deddogg

Hello all,

I heard that Dawkins and Gould take two, sometimes very different, approaches on evolution. Do you think you guys could help me out and explain some of the major differences to me and maybe some relevant implications of these differences? If you don't know what I'm talking about then nevermind. In fact I really don't know all that much about them, that's why I'm asking.

Oolon Colluphid

What it amounts to is backgrounds. Gould is by training a palaeontologist, Dawkins an ethologist, first studying under Tinbergen. Palaeontology deals with the fossil record, which is frustratingly patchy a lot of the time -- the times in question often being the bits we want to look at. (Just to forestall the inevitable, there are plenty of subtle gradual changes in it too .) Ethology (and the rest of biology) deals with living things in situ, busy doing their stuff.

Palaeontologists see jumps in the fossil record, biologists see generation-to-generation changes. Punctuated equilibrium, Gould’s Big Idea, is that this broad fossil pattern is actually caused by some new law of nature. Certainly it was, in its first promulgated form (or at least the way it was made to sound), something that would mean something was drastically wrong in how biologists saw evolution.

They are both extremely bright; both can come over as arrogant and having massive egos. Of the two, I’ve only met Dawkins, but it seems that in his case at least both of these appearances are somewhat unjustified. Gould seems desperate to make his mark as discoverer of new principles; Dawkins’s ‘new idea’, selfish genes, wasn’t really new and followed from ideas (eg Hamilton) that were coming to the fore at the time anyway: he was just the most eloquent spokesman for them. Dawkins is renowned for slapping down (often unceremoniously) erroneous logic. As with other of his ‘revolutionary’ ideas (eg spandrels), Gould has been thoroughly slapped down (by Dawkins, Dennett etc)... which doubtless makes him pretty annoyed.

Another disagreeement is in tolerance for religion. Dawkins is notoriously atheist; Gould suggests 'non-overlapping magisteria', which looks to Dawkins (and to me) like "a cowardly flabbiness of the intellect" (ie if theists make any sort of comment about the world, they are <a href="http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_18_2.html" target="_blank">stepping on science's turf</a>.)

And ref creationism, they are both united solidly against that twaddle. However, by so emphasising gaps in the fossil record and trying to find new principles (where often, Dawkins (and I ) would say, they’re not necessary), Gould has been a positive joy to the creationist incubi (Gould’s term).

The best simple book on all this is Kim Sterelny’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1840462493/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">Dawkins vs Gould</a>. There’s also heaps of info on both sides in <a href="http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Catalano/the_g_files.htm" target="_blank">The Gould Files</a>.

Hope that helps.

Cheers, Oolon

bluefugue

There was an article entitled "The Accidental Creationist" that suggested many of Gould's quotes have indeed proved quite useful to the creationist quote-mining operation.

Also, apparently Gould doesn't like Dennett and has referred to him as "Dawkins' Lapdog," a reference to Huxley, who was "Darwin's Bulldog."

Oolon Colluphid

... and John Maynard Smith, perhaps the most respected of all evolutionary biologists (maybe because, as a former engineer, he knows more maths than most of them ) and who is usually above the mud-flinging (but who is a good friend of Dawkins), has noted that (paraphrased) “Well I’m an adaptionist all the time, whereas Steve is only an adaptionist on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.” (In Melvyn Bragg’s On the Shoulders of Giants.)

Oolon

ksagnostic

Like I said in a previous thread, Dawkins has also been quote mined by creationists, because of his outspoken atheism. The reason creationists have done this is to convince non-fundamentalist Christians that "belief" in evolution leads to atheism.

liquid

Dawkins and Gould aren't quite the arch-enemies that they are made out to be! Sure there is friction, but there is a general underlying respect to it all.

The basic difference in terms of evolution is that Dawkins is a gradualist - evolution proceeds most of the time, fairly slowly, and Gould is into punctuated equilibrium - long periods of stasis followed by rapid evolutionary bursts. It is often incorrectly taken to mean massive macromutation - it is not. It's still incremental, but at a faster rate.

It's all a bit overblown - the two ideas are not contradictory in any way (despite the strawman description even some non-creationists make of it all), and indeed it is almost certain that both patterns operate at certain times. The debate is over which one is most important, and how much more it happens.

Most scientists stick with gradualism, but would quite happily acknowledge punk-eek events such as after major extinctions, when a lot of new niches are freed.

Quetzal

Not to mention founder effects and exaptations (a la Gould), which SJG makes out to be major "revolutionary" changes in evolutionary theory but biologists on the other side of the equation say are interesting observations but hardly revolutionary. My biggest beef with SJG deals with overblown hyperboly in "Wonderful Life". If he hadn't coined "Cambrian Explosion" we wouldn't have had an explosion of ignorant OEDs and IDers claiming the Cambrian was the "First Event". Even YECs claim Gould's explosion was the "Creation" (TM) - they just claim it happened last week...

Tharmas

Another difference (also perhaps just one of degree) lies in how they view the pervasiveness of selection in evolution. Dawkins, as a true gradualist, looks at an animal and believes that almost every conceivable trait of that animal has been positively selected for over time. As a corollary, you can hypothesize that, given enough time, any desirable trait will eventually appear. Thus evolution as a whole shows a definite progression towards increased fitness.
Gould on the other hand, the paleontologist concentrating on the extinction events, seems obsessed with the arbitrariness of evolution. He sees evolution as often acting randomly on the large scale. As a corollary, Gould enjoys challenging our perspective by pointing out that (for one example) bacteria have always been and still are the dominant life form on the planet. All this other stuff like multi-cellular organization, nervous systems etc. are just part of a little sideshow.

Needless to say both men are popular writers and I’m summarizing from the popular works they’ve written, not from the real scientific contributions they’ve made.

gallo

Oolon,

I know that I'm not competent enough to decide who is correct between Gould and Dawkins when they disagree. Sometimes I don't even see the problem. It seems that they are both talking about the same fence from different sides. But I do so enjoy watching and reading the discussion.

Anyway, you said, "As with other of his ‘revolutionary’ ideas (eg spandrels), Gould has been thoroughly slapped down (by Dawkins, Dennett etc)... which doubtless makes him pretty annoyed." I don't remember Dennett slapping down the idea, so maybe it wasn't that thorough a job, or I read Dennett before I read much about the spandrel concept. I don't recall where Dawkins did so either - maybe in one of his books that I didn't read, or again, that I read before Gould's piece.

Could you point me at the appropriate sources, or even outline the problem with the spandrel concept. While it may not be an answer for very many problems, it may have some validity (I think).

cricket

I agree that Dawkins sees evolution as "progress" and Gould sees it differently, but the statement

exaggerates Dawkins' position. In fact, wasn't that the POV he lampooned in The Blind Watchmaker, the dialogue about the cow jumping over the moon? (Wish I could refer to the book; damned library made me give it back!) My understanding of Dawkins' POV is: some would-be positive adaptations never happen at all, and some don't pan out because they aren't "worth it". For any advantageous trait there is a cost response, and it's not necessarily worthwhile to develop and maintain a trait, however desirable. For anything that's gained there's something lost... (yArk; sounds like country music lyrics.)

[ February 11, 2002: Message edited by: cricket ]</p>