|
 Editor's
Note: No question about it: Steven Jay Gould believed in
evolutionism. Dr. Gould died prematurely at the age of 60. The
following excerpts from Warren L. Johns' Beyond Forever,
scheduled for publication in November, 2006, summarize Gould's
intellectual departure from conventional neo-Darwinism.
Early in the 1970's, Steven Jay Gould,
articulate evolutionist, recognized Darwinian expectations of gradualism
fell abysmally short of scientific adequacy.
Remember Darwin's
"…natural selection acts only …by short and
sure, though slow, steps?' Gould disagreed, dismantling the
fragile tradition point blank!
"The absence of fossil evidence for
intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design…has been
a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of
evolution.'1 "…The fossil record with its abrupt transitions
offers no support for gradual change.'2
Gould ridiculed the lack of fossil evidence pointing to
gradualism. "The overwhelming prevalence of stasis became an
embarrassing feature of the fossil record.'3
"…Most species exhibit no directional change
during their tenure on earth…In any local area, a species does not arise
gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors, it appears all
at once and fully formed.'4
He hammered away
at the obviously missing intermediates. "The extreme rarity of
transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of
paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data
only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference,
however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.'5
Gould's doubts were not enough to convert
him to creationism but his keen skepticism ripped giant holes in
neo-Darwinian whole cloth. His reservations resonated. Not content to
merely shake establishment tradition, Gould laid two corner stones on
which to build his and Niles Eldredge's alternative theory of origins.
"Punctuated equilibria,' built on "stasis' and "sudden appearance,'
represents sea change from evolutionism's discredited notion of
incremental accumulation of slight changes leading eventually to
entirely new and different life formats.
"(1) Stasis. Most species represent no
directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the
fossil record much the same as when they disappear; morphological change
is usually limited and directionless.
"(2) Sudden Appearance. In any local
area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of
its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed.'6
Stasis lives! The
dethroning of King Charles was underway---inside the rank and file of
committed evolutionists, no less!
While Gould's
punctuated equilibria explanation of origins has yet to capture the
fancy of all evolutionists, his analysis struck a nerve. His
collaborator, Niles Eldredge, added fuel to the stasis/sudden appearance
fire announcing, unequivocally, that Darwin's contrary predictions were
just plain "wrong!'
"…It has become abundantly clear that the
fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor is
the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that
this prediction is wrong…The observation that species are amazingly
conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time
has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but
preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant
record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply
looked the other way."7
Gould, undercut the core essence of
neo-Darwinism with cold-eyed logic. "You don't make new species by
mutating the species…A mutation is not the cause of evolutionary
change.'8
1. Stephen Jay Gould, "Is a New and General Theory of
Evolution Emerging?' Paleobiology, (Winter, 1980) 6[1]:127.
2. Stephen Jay Gould, "The Return of
Hopeful Monsters,' Natural History, 86[4]:22-30, June-July,
1977.
3. Stephen Jay Gould, "Cordelia's
Dilemma', Natural History, Feb 1993, 15.
4. Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's
Thumb (New York: W.W. Norton, 1980) 182.
5. Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's
Thumb (New York: W.W. Norton, 1985) as quoted by Woodward, Doubts
About Darwin, 40, 41.
6. Stephen Jay Gould, "The Episodic
Nature of Evolutionary Change,' in The Panda's Thumb (New York:
W.W. Norton, 1985) 182ff as cited by Woodward, Doubts About Darwin,
41.
7. Eldredge & Tattersall, The Myths
of Human Evolution, 1982, 45-46.
8. Stephen J. Gould, Speech at Hobart College, February
14, 1980, cited by
Luther Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma (El Cajon,
California: Master Books, 1984), 106 (emphasis in original) cited by
Bert Thompson and Brad Harrub, "National Geographic Shoots Itself
in the Foot Again,' (ApologeticsPress.Org online report, 2004) 36. |
