Gould makes his own mea culpas near the end of the chapter, so you can focus on that zone. Tooby is not an unreasonable guy, and it may well be that Gould’s criticism of him was off-base. I have not read that particular exchange.
Let me put Gould in a slightly different frame. He was not the JK Galbraith of evolutionary theory, as Krugman bought into. He was probably closer to being the Milton Friedman, if on the opposite side of the political fence.
Friedman (like Dawkins also) was a great popularizer and author of best-selling books, like Gould and Galbraith. However, unlike Galbraith, he did win a Nobel Prize in economics, which most accept was deserved, even those who do not like Friedman’s politics. He is also in all the intro texts, just like Gould, but unlike Galbraith. Even so, there are some, his worst critics, who have always been extremely critical of him, often in very hyperbolic terms and language. Also, he has been proven wrong about some things which he was closely associated with, notably hard core monetarism (he agreed last summer that central banks should not focus on money supply anymore, an ultimately reasonable guy, like Gould).
Nobels are not given out for evolutionary theory, although geneticists get them sometimes (Crick, Watson). So, Mayr, Simpson, Williams, Maynard Smith (he might have gotten an econ one), and other giants did not get one. If they were given, Gould would have gotten one. It is very simple. Whatever his many faults, and they were many, he came up with what has been the single biggest new idea (yes, one can find hints of it in Darwin and some others) in evolutionary theory of the last half century, punctuated equilibrium, now in all the textbooks, just like the most important ideas of Milton Friedman (and unlike Galbraith’s major ideas). There are some who say it is wrong, but most say that it is at least partly right. So, Gould was very big and very important, even if he pissed a lot of people off.
Eliezer,
Gould makes his own mea culpas near the end of the chapter, so you can focus on that zone. Tooby is not an unreasonable guy, and it may well be that Gould’s criticism of him was off-base. I have not read that particular exchange.
Let me put Gould in a slightly different frame. He was not the JK Galbraith of evolutionary theory, as Krugman bought into. He was probably closer to being the Milton Friedman, if on the opposite side of the political fence.
Friedman (like Dawkins also) was a great popularizer and author of best-selling books, like Gould and Galbraith. However, unlike Galbraith, he did win a Nobel Prize in economics, which most accept was deserved, even those who do not like Friedman’s politics. He is also in all the intro texts, just like Gould, but unlike Galbraith. Even so, there are some, his worst critics, who have always been extremely critical of him, often in very hyperbolic terms and language. Also, he has been proven wrong about some things which he was closely associated with, notably hard core monetarism (he agreed last summer that central banks should not focus on money supply anymore, an ultimately reasonable guy, like Gould).
Nobels are not given out for evolutionary theory, although geneticists get them sometimes (Crick, Watson). So, Mayr, Simpson, Williams, Maynard Smith (he might have gotten an econ one), and other giants did not get one. If they were given, Gould would have gotten one. It is very simple. Whatever his many faults, and they were many, he came up with what has been the single biggest new idea (yes, one can find hints of it in Darwin and some others) in evolutionary theory of the last half century, punctuated equilibrium, now in all the textbooks, just like the most important ideas of Milton Friedman (and unlike Galbraith’s major ideas). There are some who say it is wrong, but most say that it is at least partly right. So, Gould was very big and very important, even if he pissed a lot of people off.