God Fearing Atheist

The title of this thread is not my own; it was borrowed from A.R. Jensen's 1982 CER review of S.J. Gould's "Mismeasure of Man." My purpose in doing so was not to resurrect the debate over IQ, but to focus in on another area of what can only be called gross scientific negligence on the late doctor's part; that of his views on so-called "adaptationism." They can be seen here.

Who are these "adapatationists" anyway? Certainly not Tooby and Cosmides (1997), Thornhill and Palmer (2000), Williams (1966), Daly and Wilson (1988), and Symons (1979, 1987), who have all explicitly disavowed thinking in those terms. How about Trivers, Alexander, Smith, Mayr, Dawkins, Hamilton, Pinker and Wilson? Each has weighed in against Gould at some point.

But surely this is not enough. Like the ostensible creationist commitment to scientific objectivity, these "ultra-Darwinians" may simply be paying rhetorical homage to the idea, but neglecting it in their scholarly research. Unfortunately, this too is incorrect. To take a curious example (curious because its dealt with explicitly by Gould in a series of NYRB reviews), Tooby and Cosmides not only test an adaptive hypothesis regarding compliance and noncompliance in situations of reciprocal cooperation (which, not unsurprisingly, Gould mischaracterizes as "the ability to detect infidelity and other forms of prevarication"), but *six* by-product hypotheses! (Cosmides & Tooby 1992)

Now, I don't care to speculate the reasons for this omission, and am quite willing to accept that it was just an accidental oversight on Gould's part. But I have trouble believing a man of Gould's obvious intelligence could miss such a glaring counterexample to his thesis, had he objectively consulted the primary literature. Its typical, though. For other examples, see Buss 1994, Trivers 1985, Alexander 1979, Geary 1998, Thornhill and Palmer 2000, specifically pages 59-64, Symons 1979, Pinker 1997, Shepard 1990, etc.

So what are we to make of this? If evolutionary psychologists and "ultra-Darwinians" in general are innocent of the charges leveled against them by Gould and his small cadre of devoted followers (what I like to call the Gould-Kamin-Lewontin-Rose Axis of Misinformation), what was Gould really after? Should we abandon adaptive hypotheses altogether, despite the obvious empirical fruit they bore in the past (Mayr 1982)? No? But since they're not solely, or even largely, focusing on adaptive hypotheses, then what on earth was he making such a fuss about?

If this has been debated before, forgive me. I only recently returned to these forums

Doubting Didymus

It's been mentioned once or twice, but its about time we had a decent discussion about it. I shall be watching with great interest.

God Fearing Atheist

Fantastic

Doubting Didymus

A few basic pages that give an easy background for those who, like me, have no intimate knowledge of this controversy:

Gould on Adaptationism and Evolutionary Psychology
A review of Stephen J. Gould, "Evolution: The Pleasures of Pluralism" (New York Review of Books, June 26, 1997).

It's also interesting to read Goulds original article, which is linked to at the bottom of the above page.

What appears to be an old handout from Michigan state university
Whatever it is, this page has a simple introduciton to this controversy, highlights the primary objections that Gould and Lewontin raise against adaptationism, and also has basic definitions of the important terms.

Pubmed: The fall and rise of Dr Pangloss: adaptationism and the Spandrels paper 20 years later.
Of course, you can't get the whole thing very easily online. Journal Ref: TRENDS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 2000 Feb;15(2):66-70.

God Fearing Atheist

"The Pleasures of Pluralism" was actually the second of a two-part series published a couple weeks apart. The first, entitled "Darwinian Fundamentalism", can be found here.

These were the NYRB articles I referenced, but failed to cite.

-GFA

Kevin

Tooby and Cosmides' response to those two articles is available online as well: http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html

Doubting Didymus

Yeeeouch. I'm glad I'm not on the receiving end of that particular sting.

God Fearing Atheist

Heh.

Thats a good one, but have you ever seen Wright get on Gould's case? Its positivly brutal.

-GFA

Secular Pinoy

In the thread you posted, pz said (and you agree that Gould meant as much) that Adaptationists instead think that only adaptive features are interesting or significant. So, what are you arguing against? The idea that there is more to evolution that's interesting than just adaptive features?

Oolon Colluphid

Hold on... who posted, where, who agreed, who's arguing with what...?

Oolon the confused