He said it: As a butcher eyes a sheep, so the Darwinists eyed paleontologist Steve Gould (1941-2002)?

David Berlinski recalls Gould’s tetchy relationship with the iron rice bowls of the Darwin establishment:

Of course, if the fossil record does not fit the theory, it is always possible to adjust the theory to fit the record. In science, an enterprising theoretician has several degrees of freedom within which to maneuver before the referee reaches ten and the final bell comes to clang. Steven Jay Gould, who was trained as a paleontologist, surveyed the fossil evidence early in the 1970s and came to the obvious conclusion that either the theory or the evidence must go.

What went, on his scheme of things, was the neo Darwinian orthodoxy by which species change into different species by means of an endless series of infinitesimal changes, continuously, like the flow of syrup. Instead, Gould argued, biological change must have been discontinuous, with vast changes taking place at once. Such was his model of punctuated equilibria.

It fits the fossil record far better (if it makes sense, even, to talk of scientific fit here), but the model achieves faithfulness to the facts only by chucking out the chief concepts of the Darwinian theory itself, and while paleontologists have been glad to have had Gould's company, evolutionary theorists have looked over what he has written with the cool, slitted, appraising glance of a butcher eyeing a sheep.

- David Berlinski, "The Evidence for Evolution," in Black Mischief: Language, Life, Logic, Luck," Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: Boston MA, Second Edition, 1988, pp. 300-302.

My impression is that Gould thought at first that revealing the facts of Darwinism’s failures (the trade secret of paleontology) would just be a lark. He soon learned otherwise, and ended up capitulating to the Darwinists in public while doubting in private. A friend told me he would not likely have signed the Steves list (Darwin lobby’s list of loyalist guys named Steve).

Well, he’s dead now, and we’ll never know, but I sense a story, and it would be interesting to hear more.

(Note: Here is an instance of Wiki Answers forced to admit, however evasively, that there was a serious issue there.)

Stephen Jay Gould: A tragedy of failed convictions?

Here's Michael Flannery on Stephen Jay Gould's attempt to diss Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin's co-discoverer of natural selection.

There was a lot of such dissing as far back as the 1860s, when it first became clear that Wallace was not a materialist atheist. As Flannery recounts, Gould joined in, in this case.

Gould was an interesting character because, while gifted, he never seems to have had the courage of his convictions. Apparently, he didn't believe Darwinism was true; he made that clear early in his career. Trouble was, as Alvin Plantinga has pointed out, if you are a materialist atheist, that really is the only game in town. It is the only game even if it doesn't make any sense and its failure is the "trade secret of paleontology."

Gould also tried to diminish the reputation of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, claiming quirkily that he had co-operated in the Piltdown Man fraud. Now, Some of us think that there is lots wrong with Teilhard's theology, but it seems unlikely to me - and to many - that he would have participated knowingly in such an obvious fraud.

The reality is that Darwinism has been a shambles for so long that a fraud that could have been detected by a high school student went undetected for decades - because Darwinists and other materialist atheists need to believe in it so badly.

Medieval hawkers of relics* - I am so glad you are at rest, wherever you are, for your own sake. You would otherwise be sick with envy at today's gullibility. It's quite true, as a European king once quipped, that there was enough wood from the True Cross floating around Europe at one time to float a navy - but no one saw all the wood together at one time. One can't say the same for the Piltdown fake.

* For the record, there can be true relics. The key question is what authenticators call "provenance." It's the same principle as the title to your house, if you own one. You want to trace it back to when the house was built, and make sure the title was in every case transferred legally. In the same way, we would not be surprised if a women's religious order carefully kept the habit of a nun who was later declared a saint (and the order had in fact been lobbying the Vatican for that very outcome for decades, starting shortly after her death). But if the supposed habit just shows up all of a sudden all by itself on E-bay...

Stephen Jay Gould and doubting Darwinism

Stuart Pivar, a friend of the late Stephen Jay Gould, about whom I wrote years ago (because he doubted that Gould would have signed the Darwin lobby's "Steve" list, named in Gould's honour), contacted me recently about the new site for his book LifeCode. He thus ended a minor mystery I hadn't had time to get to the bottom of - why so many people from Pharyngula were researching my old posts on Pivar and his friendship with Gould:

New York, NY: In the foreword to the new book Lifecode: From Egg to Embryo by Self-organization by Stuart Pivar (Ryland Press), Darwin scholar Richard Milner* directs attention to the recent landmark ENCODE report (June 14) in which Human Genome Project Director Francis Collins calls the long-accepted model of genetics “badly flawed.” A week later, in a NY Times Science Times report, scores of scientists concluded that, after fifty years of genetic research, they don’t really understand what genes do, or how they work.

Lifecode presents an alternative theory of evolution which contends that the embryo is formed by self-organization, as are crystals, rather than by a genetic code subject to natural selection. Accompanying illustrations depict hypothetical construction blueprints for the various body forms. Biological Self-organization has long been a contending alternate theory for the code of life; recent proponents include evolutionary biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Brian Goodwin.

Of course, the Darwin lobby has always maintained that Pivar was making Gould's opinion up as he went along.

I doubt that. Gould knew as well as anyone that his status depended on upholding the status quo. He disagreed when it was safe enough to do so.

For example, Gould's serious and well-written attack on social Darwinism, The mismeasure of man, was grudgingly tolerated among those who longed to replace evidence-based psychology with "evolutionary" psychology - he was allowed that much leeway, on account of his immense popularity in American culture. He had appeared on The Simpson's, after all ...

But to assault Darwinism with the evidence that can no longer be evaded, as Mike Behe has recently done? Behe is indifferent to the power of Darwinists to unleash persecutions. Gould was evidently not that indifferent - and he couldn't be, precisely because of his iconic status. He who would be an icon cannot get down from the iconostasis. But privately, I think, he knew what he had to know, what everyone knows, including the Darwinists - absent persecution and indoctrination, it all just isn't working for them any more.

Dissing St. Stephen Jay in his own church?

The trouble with being a secular evolution saint is that, a couple years down the road, you don't get no respect at all. Have a look at "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism," a site (herafter called the J site) that uses Gould's name to market an anti-Darwinian self-organization theory of the development of life that I don't know if Gould ever endorsed. Gould died in 2002.

(The basic idea behind self-organization is the claim that order can take hold at the boundaries of chaos. Some argue that this accounts for the origin and development of life. The best-known exponent of the idea is Stuart Kaufmann , associated with the Santa Fe Institute but lately in Banff, Western Canada, according to his CV.)

The message at the J site is addressed to the 400 scientists who signed Discovery Institute's dissent from Darwinism. To them, J prophesies in a loud voice,

You are in accord with most evolutionary biologists who have long since relegated natural selection to micro-evolution at best. Leading among these was Stephen Jay Gould, although he was careful not to pronounce publicly for fear of its misuse by the Intelligent Design movement which is based on the claim that the only alternative to natural selection, or Darwinism, is God.

If anyone out there knows for sure why this is/is not an accurate summary of Gould's thinking, I hope they'll blog on it, so I can link to them. I have not read Gould's doorstop, Structure of Evolutionary Theory , in which he would have made such a point, if he ever did anywhere. It's no secret that Gould fell out with Darwinian fundamentalists (he may well have coined the term himself) like Richard Dawkins. But I've just never heard that he embraced self-organization theory as a consequence.

An urgent note is struck at the J site, regarding the crisis of Darwinism:

This may be the most important issue ever to face science. On its outcome depends nothing less than academic freedom in America. Some overzealous Darwinians have been using extreme means to suppress dissent. Some individuals who have published opposing views have been hounded and their careers threatened or smashed. This issue is soon to be tested in a number of legal cases which may rival the Scopes trial in impact. Most notably I call your attention to the case of Richard Sternberg vs. the Smithsonian Institute.

Okay, you got my attention, J. But then, following the prophecy is a warning:

While the list of 400 is impressive, its possible usefulness to scientific debate is compromised because it is published by the neo-creationist Discovery Institute, and includes individuals who believe that the vacuum caused by the failure of Darwinism should be filled by God, with no third possibility. It is impossible to determine who’s who. Your name on this list may compromise your scientific credibility. If, in fact you believe in creationism, this letter does not pertain to you. Otherwise, you suffer guilt by association.

Funny, isn't it, that J claims to be concerned about intellectual freedom but then, in the very next paragraph markets the infamous notion of guilt by association, but let's move on.

We are told that intelligent design is winning the culture wars, with a theocracy shortly to follow.

You know, J, that theme's been, like, done, eh? Canadian literata Margaret Atwood beat the whole idea to death in The Handmaid's Tale thirty years ago, and she can write you into a corner any time. They even made her novel into a movie and I saw the Handmaid's neat red costume at a sci-fi exhibit in Ottawa a few years ago. And that's all that ever came of the theocracy.

We are then told that neo-Darwinism is a bust, because "Evolutionary biologists no longer believe that natural selection is the prime mechanism of evolution." They don't? That's not what most of them have been saying, but I better check my inbox.

Now J may be right, of course. They could know it's a bust and fail to admit it, the way directors of a failing company do. J goes on to mention something I had been meaning to draw attention to myself, and he almost beat me to it. But he says it in a kind of confused way, so I am going to say it in a clear way:

If you look at Michael Shermer's and Ricki Lewis's accounts of the "Woodstock of Evolution," the World Evolution Summit on the Galapágos last June, it is evident that Darwinian theory is indeed falling apart.

Now don't bother telling me that it is normal for scientists to have disagreements. Sure it is. But the reported disagreements were about such fundamental matters as the level at which natural selection occurs (yes, see Lewis's report), whether sexual selection even occurs, whether there really is a universal common ancestor, et cetera. Well, if after a century and a half, they are not even sure at what level natural selection occurs or whether sexual selection occurs or whether universal comon ancestry is true, I am not sure that what we are looking at is even a discipline, as opposed to a series of naturalistic speculations about the origin and development of life.

Apparently, at the gathering, evo-devo earth mother Lynn Margulis proclaimed the neo-Darwinian synthesis (= standard evolutionary theory, currently being rammed into kids' heads in schools, by law) to be dead — nonetheless proclaiming triumphantly, "I am a Darwinist". In the context, I guess she meant "I am a philosophical naturalist."

Which is precisely my point. If that's all that holds them together, it is not a science discipline; it is a band of believers.

Anyway, back to the J site: We are offered "The origin of species without Darwin or God." and a booklet called "Biological Self-Organization" which you can read online. There is also a book available, called Lifecode by art collector Stuart Pivar, who seems to have been a friend of Andy Warhol and is no slouch in biology. Lifecode is listed among self-organization books.

One problem with knowing what to make of all this is that an official Stephen Jay Gould site doesn't currently seem to be online, so I don't know that there is any public record of what the keepers of his official legacy would say in response. If I learn anything more of interest, I will post it.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

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