132-695: The Medawar Lecture was an annual lecture on the philosophy of science organised by the Royal Society of London in memory of Sir Peter Medawar . It was last delivered in 2004 after which it was merged with the Wilkins Lecture and the Bernal Lecture to form the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Lecture . This United Kingdom -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This philosophy of science -related article
264-458: A Marxist father" he stated that his father's politics were "very different" from his own. In describing his own political views, he has said they "tend to the left of center." According to Gould the most influential political books he read were C. Wright Mills ' The Power Elite and the political writings of Noam Chomsky . While attending Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio , in
396-637: A logical syntax . A scientific theory would be stated with its method of verification, whereby a logical calculus or empirical operation could verify its falsity or truth. In the late 1930s, logical positivists fled Germany and Austria for Britain and America. By then, many had replaced Mach's phenomenalism with Otto Neurath 's physicalism , and Rudolf Carnap had sought to replace verification with simply confirmation . With World War II 's close in 1945, logical positivism became milder, logical empiricism , led largely by Carl Hempel , in America, who expounded
528-417: A transit of Venus is justified by its being coherent with broader beliefs about celestial mechanics and earlier observations. As explained above, observation is a cognitive act. That is, it relies on a pre-existing understanding, a systematic set of beliefs. An observation of a transit of Venus requires a huge range of auxiliary beliefs, such as those that describe the optics of telescopes, the mechanics of
660-514: A "survival of the fittest" view in which the most falsifiable scientific theories are to be preferred. Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994) argued that no description of scientific method could possibly be broad enough to include all the approaches and methods used by scientists, and that there are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science. He argued that "the only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes ". Feyerabend said that science started as
792-486: A 250-seat capacity. Science B-16 was so oversubscribed that an annual lottery was held to see which students would be allowed to enroll in the course. If a student was denied course enrollment three times, then their fourth entry into the lottery provided them with a guaranteed seat in the class. Shortly before his death, Gould published The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002), a long treatise recapitulating his version of modern evolutionary theory. In an interview for
924-471: A ban on causal hypotheses in natural philosophy". In particular, later in the 18th century, David Hume would famously articulate skepticism about the ability of science to determine causality and gave a definitive formulation of the problem of induction , though both theses would be contested by the end of the 18th century by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science . In 19th century Auguste Comte made
1056-607: A basic level, they can agree on what they see, e.g., the thermometer shows 37.9 degrees C. But, if these scientists have different ideas about the theories that have been developed to explain these basic observations, they may disagree about what they are observing. For example, before Albert Einstein 's general theory of relativity , observers would have likely interpreted an image of the Einstein cross as five different objects in space. In light of that theory, however, astronomers will tell you that there are actually only two objects, one in
1188-694: A basis consistent with examples from the empirical sciences ). Seeking to overhaul all of philosophy and convert it to a new scientific philosophy , the Berlin Circle and the Vienna Circle propounded logical positivism in the late 1920s. Interpreting Ludwig Wittgenstein 's early philosophy of language , logical positivists identified a verifiability principle or criterion of cognitive meaningfulness. From Bertrand Russell 's logicism they sought reduction of mathematics to logic. They also embraced Russell's logical atomism , Ernst Mach 's phenomenalism —whereby
1320-464: A cartoon version of himself on the television series The Simpsons . In the episode " Lisa the Skeptic ", Lisa finds a skeleton that many people believe is an apocalyptic angel. Lisa contacts Gould and asks him to test the skeleton's DNA . The fossil is discovered to be a marketing gimmick for a new mall. During production, the only phrase Gould objected to was a line in the script that introduced him as
1452-523: A column for Discover magazine in 1985 titled "The Median Isn't the Message", which discusses his reaction to reading that "mesothelioma is incurable, with a median mortality of only eight months after discovery." In his essay, he describes the actual significance behind this fact, and his relief upon recognizing that statistical averages are useful abstractions, and by themselves do not encompass "our actual world of variation, shadings, and continua." Gould
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#17330936941791584-455: A considerably respected historian of science. Historian Ronald Numbers has been quoted as saying: "I can't say much about Gould's strengths as a scientist, but for a long time I've regarded him as the second most influential historian of science (next to Thomas Kuhn )." Gould's undergraduate course, Science B-16: History of the Earth and Life, was taught in a Harvard Science Center lecture hall with
1716-417: A continuous publication of 300 essays. Many of his essays were reprinted in collected volumes that became bestselling books such as Ever Since Darwin and The Panda's Thumb , Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes , and The Flamingo's Smile . A passionate advocate of evolutionary theory, Gould wrote prolifically on the subject, trying to communicate his understanding of contemporary evolutionary biology to
1848-465: A controversial topic in evolutionary biology . An illustrative example of Gould's approach can be found in Elisabeth Lloyd 's case study suggesting that the female orgasm is a by-product of shared developmental pathways. Gould also wrote on this topic in his essay "Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples," prompted by Lloyd's earlier work. Gould was criticized by philosopher Daniel Dennett for using
1980-460: A different guise in the foundations of statistics . The question of what counts as science and what should be excluded arises as a life-or-death matter in the philosophy of medicine . Additionally, the philosophies of biology, psychology, and the social sciences explore whether the scientific studies of human nature can achieve objectivity or are inevitably shaped by values and by social relations. Distinguishing between science and non-science
2112-557: A double major in geology and philosophy in 1963. During this time, he also studied at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. After completing graduate work at Columbia University in 1967 under the guidance of Norman Newell , he was immediately hired by Harvard University , where he worked until the end of his life (1967–2002). In 1973, Harvard promoted him to professor of geology and curator of invertebrate paleontology at
2244-481: A historical and sociological turn to science, with a priority on lived experience (a kind of Husserlian "life-world" ), rather than a progress-based or anti-historical approach as emphasised in the analytic tradition. One can trace this continental strand of thought through the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), the late works of Merleau-Ponty ( Nature: Course Notes from the Collège de France , 1956–1960), and
2376-513: A historical event might be explained in sociological and psychological terms, which in turn might be described in terms of human physiology, which in turn might be described in terms of chemistry and physics. Daniel Dennett distinguishes legitimate reductionism from what he calls greedy reductionism , which denies real complexities and leaps too quickly to sweeping generalizations. Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould ( / ɡ uː l d / GOOLD ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002)
2508-456: A legitimacy that it would not otherwise be able to achieve is referred to as pseudoscience , fringe science , or junk science . Physicist Richard Feynman coined the term " cargo cult science " for cases in which researchers believe they are doing science because their activities have the outward appearance of it but actually lack the "kind of utter honesty" that allows their results to be rigorously evaluated. A closely related question
2640-487: A liberating movement, but that over time it had become increasingly dogmatic and rigid and had some oppressive features, and thus had become increasingly an ideology . Because of this, he said it was impossible to come up with an unambiguous way to distinguish science from religion , magic , or mythology . He saw the exclusive dominance of science as a means of directing society as authoritarian and ungrounded. Promulgation of this epistemological anarchism earned Feyerabend
2772-605: A logical process. Kuhn's position, however, is not one of relativism . According to Kuhn, a paradigm shift occurs when a significant number of observational anomalies arise in the old paradigm and a new paradigm makes sense of them. That is, the choice of a new paradigm is based on observations, even though those observations are made against the background of the old paradigm. According to Robert Priddy, all scientific study inescapably builds on at least some essential assumptions that cannot be tested by scientific processes; that is, that scientists must start with some assumptions as to
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#17330936941792904-472: A longer period of evolutionary stability. It was Gould who coined the term "punctuated equilibria" though the theory was originally presented by Eldredge in his doctoral dissertation on Devonian trilobites and his article published the previous year on allopatric speciation . According to Gould, punctuated equilibrium revised a key pillar "in the central logic of Darwinian theory ." Some evolutionary biologists have argued that while punctuated equilibrium
3036-668: A major contribution to the theory of science. The 19th century writings of John Stuart Mill are also considered important in the formation of current conceptions of the scientific method, as well as anticipating later accounts of scientific explanation. Instrumentalism became popular among physicists around the turn of the 20th century, after which logical positivism defined the field for several decades. Logical positivism accepts only testable statements as meaningful, rejects metaphysical interpretations, and embraces verificationism (a set of theories of knowledge that combines logicism , empiricism , and linguistics to ground philosophy on
3168-529: A method of investigating evolutionary lineages and process, possibly because he was concerned that such investigations would lead to neglect of the details in historical biology, which he considered all-important. In the early 1990s this led him into a debate with Derek Briggs , who had begun to apply quantitative cladistic techniques to the Burgess Shale fossils, about the methods to be used in interpreting these fossils. Around this time cladistics rapidly became
3300-503: A noted public face of science, often appearing on television. In 1984 Gould received his own NOVA special on PBS . Other appearances included interviews on CNN 's Crossfire and Talkback Live , NBC 's The Today Show , and regular appearances on PBS's Charlie Rose show. Gould was also a guest in all seven episodes of the Dutch talk series A Glorious Accident , in which he appeared with his close friend Oliver Sacks . Gould
3432-447: A number of biological considerations, Gould permits that evolution may operate in human cultural evolution through a Lamarckian mechanism. Gould goes on to argue that the disappearance of the 0.400 batting average in baseball is paradoxically due to the inclusion of better players in the league, rather than players becoming worse over time. In his view such a process is likely reflective in a number of cultural phenomena including sports,
3564-464: A number of important works: especially those of a Kuhnian precursor, Alexandre Koyré (1892–1964). Another important development was that of Michel Foucault 's analysis of historical and scientific thought in The Order of Things (1966) and his study of power and corruption within the "science" of madness . Post-Heideggerian authors contributing to continental philosophy of science in the second half of
3696-436: A paradigm – comprise a collection of beliefs, values and techniques that are held by a given scientific community, which legitimize their systems and set the limitations to their investigation. For naturalists, nature is the only reality, the "correct" paradigm, and there is no such thing as supernatural , i.e. anything above, beyond, or outside of nature. The scientific method is to be used to investigate all reality, including
3828-438: A pattern, particularly in the context of universal patterns and the human propensity to perceive patterns, even where there might be none. This evaluation is pivotal in advancing research in diverse fields, from climate change to machine learning, where recognition and validation of real patterns in scientific models play a crucial role. Values intersect with science in different ways. There are epistemic values that mainly guide
3960-552: A role ranging from determining which research gets funded to influencing which theories achieve scientific consensus. For example, in the 19th century, cultural values held by scientists about race shaped research on evolution , and values concerning social class influenced debates on phrenology (considered scientific at the time). Feminist philosophers of science , sociologists of science, and others explore how social values affect science. The origins of philosophy of science trace back to Plato and Aristotle , who distinguished
4092-408: A scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits . The public backlash of scientists against such views, particularly in the 1990s, became known as the science wars . A major development in recent decades has been the study of
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4224-514: A self-described Darwinist, Gould's emphasis was less gradualist and reductionist than most neo-Darwinists . He fiercely opposed many aspects of sociobiology and its intellectual descendant evolutionary psychology . He devoted considerable time to fighting against creationism , creation science , and intelligent design . Most notably, Gould provided expert testimony against the equal-time creationism law in McLean v. Arkansas . Gould later developed
4356-726: A sociobiological framework that suggested that many social behaviors have a strong evolutionary basis. In response, Gould, Richard Lewontin , and others from the Boston area wrote the subsequently well-referenced letter to The New York Review of Books entitled, "Against 'Sociobiology'". This open letter criticized Wilson's notion of a "deterministic view of human society and human action." But Gould did not rule out sociobiological explanations for many aspects of animal behavior, and later wrote: "Sociobiologists have broadened their range of selective stories by invoking concepts of inclusive fitness and kin selection to solve (successfully I think)
4488-547: A test fails, something is wrong. But there is a problem in figuring out what that something is: a missing planet, badly calibrated test equipment, an unsuspected curvature of space, or something else. One consequence of the Duhem–Quine thesis is that one can make any theory compatible with any empirical observation by the addition of a sufficient number of suitable ad hoc hypotheses. Karl Popper accepted this thesis, leading him to reject naïve falsification . Instead, he favored
4620-559: A theory is validated if it makes sense of observations as part of a coherent whole, became prominent due to W. V. Quine and others. Some thinkers such as Stephen Jay Gould seek to ground science in axiomatic assumptions, such as the uniformity of nature . A vocal minority of philosophers, and Paul Feyerabend in particular, argue against the existence of the " scientific method ", so all approaches to science should be allowed, including explicitly supernatural ones. Another approach to thinking about science involves studying how knowledge
4752-467: A wide audience. A recurring theme in his writings is the history and development of pre-evolutionary and evolutionary thought . He was also an enthusiastic baseball fan and sabermetrician (analyst of baseball statistics), and made frequent reference to the sport in his essays. Many of his baseball essays were anthologized in his posthumously published book Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (2003). Although
4884-477: A wider latitude of design choice than they intended for their analogy. But Dennett's critique of the architectural basis of the analogy goes even further astray because he slights the technical rationale of the architectural elements in question." Gould favored the argument that evolution has no inherent drive towards long-term " progress ". Uncritical commentaries often portray evolution as a ladder of progress , leading towards bigger, faster, and smarter organisms,
5016-626: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Philosophy of science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods , and implications of science . Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science , the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose and meaning of science as a human endeavour. Philosophy of science focuses on metaphysical , epistemic and semantic aspects of scientific practice, and overlaps with metaphysics , ontology , logic , and epistemology , for example, when it explores
5148-426: Is a matter of chance, or otherwise cannot be perfectly predicted from what is known. Wesley Salmon developed a model in which a good scientific explanation must be statistically relevant to the outcome to be explained. Others have argued that the key to a good explanation is unifying disparate phenomena or providing a causal mechanism. Although it is often taken for granted, it is not at all clear how one can infer
5280-513: Is a subject for philosophers, theologians, students of the humanities, indeed for all thinking people. The answers will not be read passively from nature; they do not, and cannot, arise from the data of science. The factual state of the world does not teach us how we, with our powers for good and evil, should alter or preserve it in the most ethical manner. Gould also spoke out against creationist misuse of his work and theory, especially with respect to how his theory of punctuated equilibrium relates to
5412-973: Is actively engaged in distinguishing the phenomenon being observed from surrounding sensory data. Therefore, observations are affected by one's underlying understanding of the way in which the world functions, and that understanding may influence what is perceived, noticed, or deemed worthy of consideration. In this sense, it can be argued that all observation is theory-laden. Should science aim to determine ultimate truth, or are there questions that science cannot answer ? Scientific realists claim that science aims at truth and that one ought to regard scientific theories as true, approximately true, or likely true. Conversely, scientific anti-realists argue that science does not aim (or at least does not succeed) at truth, especially truth about unobservables like electrons or other universes. Instrumentalists argue that scientific theories should only be evaluated on whether they are useful. In their view, whether theories are true or not
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5544-518: Is beside the point, because the purpose of science is to make predictions and enable effective technology. Realists often point to the success of recent scientific theories as evidence for the truth (or near truth) of current theories. Antirealists point to either the many false theories in the history of science , epistemic morals, the success of false modeling assumptions, or widely termed postmodern criticisms of objectivity as evidence against scientific realism. Antirealists attempt to explain
5676-718: Is commonly portrayed as taking the extreme position that scientific language should never refer to anything unobservable—even the seemingly core notions of causality, mechanism, and principles—but that is an exaggeration. Talk of such unobservables could be allowed as metaphorical—direct observations viewed in the abstract—or at worst metaphysical or emotional. Theoretical laws would be reduced to empirical laws , while theoretical terms would garner meaning from observational terms via correspondence rules . Mathematics in physics would reduce to symbolic logic via logicism, while rational reconstruction would convert ordinary language into standardized equivalents, all networked and united by
5808-459: Is created from a sociological perspective, an approach represented by scholars like David Bloor and Barry Barnes . Finally, a tradition in continental philosophy approaches science from the perspective of a rigorous analysis of human experience. Philosophies of the particular sciences range from questions about the nature of time raised by Einstein's general relativity , to the implications of economics for public policy . A central theme
5940-431: Is for the best in this best of all possible worlds". Gould and Lewontin asserted that it is Panglossian for evolutionary biologists to view all traits as atomized things that had been naturally selected for, and criticised biologists for not granting theoretical space to other causes, such as phyletic and developmental constraints . The relative frequency of spandrels, so defined, versus adaptive features in nature, remains
6072-424: Is generally accepted that there is no such thing as a theory-independent measure of simplicity. In other words, there appear to be as many different measures of simplicity as there are theories themselves, and the task of choosing between measures of simplicity appears to be every bit as problematic as the job of choosing between theories. Nicholas Maxwell has argued for some decades that unity rather than simplicity
6204-406: Is not directly selected for by natural selection. Proposed examples include the "masculinized genitalia in female hyenas , exaptive use of an umbilicus as a brooding chamber by snails, the shoulder hump of the giant Irish deer , and several key features of human mentality." In Voltaire 's Candide , Dr. Pangloss is portrayed as a clueless scholar who, despite the evidence, insists that "all
6336-417: Is not just incidentally progressive, it is deeply, dyed-in-the-wool, indispensably progressive." Gould's arguments against progress in evolutionary biology did not extend towards a notion of progress in general or notions of cultural evolution . In Full House , Gould compares two notions of progress against one another. While the first concept of progress, evolutionary progress, is argued to be invalid for
6468-519: Is of greater consolation to me because it is a chance to put into one place a whole way of thinking about evolution that I've struggled with all my life." Gould became widely known through his popular essays on evolution in the Natural History magazine. His essays were published in a series entitled This View of Life (a phrase from the concluding paragraph of Charles Darwin 's Origin of Species ) from January 1974 to January 2001, amounting to
6600-448: Is often misunderstood by non-scientists, and according to Richard Dawkins has been oversold by the media. Some critics jokingly referred to the theory of punctuated equilibrium as "evolution by jerks", which prompted Gould to describe phyletic gradualism as "evolution by creeps." Gould made significant contributions to evolutionary developmental biology , especially in his work Ontogeny and Phylogeny . In this book he emphasized
6732-476: Is rather the product of systems of power relations struggling to construct scientific disciplines and knowledge within given societies. With the advances of scientific disciplines, such as psychology and anthropology, the need to separate, categorize, normalize and institutionalize populations into constructed social identities became a staple of the sciences. Constructions of what were considered "normal" and "abnormal" stigmatized and ostracized groups of people, like
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#17330936941796864-463: Is referred to as the demarcation problem. For example, should psychoanalysis , creation science , and historical materialism be considered pseudosciences? Karl Popper called this the central question in the philosophy of science. However, no unified account of the problem has won acceptance among philosophers, and some regard the problem as unsolvable or uninteresting. Martin Gardner has argued for
6996-492: Is socially constructed, though this does not necessarily imply the more radical notion that reality itself is a social construct . Michel Foucault sought to analyze and uncover how disciplines within the social sciences developed and adopted the methodologies used by their practitioners. In works like The Archaeology of Knowledge , he used the term human sciences . The human sciences do not comprise mainstream academic disciplines; they are rather an interdisciplinary space for
7128-446: Is the deductive-nomological model. It says that a successful scientific explanation must deduce the occurrence of the phenomena in question from a scientific law . This view has been subjected to substantial criticism, resulting in several widely acknowledged counterexamples to the theory. It is especially challenging to characterize what is meant by an explanation when the thing to be explained cannot be deduced from any law because it
7260-425: Is the evolution of form, and the problem of how it is that you can get this diversity amid so little genetic difference, so far as we can tell, is a very interesting one. And if we could solve this we'd learn something general about the evolution of form." Given Cerion 's extensive geographic diversity, Gould later lamented that if Christopher Columbus had only catalogued a single Cerion it would have ended
7392-551: Is the key non-empirical factor in influencing the choice of theory in science, persistent preference for unified theories in effect committing science to the acceptance of a metaphysical thesis concerning unity in nature. In order to improve this problematic thesis, it needs to be represented in the form of a hierarchy of theses, each thesis becoming more insubstantial as one goes up the hierarchy. When making observations, scientists look through telescopes, study images on electronic screens, record meter readings, and so on. Generally, on
7524-499: Is what counts as a good scientific explanation. In addition to providing predictions about future events, society often takes scientific theories to provide explanations for events that occur regularly or have already occurred. Philosophers have investigated the criteria by which a scientific theory can be said to have successfully explained a phenomenon, as well as what it means to say a scientific theory has explanatory power . One early and influential account of scientific explanation
7656-399: Is whether the terms of one scientific theory can be intra- or intertheoretically reduced to the terms of another. Can chemistry be reduced to physics, or can sociology be reduced to individual psychology ? The general questions of philosophy of science also arise with greater specificity in some particular sciences. For instance, the question of the validity of scientific reasoning is seen in
7788-621: The Bermudian genus Poecilozonites , while his later work concentrated on the West Indian genus Cerion . According to Gould " Cerion is the land snail of maximal diversity in form throughout the entire world. There are 600 described species of this single genus. In fact, they're not really species, they all interbreed, but the names exist to express a real phenomenon which is this incredible morphological diversity. Some are shaped like golf balls, some are shaped like pencils. ... Now my main subject
7920-627: The Boston Cecilia , and he was a great aficionado of Gilbert and Sullivan operas. He collected rare antiquarian books , possessed an enthusiasm for architecture , and delighted in city walks. He often traveled to Europe, and spoke French , German , Russian , and Italian . He sometimes alluded ruefully to his tendency to put on weight. Gould married artist Deborah Lee on October 3, 1965. Gould met Lee while they were students together at Antioch College . They had two sons, Jesse and Ethan, and were married for 30 years. His second marriage in 1995
8052-716: The Discovery Institute inspired the National Center for Science Education to create a pro-evolution counterpart called " Project Steve ," which is named in Gould's honor. In 2011 the executive council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) selected Gould for inclusion in CSI's "Pantheon of Skeptics" created to remember the legacy of deceased CSI fellows and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism. Gould also became
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#17330936941798184-529: The United States Navy . His mother Eleanor was an artist, whose parents were Jewish immigrants living and working in the city's Garment District . Gould and his younger brother Peter were raised in Bayside , a middle-class neighborhood in the northeastern section of Queens. He attended P.S. 26 elementary school and graduated from Jamaica High School . When Gould was five years old his father took him to
8316-509: The covering law model of scientific explanation as a way of identifying the logical form of explanations without any reference to the suspect notion of "causation". The logical positivist movement became a major underpinning of analytic philosophy , and dominated Anglosphere philosophy, including philosophy of science, while influencing sciences, into the 1960s. Yet the movement failed to resolve its central problems, and its doctrines were increasingly assaulted. Nevertheless, it brought about
8448-717: The evolution of feathers . Gould was a champion of biological constraints , internal limitations upon developmental pathways, as well as other non-selectionist forces in evolution. Rather than direct adaptations , he considered many higher functions of the human brain to be the unintended side consequence of natural selection . To describe such co-opted features, he coined the term exaptation with paleontologist Elisabeth Vrba . Gould believed this feature of human mentality undermines an essential premise of human sociobiology and evolutionary psychology . In 1975, Gould's Harvard colleague E. O. Wilson introduced his analysis of animal behavior (including human behavior) based on
8580-491: The hermeneutics of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976). The largest effect on the continental tradition with respect to science came from Martin Heidegger's critique of the theoretical attitude in general, which of course includes the scientific attitude. For this reason, the continental tradition has remained much more skeptical of the importance of science in human life and in philosophical inquiry. Nonetheless, there have been
8712-456: The lung , an aggressive form of cancer which had already spread to his brain, liver, and spleen. This cancer was unrelated to his previous bout of abdominal cancer in 1982, though it is also associated with asbestos exposure. He died in his home "in a bed set up in the library of his SoHo loft, surrounded by his wife Rhonda, his mother Eleanor, and the many books he loved." Gould began his higher education at Antioch College , graduating with
8844-500: The pseudoscience used in the service of racism and sexism . Interspersed throughout his scientific essays for Natural History magazine, Gould frequently referred to his non-scientific interests and pastimes. As a boy he collected baseball cards and remained an avid New York Yankees fan throughout his life. As an adult he was fond of science fiction movies, but often lamented their poor storytelling and presentation of science. His other interests included singing baritone in
8976-440: The reflection and refraction of light. Roger Bacon (1214–1294), an English thinker and experimenter heavily influenced by al-Haytham, is recognized by many to be the father of modern scientific method. His view that mathematics was essential to a correct understanding of natural philosophy is considered to have been 400 years ahead of its time. Francis Bacon (no direct relation to Roger Bacon , who lived 300 years earlier)
9108-649: The 20th century include Jürgen Habermas (e.g., Truth and Justification , 1998), Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker ( The Unity of Nature , 1980; German : Die Einheit der Natur (1971)), and Wolfgang Stegmüller ( Probleme und Resultate der Wissenschaftstheorie und Analytischen Philosophie , 1973–1986). Analysis involves breaking an observation or theory down into simpler concepts in order to understand it. Reductionism can refer to one of several philosophical positions related to this approach. One type of reductionism suggests that phenomena are amenable to scientific explanation at lower levels of analysis and inquiry. Perhaps
9240-508: The Dutch TV series Of Beauty and Consolation Gould remarked, "In a couple of years I will be able to gather in one volume my view of how evolution works. It is to me a great consolation because it represents the putting together of a lifetime of thinking into one source. That book will never be particularly widely read. It's going to be far too long, and it's only for a few thousand professionals—very different from my popular science writings—but it
9372-512: The Hall of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History , where he first encountered Tyrannosaurus rex . "I had no idea there were such things—I was awestruck," Gould once recalled. It was in that moment that he decided to become a paleontologist. Raised in a secular Jewish home, Gould did not formally practice religion and preferred to be called an agnostic . When asked directly if he
9504-691: The Humanist of the Year for his lifetime of work. In 2008, he was posthumously awarded the Darwin–Wallace Medal , along with 12 other recipients. (Until 2008, this medal had been awarded every 50 years by the Linnean Society of London . ) Early in his career, Gould and his colleague Niles Eldredge developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium , which describes the rate of speciation in the fossil record as occurring relatively rapidly, which then alternates to
9636-474: The Panglossian Paradigm ", which introduced the architectural term " spandrel " into evolutionary biology. In architecture, a spandrel is a triangular space which exists over the haunches of an arch. Spandrels—more often called pendentives in this context—are found particularly in classical architecture, especially Byzantine and Renaissance churches. When visiting Venice in 1978, Gould noted that
9768-469: The approach to the philosophy of science is to study how scientific communities actually operate. Philosophers in the continental philosophical tradition are not traditionally categorized as philosophers of science. However, they have much to say about science, some of which has anticipated themes in the analytical tradition. For example, in The Genealogy of Morals (1887) Friedrich Nietzsche advanced
9900-429: The assumption being that evolution is somehow driving organisms to get more complex and ultimately more like humankind. Gould argued that evolution's drive was not towards complexity , but towards diversification . Because life is constrained to begin with a simple starting point (like bacteria), any diversity resulting from this start, by random walk, will have a skewed distribution and therefore be perceived to move in
10032-416: The best explanation. In this account, science is not about generalizing specific instances but rather about hypothesizing explanations for what is observed. As discussed in the previous section, it is not always clear what is meant by the "best explanation". Ockham's razor , which counsels choosing the simplest available explanation, thus plays an important role in some versions of this approach. To return to
10164-482: The center and four different images of a second object around the sides. Alternatively, if other scientists suspect that something is wrong with the telescope and only one object is actually being observed, they are operating under yet another theory. Observations that cannot be separated from theoretical interpretation are said to be theory-laden . All observation involves both perception and cognition . That is, one does not make an observation passively, but rather
10296-449: The central role of reason as opposed to sensory experience. By contrast, in 1713, the 2nd edition of Isaac Newton 's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica argued that "... hypotheses ... have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy[,] propositions are deduced from the phenomena and rendered general by induction." This passage influenced a "later generation of philosophically-inclined readers to pronounce
10428-487: The chicken. How is scientific reasoning more trustworthy than the chicken's reasoning? One approach is to acknowledge that induction cannot achieve certainty, but observing more instances of a general statement can at least make the general statement more probable . So the chicken would be right to conclude from all those mornings that it is likely the farmer will come with food again the next morning, even if it cannot be certain. However, there remain difficult questions about
10560-500: The direction of higher complexity. But life, Gould argued, can also easily adapt towards simplification, as is often the case with parasites . In a review of Full House , Richard Dawkins approved of Gould's general argument, but suggested that he saw evidence of a "tendency for lineages to improve cumulatively their adaptive fit to their particular way of life, by increasing the numbers of features which combine together in adaptive complexes. ... By this definition, adaptive evolution
10692-500: The dominant method of classification in evolutionary biology. Inexpensive but increasingly powerful personal computers made it possible to process large quantities of data about organisms and their characteristics. Around the same time the development of effective polymerase chain reaction techniques made it possible to apply cladistic methods of analysis to biochemical and genetic features as well. Most of Gould's empirical research pertained to land snails . He focused his early work on
10824-477: The early 1960s, Gould was active in the civil rights movement and often campaigned for social justice . When he attended the University of Leeds as a visiting undergraduate, he organized weekly demonstrations outside a Bradford dance hall which refused to admit black people . Gould continued these demonstrations until the policy was revoked. Throughout his career and writings, he spoke out against cultural oppression in all its forms, especially what he saw as
10956-423: The establishment of philosophy of science as a distinct subdiscipline of philosophy, with Carl Hempel playing a key role. In the 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , Thomas Kuhn argued that the process of observation and evaluation takes place within a paradigm, a logically consistent "portrait" of the world that is consistent with observations made from its framing. A paradigm also encompasses
11088-415: The example of the chicken, would it be simpler to suppose that the farmer cares about it and will continue taking care of it indefinitely or that the farmer is fattening it up for slaughter? Philosophers have tried to make this heuristic principle more precise regarding theoretical parsimony or other measures. Yet, although various measures of simplicity have been brought forward as potential candidates, it
11220-499: The formation, structure, and evolution of scientific communities by sociologists and anthropologists – including David Bloor , Harry Collins , Bruno Latour , Ian Hacking and Anselm Strauss . Concepts and methods (such as rational choice, social choice or game theory) from economics have also been applied for understanding the efficiency of scientific communities in the production of knowledge. This interdisciplinary field has come to be known as science and technology studies . Here
11352-465: The forms of approximate and exact reasoning, set out the threefold scheme of abductive , deductive , and inductive inference, and also analyzed reasoning by analogy . The eleventh century Arab polymath Ibn al-Haytham (known in Latin as Alhazen ) conducted his research in optics by way of controlled experimental testing and applied geometry , especially in his investigations into the images resulting from
11484-609: The fossil record. Most of Gould's empirical research was based on the land snail genera Poecilozonites and Cerion . He also made important contributions to evolutionary developmental biology , receiving broad professional recognition for his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny . In evolutionary theory he opposed strict selectionism, sociobiology as applied to humans, and evolutionary psychology . He campaigned against creationism and proposed that science and religion should be considered two distinct fields (or " non-overlapping magisteria ") whose authorities do not overlap. Gould
11616-471: The human spirit. Some claim that naturalism is the implicit philosophy of working scientists, and that the following basic assumptions are needed to justify the scientific method: In contrast to the view that science rests on foundational assumptions, coherentism asserts that statements are justified by being a part of a coherent system. Or, rather, individual statements cannot be validated on their own: only coherent systems can be justified. A prediction of
11748-701: The institution's Museum of Comparative Zoology . In 1982, Harvard awarded him the title of Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology. That same year, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement . In 1983, he was awarded a fellowship at the American Association for the Advancement of Science , where he later served as president (1999–2001). The AAAS news release cited his "numerous contributions to both scientific progress and
11880-559: The investigation of patterns observed in scientific phenomena to ascertain whether they signify underlying truths or are mere constructs of human interpretation. Dennett provides a unique ontological account concerning real patterns, examining the extent to which these recognized patterns have predictive utility and allow for efficient compression of information. The discourse on real patterns extends beyond philosophical circles, finding relevance in various scientific domains. For example, in biology, inquiries into real patterns seek to elucidate
12012-528: The mentally ill and sexual and gender minorities. However, some (such as Quine) do maintain that scientific reality is a social construct: Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer ... For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it
12144-507: The mind knows only actual or potential sensory experience, which is the content of all sciences, whether physics or psychology—and Percy Bridgman 's operationalism . Thereby, only the verifiable was scientific and cognitively meaningful , whereas the unverifiable was unscientific, cognitively meaningless "pseudostatements"—metaphysical, emotive, or such—not worthy of further review by philosophers, who were newly tasked to organize knowledge rather than develop new knowledge. Logical positivism
12276-410: The nature of biological explanations, exploring how recognized patterns contribute to a comprehensive understanding of biological phenomena. Similarly, in chemistry, debates around the reality of chemical bonds as real patterns continue. Evaluation of real patterns also holds significance in broader scientific inquiries. Researchers, like Tyler Millhouse, propose criteria for evaluating the realness of
12408-407: The observations are grounded, and he argued that it is not possible to evaluate competing paradigms independently. More than one logically consistent construct can paint a usable likeness of the world, but there is no common ground from which to pit two against each other, theory against theory. Each paradigm has its own distinct questions, aims, and interpretations. Neither provides a standard by which
12540-425: The other can be judged, so there is no clear way to measure scientific progress across paradigms. For Kuhn, the choice of paradigm was sustained by rational processes, but not ultimately determined by them. The choice between paradigms involves setting two or more "portraits" against the world and deciding which likeness is most promising. For Kuhn, acceptance or rejection of a paradigm is a social process as much as
12672-418: The paleontological record as being characterized by predominantly gradual change (which he termed horotely), although he also documented examples of slow (bradytely), and rapid (tachytely) rates of evolution. Punctuated equilibrium and phyletic gradualism are not mutually exclusive (as Simpson's work demonstrates), and examples of each have been documented in different lineages. The debate between these two models
12804-590: The philosophy of science lack contemporary consensus, including whether science can infer truth about unobservable entities and whether inductive reasoning can be justified as yielding definite scientific knowledge. Philosophers of science also consider philosophical problems within particular sciences (such as biology , physics and social sciences such as economics and psychology ). Some philosophers of science also use contemporary results in science to reach conclusions about philosophy itself . While philosophical thought pertaining to science dates back at least to
12936-439: The presence of transitional fossils or forms: 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 are abundant between larger groups. The evolution from reptiles to mammals . . . is well documented. An anti-evolution petition drafted by
13068-484: The process of heterochrony , which encompasses two distinct processes: neoteny and terminal additions. Neoteny is the process where ontogeny is slowed down and the organism does not reach the end of its development. Terminal addition is the process by which an organism adds to its development by speeding and shortening earlier stages in the developmental process. Gould's influence in the field of evolutionary developmental biology continues to be seen today in areas such as
13200-457: The process of interpreting any given evidence into a probability that the general statement is true. One way out of these particular difficulties is to declare that all beliefs about scientific theories are subjective , or personal, and correct reasoning is merely about how evidence should change one's subjective beliefs over time. Some argue that what scientists do is not inductive reasoning at all but rather abductive reasoning , or inference to
13332-710: The public understanding of science." He also served as president of the Paleontological Society (1985–1986) and of the Society for the Study of Evolution (1990–1991). In 1989, Gould was elected into the body of the National Academy of Sciences . Through 1996–2002 Gould was Vincent Astor Visiting research professor of biology at New York University . In 2001, the American Humanist Association named him
13464-493: The reflection on man who is the subject of more mainstream scientific knowledge, taken now as an object, sitting between these more conventional areas, and of course associating with disciplines such as anthropology , psychology , sociology , and even history . Rejecting the realist view of scientific inquiry, Foucault argued throughout his work that scientific discourse is not simply an objective study of phenomena, as both natural and social scientists like to believe, but
13596-417: The relationship between science and the concept of truth . Philosophy of science is both a theoretical and empirical discipline , relying on philosophical theorising as well as meta-studies of scientific practice. Ethical issues such as bioethics and scientific misconduct are often considered ethics or science studies rather than the philosophy of science. Many of the central problems concerned with
13728-399: The scholarly debate about which island Columbus had first set foot on in America. Gould is one of the most frequently cited scientists in the field of evolutionary theory. His 1979 "spandrels" paper has been cited more than 5,000 times. In Paleobiology —the flagship journal of his own speciality—only Charles Darwin and George Gaylord Simpson have been cited more often. Gould was also
13860-419: The scientific research. The scientific enterprise is embedded in particular culture and values through individual practitioners. Values emerge from science, both as product and process and can be distributed among several cultures in the society. When it comes to the justification of science in the sense of general public participation by single practitioners, science plays the role of a mediator between evaluating
13992-412: The set of questions and practices that define a scientific discipline. He characterized normal science as the process of observation and "puzzle solving" which takes place within a paradigm, whereas revolutionary science occurs when one paradigm overtakes another in a paradigm shift . Kuhn denied that it is ever possible to isolate the hypothesis being tested from the influence of the theory in which
14124-451: The solar system, one needs information about the masses and positions of the Sun and all the planets. Famously, the failure to predict the orbit of Uranus in the 19th century led not to the rejection of Newton's Law but rather to the rejection of the hypothesis that the solar system comprises only seven planets. The investigations that followed led to the discovery of an eighth planet, Neptune . If
14256-458: The spandrels of the San Marco cathedral, while quite beautiful, were not spaces planned by the architect. Rather the spaces arise as "necessary architectural byproducts of mounting a dome on rounded arches." Gould and Lewontin thus defined " spandrels " in the evolutionary biology context to mean any biological feature of an organism that arises as a necessary side consequence of other features, which
14388-404: The standards and policies of society and its participating individuals, wherefore science indeed falls victim to vandalism and sabotage adapting the means to the end. If it is unclear what counts as science, how the process of confirming theories works, and what the purpose of science is, there is considerable scope for values and other social influences to shape science. Indeed, values can play
14520-437: The success of scientific theories without reference to truth. Some antirealists claim that scientific theories aim at being accurate only about observable objects and argue that their success is primarily judged by that criterion. The notion of real patterns has been propounded, notably by philosopher Daniel C. Dennett , as an intermediate position between strong realism and eliminative materialism . This concept delves into
14652-456: The successful lawsuit of HIV activist Jim Wakeford , who sued the Government of Canada for the right to cultivate, possess, and use marijuana for medical purposes. In February 2002, a 3-centimeter (1.2 in) lesion was found on Gould's chest radiograph , and oncologists diagnosed him with stage IV cancer. Gould died 10 weeks later on May 20, 2002, from a metastatic adenocarcinoma of
14784-594: The telescope mount, and an understanding of celestial mechanics . If the prediction fails and a transit is not observed, that is likely to occasion an adjustment in the system, a change in some auxiliary assumption, rather than a rejection of the theoretical system. In fact, according to the Duhem–Quine thesis , after Pierre Duhem and W.V. Quine , it is impossible to test a theory in isolation. One must always add auxiliary hypotheses in order to make testable predictions. For example, to test Newton's Law of Gravitation in
14916-632: The term "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA) to describe how, in his view, science and religion should not comment on each other's realm. Gould went on to develop this idea in some detail, particularly in the books Rocks of Ages (1999) and The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox (2003). In a 1982 essay for Natural History Gould wrote: Our failure to discern a universal good does not record any lack of insight or ingenuity, but merely demonstrates that nature contains no moral messages framed in human terms. Morality
15048-412: The term spandrel instead of pendentive, a spandrel that curves across a right angle to support a dome. Robert Mark, a professor of civil engineering at Princeton, offered his expertise in the pages of American Scientist , noting that these definitions are often misunderstood in architectural theory . Mark concluded, "Gould and Lewontin's misapplication of the term spandrel for pendentive perhaps implies
15180-415: The thesis that the motive for the search for truth in sciences is a kind of ascetic ideal. In general, continental philosophy views science from a world-historical perspective. Philosophers such as Pierre Duhem (1861–1916) and Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) wrote their works with this world-historical approach to science, predating Kuhn's 1962 work by a generation or more. All of these approaches involve
15312-474: The time of Aristotle , the general philosophy of science emerged as a distinct discipline only in the 20th century following the logical positivist movement, which aimed to formulate criteria for ensuring all philosophical statements' meaningfulness and objectively assessing them. Karl Popper criticized logical positivism and helped establish a modern set of standards for scientific methodology . Thomas Kuhn 's 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
15444-674: The title of "the worst enemy of science" from his detractors. According to Kuhn, science is an inherently communal activity which can only be done as part of a community. For him, the fundamental difference between science and other disciplines is the way in which the communities function. Others, especially Feyerabend and some post-modernist thinkers, have argued that there is insufficient difference between social practices in science and other disciplines to maintain this distinction. For them, social factors play an important and direct role in scientific method, but they do not serve to differentiate science from other disciplines. On this account, science
15576-467: The ultimate analysis of the facts with which it deals. These assumptions would then be justified partly by their adherence to the types of occurrence of which we are directly conscious, and partly by their success in representing the observed facts with a certain generality, devoid of ad hoc suppositions." Kuhn also claims that all science is based on assumptions about the character of the universe, rather than merely on empirical facts. These assumptions –
15708-497: The use of a Potter Stewart standard ("I know it when I see it") for recognizing pseudoscience. Early attempts by the logical positivists grounded science in observation while non-science was non-observational and hence meaningless. Popper argued that the central property of science is falsifiability . That is, every genuinely scientific claim is capable of being proven false, at least in principle. An area of study or speculation that masquerades as science in an attempt to claim
15840-414: The validity of a general statement from a number of specific instances or infer the truth of a theory from a series of successful tests. For example, a chicken observes that each morning the farmer comes and gives it food, for hundreds of days in a row. The chicken may therefore use inductive reasoning to infer that the farmer will bring food every morning. However, one morning, the farmer comes and kills
15972-400: The vexatious problem of altruism —previously the greatest stumbling block to a Darwinian theory of social behavior... Here sociobiology has had and will continue to have success. And here I wish it well. For it represents an extension of basic Darwinism to a realm where it should apply." With Richard Lewontin, Gould wrote an influential 1979 paper entitled, " The Spandrels of San Marco and
16104-512: The visual arts, and music where, unlike in biological systems, the realm of aesthetic possibilities is constrained by a "right wall" of human limits and aesthetic preferences. Gould later goes on to state that his arguments for biological evolution should not be applied to cultural change lest they be employed by, "so-called 'political correctness' as a doctrine that celebrates all indigenous practice, and therefore permits no distinctions, judgements, or analyses." Gould never embraced cladistics as
16236-688: Was "of great interest to biology generally," it merely modified neo-Darwinism in a manner that was fully compatible with what had been known before. Other biologists emphasize the theoretical novelty of punctuated equilibrium, and argued that evolutionary stasis had been "unexpected by most evolutionary biologists" and "had a major impact on paleontology and evolutionary biology." Comparisons were made to George Gaylord Simpson 's work in Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1941), in which he also illustrated relatively sudden changes along evolutionary lines. Simpson describes
16368-557: Was a seminal figure in philosophy of science at the time of the Scientific Revolution . In his work Novum Organum (1620)—an allusion to Aristotle's Organon —Bacon outlined a new system of logic to improve upon the old philosophical process of syllogism . Bacon's method relied on experimental histories to eliminate alternative theories. In 1637, René Descartes established a new framework for grounding scientific knowledge in his treatise, Discourse on Method , advocating
16500-511: Was also an advocate of medical cannabis . When undergoing his cancer treatments he smoked marijuana to help alleviate the long periods of intense and uncontrollable nausea. According to Gould, the drug had a "most important effect" on his eventual recovery. He later complained that he could not understand how "any humane person would withhold such a beneficial substance from people in such great need simply because others use it for different purposes." On August 5, 1998, Gould's testimony assisted in
16632-421: Was also formative, challenging the view of scientific progress as the steady, cumulative acquisition of knowledge based on a fixed method of systematic experimentation and instead arguing that any progress is relative to a " paradigm ", the set of questions, concepts, and practices that define a scientific discipline in a particular historical period. Subsequently, the coherentist approach to science, in which
16764-699: Was an American paleontologist , evolutionary biologist , and historian of science . He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In 1996, Gould was hired as the Vincent Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University , after which he divided his time teaching between there and Harvard. Gould's most significant contribution to evolutionary biology
16896-467: Was an agnostic in Skeptic magazine, he responded: If you absolutely forced me to bet on the existence of a conventional anthropomorphic deity, of course I'd bet no. But, basically, Huxley was right when he said that agnosticism is the only honorable position because we really cannot know. And that's right. I'd be real surprised if there turned out to be a conventional God. Though he "had been brought up by
17028-583: Was featured prominently as a guest in Ken Burns 's PBS documentary Baseball , as well as PBS's Evolution series. Gould was also on the Board of Advisers to the influential Children's Television Workshop television show 3-2-1 Contact , where he made frequent guest appearances. Since 2013, Gould has been listed on the Advisory Council of the National Center for Science Education . In 1997, he voiced
17160-506: Was known by the general public mainly for his 300 popular essays in Natural History magazine, and his numerous books written for both the specialist and non-specialist. In April 2000, the US Library of Congress named him a " Living Legend ". Stephen Jay Gould was born in Queens , New York , on September 10, 1941. His father Leonard was a court stenographer and a World War II veteran of
17292-410: Was the theory of punctuated equilibrium developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972. The theory proposes that most evolution is characterized by long periods of evolutionary stability, infrequently punctuated by swift periods of branching speciation . The theory was contrasted against phyletic gradualism , the popular idea that evolutionary change is marked by a pattern of smooth and continuous change in
17424-430: Was to artist and sculptor Rhonda Roland Shearer . In July 1982 Gould was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma , a deadly form of cancer affecting the abdominal lining (the peritoneum ). This cancer is frequently found in people who have ingested or inhaled asbestos fibers, a mineral which was used in the construction of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. After a difficult two-year recovery, Gould published
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