Dawkins vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest

This is the most engaging book on evolution I've read since reading The Selfish Gene nearly twenty years ago. The author's grasp of theoretical fine points is impressive, his writing style is crisp, his anecdotes numerous.

This is one of three semi-popular books that I know of about the disputes between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould about the nature of evolutionary biology, but it is quite different from the other two. Both Ullica Segerstråle ("Defenders of the Truth") and Andrew Brown ("The Darwin Wars") focus on the politics and personalities of the people involved, but Kim Sterelny refers very little to these aspects, and avoids chatty information that has little bearing on the facts (who poured water on whom on which occasion?). Instead he concentrates on the science, and on Dawkins and Gould in particular, saying little about the other participants in the controversies. As a result he has written a very useful book that should be of interest to anyone who wants to know what the arguments were about. An important point is that the ideas of Dawkins and Gould are by no means as divergent as one might gather from a superficial knowledge of their work. In fact, they agree about much more than they disagree about. Both of them accept, without reservation, the basic correctness of natural selection as the fundamental driving force of evolution; neither of them is even remotely an ally of the pseudo-science of creationism or its more recent manifestation as intelligent design. Where they differ is about the fundamental unit of selection. For Dawkins, the unit of selection is the gene, or, in some minor circumstances, the individual. Gould accepted the possibility of selection at higher levels, most notably the species. They also differ about what happened in the Cambrian and other "explosions". For Dawkins (as for Darwin), this was business as usual, and the only reason that it may appear otherwise is our difficulty in appreciating that a period of, say, 50000 years is very long in terms of our experience, but immeasurably short on a geological time scale. For Gould these were periods of evolutionary inventiveness, when whole new phyla appeared or disappeared. Sterelny presents the arguments on both sides and then discusses them, pointing out what he sees as weaknesses in their arguments, finally indicating which he agrees with. This usually turns out to be the position of Dawkins, and Sterelny admits that on the whole he does favour Dawkins. However, I don't see that as a fault: an author who remained scrupulously neutral in the whole debate and never indicated a personal opinion would produce an impossibly boring book; moreover, anyone who understands the science well enough to write authoritatively about it must inevitably arrive at some personal opinions. I have read the earlier three-star review by Mohroy. It gives a fair account of the book and I understand why Mohroy felt that it only merited three stars, but my feeling is that it merits much more than that, and that a totally unbiassed account of the controversies would be unreadable.

Kim Sterelny's overview of the Stephen Gould - Richard Dawkins conflicting views of evolution is a masterful summation. Setting himself an immense task, he addresses the material published by the two evolutionists, assessing evidence, logic and interpretation. To Sterelny's lasting credit, personality is almost entirely omitted in this account. A brief education background note [Dawkins studied under Tinbergen, Gould's mentor was George Gaylord Simpson] and Sterelny moves quickly to the essence of the debate. His presentation makes this a fine introduction to the issues involved.Debate is a gentle word to apply to some of the acrimonious exchanges the pair engaged in either directly or through proxies. The opening shot was Gould's scornful review of Daniel C. Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" in which Dennett challenged Gould and Eldredge's notion of punctuated equilibrium as setting the pace of evolution. The clash brought to light more fundamental differences in outlook - gene-centred evolution or a multi-level interacting set of forces. As Sterelny ultimately points out, the two are subject to merging into a broader synthesis. Dawkins has made that point frequently, as Sterelny notes, but that reality failed to find fertile ground on this side of the Atlantic. Gene-centred evolution results in the creation of adaptations through mutations. Whether these adaptations are successful over time is the story of evolution. Gould found many ways to challenge this theme, chiefly because it would apply equally to human evolution, something Gould always found abhorrent. Gould's argument went deeper than human evolution. He advanced "contingency" and mass extinctions of whatever cause, as more viable mechanisms than what he labelled "gene centrism". Sterelny presents both positions with admirable clarity and laudable equilibrium. It would be churlish to criticise Sterelny's temperate treatment of Gould's notions. Dawkins and Dennett have already performed the task sufficiently, although Sterelny skirts Dennett's examination. The loss of Gould to cancer has not quelled the debate, thus proving it wasn't simply a clash of personalities. A Gould "camp", with adherents on both sides of the Atlantic, maintains the heated dispute. Lewontin and Kamin in America and the Rose cabal in the UK still launch verbal missiles at the Dawkins target. Sterelny keeps his focus tight in this book, not being diverted to these disputants. In performing this feat, Sterelny might be criticised for failing to note why the debate is worth notice by a wider audience. He certainly hasn't written this for the academic community, although many in other disciplines might benefit from his insights and brisk narrative. Sterelny's position as a philosopher located in New Zealand is sufficient example to show how far the debate has reached. Its very universality might have prompted him to reflect on its impact on social questions. Even so, his effort is highly c

Interested in the genuine scientific (and philosophical controversy) about evolution? Before starting on the first chapter of Stephen Gould's "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory", try "Dawkins versus Gould" by Kim Sterelny. It is about the same length as Chapter One of Gould's magnum opus and coherently discusses the profound differences between these two great evolutionary biologists. This book should be a must-read for anyone interested in evolution.

I found Kim Sterelny's review to be a very accurate yet understandable summary. I have read many books written by Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, so I already had a rough sketch of their contention. Sterelny's book was a great way to solidify the nature of Gould and Dawkins' scientific conflict and a great way to fill in the gaps.I was particularly grateful by the Gould section. Dawkins has stated his views on evolution and Gould quite extensively, but I have been less exposed to Gould's original writings on punctuated equilibrium (probably because, as Sterelny noted, Gould has written about the subject mostly in essays and scientific papers). The Gould section in this book was a great clarification of punctuated equilibrium and other Gould theories.I have not heard the opinions of the title subjects on this book, although I would very much like to. But for the moment, I found 'Dawkins vs. Gould' to be an objective, impartial and fair description of this well-known scientific clash.