to Pivar, which he [SJG] would never repeat in public, and might actually contradict in his published writings.

By the way, Paul, I'm still waiting for you to answer some questions for me.

Since I'm tired of continually retyping them, you can refresh your memory at:

http://www.geocities.com/lflank/nelson.html

"But I must confess that a stronger and more focused form of this argument [microevolution + time = macroevolution, which Gould rejects; PN] has long evoked my deep distress, and has served, in substantial measure, as the impetus for personal career choices in research, and for my eventual decision to write this book. I refer to the claim, repeated almost as a catechism, and obviously copied from textbook to textbook, that macroevolution poses no problem not resolvable by a further understanding of allelic substitutions directed by natural selection in contemporary populations. We may move smoothly from one gene to an entire Bauplan, and extrapolate upwards from a few generations to a geological era. No additional problems arise in temporal vastness. Macroevolution becomes little more than industrial melanism writ large....Can the smallest scales really provide an entirely sufficient model for the largest? Can a uniformitarianism this rigid truly be sustained?...Most standard textbooks make this confident assertion based on little beyond hope and tradition -- thus making macroevolution a nonsubject."

This occurs in a long section where Gould is heaping scorn on the textbook equivalency of microevolution and macroevolution, with natural selection as the main (if not the exclusive) process at work bridging the two levels. If one reads the passages he cites, and condemns, between pages 569 and 584, they sound like material that would be right at home in the talk.origins archive. The main target of his critique in this section is the sufficiency of natural selection.

What I find amusing about this whole 'controversy' is that IDers seem to think, if they can only show that RM+NS is insufficient, then ID must be true!

I guess it's somewhat interesting to discuss what Gould did or didn't say, in public or in private. To a point. But even if Pivar's spin on Gould's beliefs is correct, does he (or O'Leary) honestly think Gould believed in ID? As a scientific hypothesis?!

If the ID crowd really did want to advance their ideas scientifically, they'd get out of the high school classrooms and into the lab and try to generate some actual scientific evidence to support their position.

Of course, we all know that's not what interests them at all....

Paul:
That paragraph has nothing to do with whether natural selection is a major force in evolution or not. Even if "further understanding allelic substitutions directed by natural selection in contemporary populations" could not satisfactorily explain macroevolution, it does not necessarily follow that natural selection is NOT acting at the level of whatever other macroevolutionary processes Gould envisioned. Somehow, however, I think you already knew that.

Indeed, Gould had a sweet spot for the role of some sort of macro-mutational, developmentally-channeled events in large evolutionary transitions (to some extent, and much more modestly, I also don't mind that idea). Still, I would count this as an example of Gould over-simplifying his opponents' position, since I would say that the "rigid uniforitarianism" Gould talks about here may have been prevalent in the '50s and '60s, but certainly was not the consensus of the field (or even of a sizeable minority of it) in 2002. Somehow, however, I think he too already knew that: I guess that is why he railed against textbooks, instead of actual scientists.

Indeed, Gould had a sweet spot for the role of some sort of macro-mutational, developmentally-channeled events in large evolutionary transitions (to some extent, and much more modestly, I also don't mind that idea).

he was a victim of the anti-antidarwinist forces engaged in genetics which depends on natural selection. Steve could not shoot his mouth off with the public hearing that there is no explanation for design. you could not and still cannot speak against natural selection in the academic situation without censorship, having nothing to do with intelligent design, having to do with the Darwinian synthesis which keeps the research infrastructure funded. no natural selection, no developmental genetics.

— Pivar

It should feature a serious examination of Gould's uncensored views, rather than a useless quote war.

Lenny et al:
I don't think Paul, or O'Leary, or even less Pivar is trying to make the point that Gould's ideas favored ID in any way, shape or form.

This is simply an argument about what Gould said in his published record about natural selection and evolution, vs. what a friend of his claims he said, so far without any supporting evidence.

Of course, unscrupulous Creationists may try to make some hay out of this, as if it impinged on Gould's credibility as a scientist. Quite comically, for instance, Dembski is claiming on his site that Gould was a "master of equivocation" because of the discepancy between what Gould actually said and what Pivar claims he thought (I know, logical consistency does not generally seem to be an issue of concern at Uncommon Descent).

Still, the issue here is whether Gould ever denied that natural selection is a major mechanism of evolution, and therefore could not in good conscience have signed the Steves' statement, or whether the opposite is true.

I don't think Paul, or O'Leary, or even less Pivar is trying to make the point that Gould's ideas favored ID in any way, shape or form.

relate this whole discussion back to what Behe said about ID NOT being about mechanisms.

isn't the whole "issue" raised by Gould exactly about mechanism? why would IDers be focusing on it when they say that ID is not about mechanisms?

man, they seem more confused about what they're on about each and every day.

Remember what we have learned since Gould was in his "prime". so much has been learned about phenotypic variation scales based on minor genetic changes that i doubt even ol stevie would have bothered to question the mechanism any longer.

and, finally, i completely and utterly agree with those who mentioned that this is all an argument from authority to begin with, and certainly will not convince any scientists, but then the DI is not really trying to convince scientists as much as they are a public that is totally obsessed with arguments from authority. In fact, the general public must rely on arguments from authority, or else actually go out and learn about every subject under the sun; not terribly realistic.

so... if the DI can somehow spin Gould to be not only an "authority" on the issues (which, funny enough, he was not considered to be when i studied evolutionary theory as a grad student), but to be a "defector" as well, that would fit quite nicely with all the rest of their shady tactics.

Remember that to DI, the ends justifies the means, every time, and they do not view such methods as being hypocritical in any way, shape or form.

Paul can defend their actions through obscure passages all he wants here. It makes no difference. All they have to do is convince the public that there is a nugget of truth to an "authority" on evolutionary theory rejecting the primary mechanism of that theory, and they have accomplished their goal.

It's already too late to stop it. all we can do is re-spin it back to something more realistic.

(analogy) "Keynesian economics has been so thoroughly disproven, that one only needs to look at this quote from Robert Rubin, suggesting that while Keynesian economics doesn't exactly describe the low inflation during the Regan era unless one considers the high unemployment. Ergo, as I said, Keynesian economics is very hard to understand.")

Authority A says 'Not X exactly, but X and to some extent Y.' Therefore, QED, not X but Z!

isn't the whole "issue" raised by Gould exactly about mechanism? why would IDers be focusing on it when they say that ID is not about mechanisms?

I was always under the impression that Gould's "dissention" from Darwin was one of tempo not mechanism. His theory of punctuated equillibrium only challenged Darwin's commitment to uniformitarianism which really reflected Darwin's commitment to Lyell. T.H.Huxley famously cautioned Darwin not to "overburden himself" with uniformitarianism because even though the "hopelessly inadequate fossil record" seemed to indicate stasis and not gradual change that was most likely because speciation was relatively more rapid and isolated than the long periods of stability during which a large stable and more-likely-to-be-fossilized population was in existance. Migration was most likely the cause of the "abrupt" appearance of new forms and that was why countless minutely changed intermediates were never seen. Ernst Mayr also had a lot to say on this issue and nobody says that he "disagrees with Darwin."

Gould has also championed the notion that other mechanisms are at work at higher levels. He speaks of "species selection" and even speculated that selection may take place at the level of the clade, but at higher levels entirely distinct mechanisms are at work than relative reproductive rates of individual organisms.

I'm not sure whether recent developments in genetics, molecular methods, evo-devo etc. have provided better explanations for the sorts of things Gould was talking about -- that some clades throw off species with great abandon while others do so very rarely, and why is this?

Ernst Mayr also had a lot to say on this issue and nobody says that he "disagrees with Darwin."

He speaks of "species selection" and even speculated that selection may take place at the level of the clade...

Hell, reading "The Panda's Thumb", of all things, was one of the main reasons i got interested in paleontology, and then ended up studying zoology.

I rank him right up there with Jacques Cousteau as influencing my decision to go into zoology, and I'm sure most would agree that 'ol Jacques was pretty far from being a serious scientist.

lol.

can you imagine 20 years from now an equivalent site to this one being named:

"The Crocodile Hunter"

now that would be funny.

Problem: There was this smart biologist who pretty much walked over cranks and crackpots of the IDC kind. He wrote very well and was much beloved and worst of all wrote that obligatory essay on baseball. As expert witness his testimony helped throw out Old Creo and continues to be an endless source of amusement to us. The NeoCreos quake in their boots to when they even hear his name. And the pompous NeoCreo type who is generally busy making an ass of himself is miffed that the great one didn't bother to even trash him choosing to ignore him entirely.

Now read Paul and Bill you get the idea. There's only so many times you can sell a bridge.

The perfect irony is they leave a trail of evidence against themselves wherever they go

Also, see Goulds introduction to Carl Zimmers book 'Evolution', where Gould quite unequivically states his acceptance of natural selection.

Gould believed the "hopeful monster". Get over it.

Gould believed the "hopeful monster". Get over it.

As I mentioned in a note on O'Leary's blog, to suggest that Gould would privately express very different scientific opinions than those he expressed in public is simply ridiculous.

BTW, that was a rhetorical question. Nelson argues that Pivar's claim about Gould not signing the Project Steve statement because of privately expressed doubts about natural selection is probably right despite his public statements in support of it, but the Project Steve statement is public.

Is Paul Nelson just plain stupid?

— morbius

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.