I'm heading off to Hong Kong for a while! I ran into this article just recently. Very succinct, despite the length still readable. I feel a lot of people tend to run into Dawkins alot more probably because he is a lot more recent but honestly his ideas arent really new. Its science dude, you rarely get ideas which are fantastically new. Its usually minor modifications to older ideas.



by Stephen Jay Gould

Sirtley Mather, who died last year at age ninety, was a pillar of both science and Christian religion in America and one of my dearest friends. The difference of a half-century in our ages evaporated before our common interests. The most curious thing we shared was a battle we each fought at the same age. For Kirtley had gone to Tennessee with Clarence Darrow to testify for evolution at the Scopes trial of 1925. When I think that we are enmeshed again in the same
struggle for one of the best documented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. According to idealized principles of scientific discourse, the arousal of dormant issues should reflect fresh data that give renewed life to abandoned notions.
Those outside the current debate may therefore be excused for suspecting that creationists have come up with something new, or that evolutionists have generated some serious internal trouble. But nothing has changed; the creationists have presented not a single new fact or argument. Darrow and Bryan were at least more entertaining than we lesser antagonists today. The rise of
creationism is politics, pure and simple; it represents one issue (and by no means the major concern) of the resurgent evangelical right. Arguments that seemed kooky just a decade ago have reentered the mainstream. The basic attack of modern creationists falls apart on two general counts before we even reach the supposed factual details of their assault against evolution.

First, they play upon a vernacular misunderstanding of the word "theory" to convey the false impression that we evolutionists are covering up the rotten core of our edifice. Second, they misuse a popular philosophy of science to argue that they are behaving scientifically in attacking evolution. Yet the same philosophy demonstrates that their own belief is not science, and that "scientific creationism" is a meaningless and self-contradictory phrase, an example of what Orwell called "newspeak."

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"—part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus creationists can (and do) argue: evolution is "only" a theory, and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is less than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this
argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science—that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was." Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data.

Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered. Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for
perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Evolutionists have been clear about this distinction between fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory—natural selection—to explain the mechanism of evolution.

He wrote in The Descent of Man: "I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to
show that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural
selection had been the chief agent of change. . . . Hence if I have erred in . . .
having exaggerated its [natural selection's] power . . . I have at least, as I hope,
done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations."
Thus Darwin acknowledged the provisional nature of natural selection while
affirming the fact of evolution. The fruitful theoretical debate that Darwin initiated
has never ceased. From the 1940s through the 1960s, Darwin's own theory of
natural selection did achieve a temporary hegemony that it never enjoyed in his
lifetime. But renewed debate characterizes our decade, and, while no biologists
questions the importance of natural selection, many doubt its ubiquity. In
particular, many evolutionists argue that substantial amounts of genetic change
may not be subject to natural selection and may spread through the populations
at random. Others are challenging Darwin's linking of natural selection with
gradual, imperceptible change through all intermediary degrees; they are arguing
that most evolutionary events may occur far more rapidly than Darwin
envisioned.
Scientists regard debates on fundamental issues of theory as a sign of
intellectual health and a source of excitement. Science is—and how else can I
say it?—most fun when it plays with interesting ideas, examines their
implications, and recognizes that old information might be explained in
surprisingly new ways. Evolutionary theory is now enjoying this uncommon vigor.
Yet amidst all this turmoil no biologist has been lead to doubt the fact that
evolution occurred; we are debating how it happened. We are all trying to explain
the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of
genealogy. Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently
neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that
evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand.
Secondly, creationists claim that "the dogma of separate creations," as Darwin
characterized it a century ago, is a scientific theory meriting equal time with
evolution in high school biology curricula. But a popular viewpoint among
philosophers of science belies this creationist argument. Philosopher Karl Popper
has argued for decades that the primary criterion of science is the falsifiability of
its theories. We can never prove absolutely, but we can falsify. A set of ideas that
cannot, in principle, be falsified is not science.
The entire creationist program includes little more than a rhetorical attempt to
falsify evolution by presenting supposed contradictions among its supporters.
Their brand of creationism, they claim, is "scientific" because it follows the
Popperian model in trying to demolish evolution. Yet Popper's argument must
apply in both directions. One does not become a scientist by the simple act of
trying to falsify a rival and truly scientific system; one has to present an
alternative system that also meets Popper's criterion — it too must be falsifiable
in principle.
"Scientific creationism" is a self-contradictory, nonsense phrase precisely
because it cannot be falsified. I can envision observations and experiments that
would disprove any evolutionary theory I know, but I cannot imagine what
potential data could lead creationists to abandon their beliefs. Unbeatable
systems are dogma, not science. Lest I seem harsh or rhetorical, I quote
creationism's leading intellectual, Duane Gish, Ph.D. from his recent (1978) book,
Evolution? The Fossils Say No! "By creation we mean the bringing into being by
a supernatural Creator of the basic kinds of plants and animals by the process of
sudden, or fiat, creation. We do not know how the Creator created, what process
He used, for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the
natural universe [Gish's italics]. This is why we refer to creation as special
creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigations anything about the
creative processes used by the Creator." Pray tell, Dr. Gish, in the light of your
last sentence, what then is scientific creationism?
Our confidence that evolution occurred centers upon three general arguments.
First, we have abundant, direct, observational evidence of evolution in action,
from both the field and laboratory. This evidence ranges from countless
experiments on change in nearly everything about fruit flies subjected to artificial
selection in the laboratory to the famous populations of British moths that
became black when industrial soot darkened the trees upon which the moths
rest. (Moths gain protection from sharp-sighted bird predators by blending into
the background.) Creationists do not deny these observations; how could they?
Creationists have tightened their act. They now argue that God only created
"basic kinds," and allowed for limited evolutionary meandering within them. Thus
toy poodles and Great Danes come from the dog kind and moths can change
color, but nature cannot convert a dog to a cat or a monkey to a man.
The second and third arguments for evolution—the case for major changes—do
not involve direct observation of evolution in action. They rest upon inference, but
are no less secure for that reason. Major evolutionary change requires too much
time for direct observation on the scale of recorded human history. All historical
sciences rest upon inference, and evolution is no different from geology,
cosmology, or human history in this respect. In principle, we cannot observe
processes that operated in the past. We must infer them from results that still
surround us: living and fossil organisms for evolution, documents and artifacts for
human history, strata and topography for geology.
The second argument—that the imperfection of nature reveals evolution—strikes
many people as ironic, for they feel that evolution should be most elegantly
displayed in the nearly perfect adaptation expressed by some organisms—the
camber of a gull's wing, or butterflies that cannot be seen in ground litter because
they mimic leaves so precisely. But perfection could be imposed by a wise
creator or evolved by natural selection. Perfection covers the tracks of past
history. And past history—the evidence of descent—is the mark of evolution.
Evolution lies exposed in the imperfections that record a history of descent. Why
should a rat run, a bat fly, a porpoise swim, and I type this essay with structures
built of the same bones unless we all inherited them from a common ancestor?
An engineer, starting from scratch, could design better limbs in each case. Why
should all the large native mammals of Australia be marsupials, unless they
descended from a common ancestor isolated on this island continent?
Marsupials are not "better," or ideally suited for Australia; many have been wiped
out by placental mammals imported by man from other continents. This principle
of imperfection extends to all historical sciences. When we recognize the
etymology of September, October, November, and December (seventh, eighth,
ninth, and tenth), we know that the year once started in March, or that two
additional months must have been added to an original calendar of ten months.
The third argument is more direct: transitions are often found in the fossil record.
Preserved transitions are not common—and should not be, according to our
understanding of evolution (see next section) but they are not entirely wanting, as
creationists often claim. The lower jaw of reptiles contains several bones, that of
mammals only one. The non-mammalian jawbones are reduced, step by step, in
mammalian ancestors until they become tiny nubbins located at the back of the
jaw. The "hammer" and "anvil" bones of the mammalian ear are descendants of
these nubbins. How could such a transition be accomplished? the creationists
ask. Surely a bone is either entirely in the jaw or in the ear. Yet paleontologists
have discovered two transitional lineages of therapsids (the so-called mammallike
reptiles) with a double jaw joint—one composed of the old quadrate and
articular bones (soon to become the hammer and anvil), the other of the
squamosal and dentary bones (as in modern mammals). For that matter, what
better transitional form could we expect to find than the oldest human,
Australopithecus afarensis, with its apelike palate, its human upright stance, and
a cranial capacity larger than any ape’s of the same body size but a full 1,000
cubic centimeters below ours? If God made each of the half-dozen human
species discovered in ancient rocks, why did he create in an unbroken temporal
sequence of progressively more modern features—increasing cranial capacity,
reduced face and teeth, larder body size? Did he create to mimic evolution and
test our faith thereby?
Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of their own
position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttress their rhetorical
claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am—for I have become a major target of
these practices.
I count myself among the evolutionists who argue for a jerky, or episodic, rather
than a smoothly gradual, pace of change. In 1972 my colleague Niles Eldredge
and I developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium. We argued that two
outstanding facts of the fossil record—geologically "sudden" origin of new
species and failure to change thereafter (stasis)—reflect the predictions of
evolutionary theory, not the imperfections of the fossil record. In most theories,
small isolated populations are the source of new species, and the process of
speciation takes thousands or tens of thousands of years. This amount of time,
so long when measured against our lives, is a geological microsecond. It
represents much less than 1 per cent of the average life-span for a fossil
invertebrate species—more than ten million years. Large, widespread, and well
established species, on the other hand, are not expected to change very much.
We believe that the inertia of large populations explains the stasis of most fossil
species over millions of years.
We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different
explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot
be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the
different success of certain kinds of species. A trend, we argued, is more like
climbing a flight of stairs (punctuated and stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane.
Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be
quoted again and again by creationists—whether through design or stupidity, I do
not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms.
Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are
abundant between larger groups. Yet a pamphlet entitled "Harvard Scientists
Agree Evolution Is a Hoax" states: "The facts of punctuated equilibrium which
Gould and Eldredge…are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that Bryan
insisted on, and which God has revealed to us in the Bible."
Continuing the distortion, several creationists have equated the theory of
punctuated equilibrium with a caricature of the beliefs of Richard Goldschmidt, a
great early geneticist. Goldschmidt argued, in a famous book published in 1940,
that new groups can arise all at once through major mutations. He referred to
these suddenly transformed creatures as "hopeful monsters." (I am attracted to
some aspects of the non-caricatured version, but Goldschmidt's theory still has
nothing to do with punctuated equilibrium—see essays in section 3 and my
explicit essay on Goldschmidt in The Pandas Thumb.) Creationist Luther
Sunderland talks of the "punctuated equilibrium hopeful monster theory" and tells
his hopeful readers that "it amounts to tacit admission that anti-evolutionists are
correct in asserting there is no fossil evidence supporting the theory that all life is
connected to a common ancestor." Duane Gish writes, "According to
Goldschmidt, and now apparently according to Gould, a reptile laid an egg from
which the first bird, feathers and all, was produced." Any evolutionists who
believed such nonsense would rightly be laughed off the intellectual stage; yet
the only theory that could ever envision such a scenario for the origin of birds is
creationism—with God acting in the egg.
I am both angry at and amused by the creationists; but mostly I am deeply sad.
Sad for many reasons. Sad because so many people who respond to creationist
appeals are troubled for the right reason, but venting their anger at the wrong
target. It is true that scientists have often been dogmatic and elitist. It is true that
we have often allowed the white-coated, advertising image to represent us—
"Scientists say that Brand X cures bunions ten times faster than…" We have not
fought it adequately because we derive benefits from appearing as a new
priesthood. It is also true that faceless and bureaucratic state power intrudes
more and more into our lives and removes choices that should belong to
individuals and communities. I can understand that school curricula, imposed
from above and without local input, might be seen as one more insult on all these
grounds. But the culprit is not, and cannot be, evolution or any other fact of the
natural world. Identify and fight our legitimate enemies by all means, but we are
not among them.
I am sad because the practical result of this brouhaha will not be expanded
coverage to include creationism (that would also make me sad), but the reduction
or excision of evolution from high school curricula. Evolution is one of the half
dozen "great ideas" developed by science. It speaks to the profound issues of
genealogy that fascinate all of us—the "roots" phenomenon writ large. Where did
we come from? Where did life arise? How did it develop? How are organisms
related? It forces us to think, ponder, and wonder. Shall we deprive millions of
this knowledge and once again teach biology as a set of dull and unconnected
facts, without the thread that weaves diverse material into a supple unity?
But most of all I am saddened by a trend I am just beginning to discern among
my colleagues. I sense that some now wish to mute the healthy debate about
theory that has brought new life to evolutionary biology. It provides grist for
creationist mills, they say, even if only by distortion. Perhaps we should lie low
and rally around the flag of strict Darwinism, at least for the moment—a kind of
old-time religion on our part.
But we should borrow another metaphor and recognize that we too have to tread
a straight and narrow path, surrounded by roads to perdition. For if we ever begin
to suppress our search to understand nature, to quench our own intellectual
excitement in a misguided effort to present a united front where it does not and
should not exist, then we are truly lost.

[ Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," May 1981; from Hen's
Teeth and Horse's Toes, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994, pp. 253-
262. ]

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