A comparison of the arguments of Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins over Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Steven Jay Gould debunks misconceptions about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, criticizing the idea that humans are the culmination of evolution. Richard Dawkins emphasizes the importance of gradual natural selection. These two scholars’ perspectives explore different interpretations of evolutionary theory.
In Full House, Stephen Jay Gould argues that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is besieged by misunderstanding and prejudice. He devotes the introduction of the book to dispelling misconceptions about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution before explaining his own theory of evolution. Steven J. Gould argues that attempts to define the history of life in terms of progress in order to show that humans are the crowning achievement of evolution are misguided, emphasizing that humans are, in fact, just a small branch on the abundant tree of life. He points out the fallacy of viewing the few who evolve toward open mutations as a system-wide phenomenon, and supports this with explanations of why major league baseball has lost its four-hitter and how bacteria are the greatest form of life. Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker, also attempts to explain the misconceptions of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. He argues that gradual evolution through natural selection, a watchmaker who is blind and incapable of intentional design, is possible, debunking the misconception that evolution happens in one giant mutation, arguing that evolution is incremental improvement through natural selection and that this is how complex organs like the eye or the bat’s ultrasound can develop.
After reading both books, I believe that Stephen Jay Gould is the scholar who understands Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution better than Richard Dawkins because he equates the unit of selection with the unit of mutation. Mutations happen in units of DNA bases, but natural selection does not work in units of DNA bases, because it takes three bases to make an amino acid, and an amino acid is generally not a unit of natural selection, and the units would be much larger. Richard Dawkins’ answer to the question, “What good would it do to have five percent of an eye?” was that it could be used to see, even dimly, which is not an adequate answer in the case of the eye, given the neural processes that process vision. In the case of wings, the intermediate form of the transition from forefeet to wings is inappropriate for both, making it unlikely that natural selection could have produced it. The existence of missing links in the fossil record, or intermediate fossils that have not been found, could also be a weakness in his argument.
So, does Steven Jay Gould have a complete understanding of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution? Let’s compare Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution with Stephen Jay Gould’s argument. Charles Darwin believed that it is difficult to clearly define what is meant by the words “higher” and “lower” and that “lower” is used to mean less specialized for each function. In other words, prokaryotes, which we often refer to as lower organisms, are not inherently lower, but rather many parts of their systems are less specialized for each function. Stephen Jay Gould believes that bacteria, an example of prokaryotes, cannot be said to be inferior because they have been around since the dawn of life, their diversity is incalculable, they live in extreme conditions that are difficult for us to discover, and they are more abundant than any other organism on Earth. Using the example of bacteria, Stephen Jay Gould criticized the idea of humans as the most advanced of life forms. In his view, the division of life into classes is a fallacy to rationalize human existence, not unlike Charles Darwin’s argument that “higher” and “lower” are distinctions based on the degree of specialization of functions.
Charles Darwin saw the progress of a system as an increase in “specialization of multiple functions”. It’s hard to define what constitutes systemic progress, but von Baer’s standard of “the amount of differentiation in a mature individual” is probably the most widely applicable, and Charles Darwin added “specialization in multiple functions” to it. And all living things as a whole have progressed and are progressing. Stephen Jay Gould’s thoughts on systemic progress can be seen in his treatment of the problem of the four-hitter. The problem of the four-hitter is that while the world’s sports have steadily improved across the board, the rate of improvement has decreased, and the question is why we no longer have the four-hitters that once existed. Steven J. Gould describes a .400 batting average as the tail of a bell-shaped curve of overall batting average, where the frequency distribution remains the same, but the variation decreases symmetrically on either side, resulting in a smaller standard deviation. He found that even as the rules of baseball changed to make the game more interesting, the decline in the standard deviation of regular players’ batting averages was remarkably regular, suggesting that as defense and offense improved across the board, they converged on the right wall, the human limit. In the end, Steven J. Gould interpreted systemic progress as the expansion and contraction of variation, and the expansion of variation was limited by the right and left walls. This disagrees with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which states that systems have progressed and are progressing, and his alternative concept, variation, which argues that there are limits to variation, thus creating a disagreement.
Let’s also look at the idea of natural selection. Charles Darwin believed that the standard of perfection reached in the natural world is competitive. This means that natural selection tends to make each organism as perfect as, or slightly more perfect than, the other inhabitants of the same region with whom it has to compete. He argued that there can be no perfection of life as long as natural selection is at work. In his book, Steven Jay Gould completely agreed with Charles Darwin’s arguments about natural selection, and strengthened his argument by emphasizing that the mechanism of natural selection does not contain any information about which organisms are superior, only that they happen to be favored by chance in the particular environment that induced natural selection.
Finally, Charles Darwin emphasized that, while our view of the world distinguishes between the higher and lower forms of life, the lower forms of life that exist today are the surviving optimizers. Stephen Jay Gould called it hubris that most people still consider the birth of the human race to be inevitable and place us at the top of the evolutionary tree. By placing human history at the center of the evolution of life on Earth, other life forms – single cells, fish, amphibians, reptiles, etc. – are perceived as subordinate, and humans are seeking to destroy and dominate ecosystems, believing that they are above all life and nature. Steven J. Gould uses the model of the full house to remind us that the emergence of the human race was an unpredictable coincidence brought about by increased diversity, not an inevitable consequence of evolutionary principles, and to celebrate variation and diversity for its own sake. I think Steven Jay Gould makes the same point as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, but develops it further in his own way.
Since Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, scholars have been debating the drivers of evolution, the direction of evolution, and the speed of evolution, and I think that Stephen Jay Gould’s arguments make Darwin’s theory more convincing. I couldn’t help but feel that he only took the parts of Darwin’s theory that were consistent with his own arguments to rationalize his own opinions. He also emphasized that the Platonic strategy of reducing the whole to a single abstract number and tracking the change of this number over time leads to error and confusion, which is a bit puzzling since Plato reduces the whole to a single abstract number. Plato’s theory of forms is not a metaphysics based on abstraction, as Plato’s forms are basically qualities, not quantities, and abstraction is a way of thinking that leaves out the particular and binds only the common.
