Villains do exist in this world. So do heroes, although they’re a lot rarer. That villains have good sides, or heroes have flaws, does not change this point. And yes, Gould is a bad guy. Not Voldemort, but still someone whose scientific works contain lies and misdirections and mis-implications subtle enough that I would consider it to be a foolishly overconfident risk to try to read them.
Villains do exist in this world. So do heroes, although they’re a lot rarer. That villains have good sides, or heroes have flaws, does not change this point. And yes, Gould is a bad guy. Not Voldemort, but still someone whose scientific works contain lies and misdirections and mis-implications subtle enough that I would consider it to be a foolishly overconfident risk to try to read them.
Though I think that this is a really important counterpoint.
I once tried reading a book of some of Gould’s essays… the parts I read were mostly just boring and I didn’t bother to finish it.
I like many of his essays. In any case, he doesn’t discuss this or the evolution thing in many of them, so it’s fairly irrelevant.