≡ Download An Urchin in the Storm Essays About Books and Ideas Stephen Jay Gould 9780393305371 Books

An Urchin in the Storm Essays About Books and Ideas Stephen Jay Gould 9780393305371 Books

Download As PDF : An Urchin in the Storm Essays About Books and Ideas Stephen Jay Gould 9780393305371 Books

An Urchin in the Storm Essays About Books and Ideas Stephen Jay Gould 9780393305371 Books

This book presents 18 essays grouped by five themes or general topics: Evolutionary Theory, Time and Geology, Biological Determinism, Four Biologists, and In Praise of Reason. Although most of the essays critique individual books, a few essays examine two or more books that treat similar or contrasting ideas. In this way, Gould can discuss ideas in a broader context than that proposed in a single book.

In essay two, for example, titled "Cardboard Darwism," Gould attacks the science of human sociobiology, especially in the form proposed by Edward O. Wilson. Gould is especially critical of the reductionist tendency of scientists in this specialty to seek a genetic explanation for every human behavior. He argues that a history of culture may be a more appropriate method of explaining particular human behaviors, like religion. He criticizes the adaptationist tendency to find a Darwinian explanation for every feature and structure of an organism (like wings or feathers on birds). He denounces especially a logical error called the anthropic principal, that is, "that since human life fits so intricately well into a universe run by nature's laws (current utility), these laws must have arisen with our later appearance in mind (historical origin)." (p. 48) But of course, nature is an unconscious thing and cannot look forward or make plans. In this essay, Gould critiques at least ten different books while focusing on the three he is reviewing here.

Essay 6 reviews "Basin and Range" by John McPhee. The essay, titled "Deep Time and Ceaseless Motion," looks at how McPhee explains the revolution in geology that has been brought about by the theory of plate tectonics. "Plate tectonics has given us a unified theory for the behavior and history of the earth as a whole," (p. 95) Gould writes. Perhaps my favorite quote from McPhee's book is this one: "If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone." (p. 98)

Again and again in this book, Gould returns to the ideas that drive him passionately: that it is wrong to view evolution as a ladder, lower beings giving way to higher beings, nature making progress in its creations. Evolution, he reminds us repeatedly, is not a ladder, but a bush. There is no progress, just changing creatures adapting to changing environments, while those who fail to adapt become extinct. He quotes Darwin's aphorism: "never say higher or lower." (p. 66) Another theme is that natural selection is not a theory of randomness---no matter how often it is characterized as such by its enemies---instead, "natural selection, the agent of change, is a conventional deterministic process that builds adaptation by preserving favorable variants." (p. 232)

I take great pleasure in reading and rereading these essays by Stephen Jay Gould. Even when he is at his most caustic, as when he is attacking the proponents of IQ testing like Arthur R. Jensen ("Jensen's Last Stand," essay 8) or Jeremy Rifkin's anti-scientific attack on genetic engineering ("Integrity and Mr. Rifkin," essay 17), he does not stoop to cheapshots or name-calling. One can sense his passionate opposition to the ideas these men are proposing, yet still Gould expends his energies in methodically piling up the evidence to support his critiques of faulty reasoning and bad science.


Tags : Buy An Urchin in the Storm: Essays About Books and Ideas on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders,Stephen Jay Gould,An Urchin in the Storm: Essays About Books and Ideas,W. W. Norton & Company,0393305376,General,Biology,Biology - Book reviews,Biology.,Biology;Book reviews.,Science.,Biology (General),Book reviews,Life Sciences - Biology,Life Sciences - Evolution,Literary Criticism,Literary Criticism General,Natural history,SCIENCE Life Sciences Evolution,Science,Science Life Sciences Biology,Science : Life Sciences - Evolution,ScienceLife Sciences - Evolution,The natural world, country life & pets,Books,Reviews,NatureEcology

An Urchin in the Storm Essays About Books and Ideas Stephen Jay Gould 9780393305371 Books Reviews

Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) wrote many other important books, such as Ever Since Darwin,The Panda's Thumb,Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes,Bully for Brontosaurus,Eight Little Piggies, etc. [NOTE page numbers refer to the 255-page paperback edition.]

He wrote in the Preface to this 1987 book, "so many book reviews are petty, pedantic, parochial, pedestrian... Why should articles of commentary on other books not lie within the domain of the essay?... I have always tried to write book reviews in this broader style... Each of these chapters uses an individual book to pursue a general theme, but organizes its discussion as a critique of content."

Of E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology, he says, "human sociobiology must be the most peculiar of self-proclaimed revolutions in science. We usually reserve this label for new structures of ideas ... Human sociobiology, by contrast, only raided one field with the unmodified tools of another. Moreover... sociobiology wielded the most orthodox version of these tools at the same moment that its parent discipline, evolutionary theory, had begun to reassess the very principles invoked to fuel the revolution in human nature. Human sociobiology worked by an untenable extension of flawed (even broken) tools into uncongenial territory." He admits, "As a severe critic of sociobiology from its inception, I clearly am not an impartial observer." (Pg. 28-29) Later, he adds, "Unfortunately, we call both the state of good design and the process of its origin by the same name---adaptation. The false equation of one with the other is, in my view, the Achilles heel of human sociobiology." (Pg. 35)

In another review, he argues that "In the simplistic scenario of hero=uniformitarian=empiricist vs. villain=catastrophist-theological apologist, Cuvier falls among the damn_d because his belief in rapid changes supposedly upheld an earth of limited antiquity, and God's direct role in geological history. In fact, none of the great catastrophists followed Moses, and their method was more rigidly empirical than that favored by any uniformitarian. They believed what they saw in the rocks---abundant evidence of catastrophe in faulting, tilting of strata, mass extinction, and abrupt change of inferred environment." (Pg. 101-102)

While reviewing Richard Lewontin's Not in Our Genes, he notes, "Leftist scientists are more likely to combat biological determinism just as rightists tend to favor this quintessential justification of the status quo as intractable biology... If we thought that biological determinism was pernicious but correct, we would live with it as we cope with the fact of our impending death. We have campaigned vigorously against this doctrine because we regard determinist arguments primarily as bad biology---and only then as devices used to support dubious policies." (Pg. 151)

Concerning Robert Jastrow's The Enchanted Loom Mind in the Universe, he comments, "I criticize two aspects of Jastrow's basic argument. First, even if life evolved as he states, this supposed directionality offers no guarantee of predictable continuity and advance in the transition from man to machine... Second, and more important, where is the 'inexorable trend toward greater intelligence' that dominates Jastrow's biological vision? Most multicellular creatures are insects, doing very well thank you, and destined to outlive us, but not illustrating any temporal increase in intelligence to match their longstanding success. And each of our intestinal tracts contains more E. coli than the earth houses people. They will be with us at least until our intellectual essences enter those silicon chips. Life is a ramifying bush with millions of branches, not a ladder." (Pg. 211)

He adds, "Jastrow and a few other astronomers have tried to find God in the universe by reading the big bang as the cosmological equivalent of Genesis. I confess that I have found it hard to take this argument seriously. The big bang may have created OUR universe... it may have obliterated the history of previous worlds... But an inability to reconstruct previous universes does not argue for their necessary nonexistence. We can only say that we do not know; the issue of whether the universe contains enough matter to contract again (pulsating versus unique big-bang theories) remains unsolved. If scientists should not play God, they should stop trying to find God as well. The inquiry may be legitimate, but not as part of science." (Pg. 212-213)

In reviewing Fritjof Capra's The Turning Point Science, Society, and the Rising Culture, he states, "why must ALL of Capra's examples lie so pointedly in the realm of the nonrational? AM I so peculiar because some of my greatest emotional highs have accompanied my understanding of a bit of nature's complexity" And why, oh why, must the athletic examples always be tennis and skiing? Because this is what the beautiful people do? Is anything really wrong with softball and bowling... despite their odor of ordinariness?... I thought that Capra and I would be kindred spirits, since we maintain a similar commitment to a holistic and hierarchical perspective. Yet I found myself getting more and more annoyed with his book, with its facile analogies, its distrust of reason, its invocation of fashionable notions." (Pg. 225)

He points out that Jeremy Rifkin "dismisses Darwinism as a tautology fitness is defined by survival, and the catch phrase 'survival of the fittest' reduces to 'survival of those that survive'---and therefore has no meaning. Darwin resolved this issue by defining fitness as predictable advantage before the fact, not as recorded survival afterward (as we may predict the biomechanical improvements that might help zebras outrun or outmaneuver lions; survival then becomes a testable consequence of good design)." (Pg. 232-233) He adds, "[Rifkin] cites the British physiologist Gerald Kerkut's Implications of Evolution, a book written to refute the factual claim that all living creatures have a common ancestry, and to argue instead that life may have arisen several times from chemical precursors---an issue not addressed by Darwinism. (Creationist lawyers challenged me with the same misunderstanding during my cross-examination at the Arkansas 'equal time' trial five years ago.)" (Pg. 234)

In the final essay, he critiques the idea of a universal flood of Noah "Why, then---no place anywhere on this vast earth---do we find dinosaurs and large mammals in the same strata; why are trilobites never with mammals, but always in strata below? One might argue that dumb dinosaurs were less skilled at avoiding flood waters than bright mammals, and got buried earlier. One might claim that trilobites, as denizens of the ocean, were entombed before terrestrial mammals. But why are they never found with whales? Surely some retarded elephant would be keeping company with dinosaurs, some valiant trilobite swimming hard for thirty-nine days and winning an exalted upper berth with mammals." (Pg. 246)

Besides being a highly creative evolutionary theorist, Gould was also a brilliant writer and an engaged "public intellectual." His presence is sorely missed on the scientific and literary scene.
good
We all should get used to the quality imprinted by Gould in all of his books. This is not the exception, it's a mixture of a first level researcher, a great scientific communicator and a non paralel author in the amplitude of his culture and great sense of humour and use of english. This and all his books most be devoured by everyone interested on science.
Easy reading, clear communication of the science that should make it friendly for a lay audience, and an amazingly insightful section on a favorite American Scientific poet, Lewis Thomas, which makes it worth owning, for those who go back to re-read well-written passages. It is a constant, rewarding traveling companion.
Zell McGee, M.D.
I have to confess that I love Steven J's writings and this was one of the few books that I have not read. He had an incisive mind which could cut thru the chatter and define an issue. In this book which is basically a review of other books he carefully dissects the bstatements of other authors and in some cases offers countering theories. If you enjoy diverse reading with a wonderful author I recommend this book.
This book presents 18 essays grouped by five themes or general topics Evolutionary Theory, Time and Geology, Biological Determinism, Four Biologists, and In Praise of Reason. Although most of the essays critique individual books, a few essays examine two or more books that treat similar or contrasting ideas. In this way, Gould can discuss ideas in a broader context than that proposed in a single book.

In essay two, for example, titled "Cardboard Darwism," Gould attacks the science of human sociobiology, especially in the form proposed by Edward O. Wilson. Gould is especially critical of the reductionist tendency of scientists in this specialty to seek a genetic explanation for every human behavior. He argues that a history of culture may be a more appropriate method of explaining particular human behaviors, like religion. He criticizes the adaptationist tendency to find a Darwinian explanation for every feature and structure of an organism (like wings or feathers on birds). He denounces especially a logical error called the anthropic principal, that is, "that since human life fits so intricately well into a universe run by nature's laws (current utility), these laws must have arisen with our later appearance in mind (historical origin)." (p. 48) But of course, nature is an unconscious thing and cannot look forward or make plans. In this essay, Gould critiques at least ten different books while focusing on the three he is reviewing here.

Essay 6 reviews "Basin and Range" by John McPhee. The essay, titled "Deep Time and Ceaseless Motion," looks at how McPhee explains the revolution in geology that has been brought about by the theory of plate tectonics. "Plate tectonics has given us a unified theory for the behavior and history of the earth as a whole," (p. 95) Gould writes. Perhaps my favorite quote from McPhee's book is this one "If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone." (p. 98)

Again and again in this book, Gould returns to the ideas that drive him passionately that it is wrong to view evolution as a ladder, lower beings giving way to higher beings, nature making progress in its creations. Evolution, he reminds us repeatedly, is not a ladder, but a bush. There is no progress, just changing creatures adapting to changing environments, while those who fail to adapt become extinct. He quotes Darwin's aphorism "never say higher or lower." (p. 66) Another theme is that natural selection is not a theory of randomness---no matter how often it is characterized as such by its enemies---instead, "natural selection, the agent of change, is a conventional deterministic process that builds adaptation by preserving favorable variants." (p. 232)

I take great pleasure in reading and rereading these essays by Stephen Jay Gould. Even when he is at his most caustic, as when he is attacking the proponents of IQ testing like Arthur R. Jensen ("Jensen's Last Stand," essay 8) or Jeremy Rifkin's anti-scientific attack on genetic engineering ("Integrity and Mr. Rifkin," essay 17), he does not stoop to cheapshots or name-calling. One can sense his passionate opposition to the ideas these men are proposing, yet still Gould expends his energies in methodically piling up the evidence to support his critiques of faulty reasoning and bad science.