Mystery of Mysteries: Is Evolution a Social Construction? - Softcover

Ruse, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674005430 ISBN 13: 9780674005433

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2001

Synopsis

With the recent Sokal hoax--the publication of a prominent physicist's pseudo-article in a leading journal of cultural studies--the status of science moved sharply from debate to dispute. Is science objective, a disinterested reflection of reality, as Karl Popper and his followers believed? Or is it subjective, a social construction, as Thomas Kuhn and his students maintained? Into the fray comes Mystery of Mysteries, an enlightening inquiry into the nature of science, using evolutionary theory as a case study.

Michael Ruse begins with such colorful luminaries as Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) and Julian Huxley (brother of novelist Aldous and grandson of T. H. Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog" ) and ends with the work of the English game theorist Geoffrey Parker--a microevolutionist who made his mark studying the mating strategies of dung flies--and the American paleontologist Jack Sepkoski, whose computer-generated models reconstruct mass extinctions and other macro events in life's history. Along the way Ruse considers two great popularizers of evolution, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, as well as two leaders in the field of evolutionary studies, Richard Lewontin and Edward O. Wilson, paying close attention to these figures' cultural commitments: Gould's transplanted Germanic idealism, Dawkins's male-dominated Oxbridge circle, Lewontin's Jewish background, and Wilson's southern childhood. Ruse explicates the role of metaphor and metavalues in evolutionary thought and draws significant conclusions about the cultural impregnation of science. Identifying strengths and weaknesses on both sides of the "science wars," he demonstrates that a resolution of the objective and subjective debate is nonetheless possible.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Ruse is Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science at Florida State University. He is the founder and editor of the journal Biology and Philosophy, and has appeared on Quirks and Quarks and the Discovery Channel.

Review:

“Michael Ruse is a Canadian philosopher of science with a sharp but good-natured wit, and an inclination to pursue controversial topics related to evolution...Mr. Ruse is at his scholarly best [in this book], exploring thoughtfully the role of ideological and epistemic values in evolutionary science.”―Phillip Johnson, Washington Times

“Ruse proposes to investigate the history of evolutionary biology from the late 18th century to the present to determine the influence of various factors in deciding the course of this scientific discipline...Because evolutionary theory has been one of the chief battlefields in the war between constructivists and positivists, Ruse could not have picked a more appropriate topic of study...The readers of Ruse's spirited and ambitious book get to enjoy one more salvo in the science wars.”―David L. Hull, Science

“Which values drive scientific knowledge? Are they epistemic values (objectivity, reproducibility, predictive strength, empirical fruitfulness)? Or cultural values (religion, belief in progress, egalitarianism, militarism)? 'Scientists' involved in the culture wars say epistemic; 'sociologists' say cultural. Ruse detects a false dilemma...He argues that epistemic values inform all science that survives...[but] the cultural values of important scientists can be seen in the work they choose to do...In Mystery of Mysteries we have a fine presentation of the Highlights of Evolutionary Thought.”―Paul Gross, National Review

“Ruse is trying to do several hard things in this smaller book. He wants to cool the sectarian heat of the science wars enough to tackle what he regards as philosophically serious issues underlying the debate. And he aims to do so in a way accessible to the general reader. He succeeds pretty well on both counts...Ruse's consistently good-humoured book is a fine example for anyone who wants to approach the science wars constructively. And it gets pretty close to persuading the sceptical reader that popular epistemology might be a viable enterprise.”―Jon Turney, Times Higher Education Supplement

“[Ruse] has put his knowledge to good use to say some fascinating things about the relative roles of culture and hard fact in the history of evolution and its mechanisms...To anyone interested in the evolution of evolution, I recommend this book. It is written with clarity and grace, and both the professional and the layperson will find it full of riches.”―John Tyler Bonner, Natural History

“[Ruse's] evenhandedness, coupled with an engaging, jargon-free writing style, makes Mystery of Mysteries a good book for nonscientists who want to know more about evolution and the nature of science.”―Kathleen L. Housley, Christian Century

“The title of Michael Ruse's book--Mystery of Mysteries: Is Evolution a Social Construction?--suggests a rather ambitious undertaking, and on that score readers are certainly not disappointed...[It] is an entertaining and knowledgeable...survey of evolutionary thought...[and] provides a starting point for those who want to know what the science wars are all about.”―Jay A. Labinger,, Chemical & Engineering News

“Ruse concludes that the ratio of culture to 'epistemic science,' as he calls the hard, objective stuff of proper research, has gradually reversed in favor of science, as molecular biology and other experiment-based methods of testing evolutionary theory's predictions have developed...[The book] is enlivened by Ruses's historical profiles of ten leading evolutionists, from Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwins grandfather) through Charles Darwin, Julian Huxley, and E. O. Wilson.”―California World

“Ruse sets out to answer [questions in the science wars], to salvage what is reasonable from the claims of both constructivists and realists, and to find a via media between the two. His methodology consists of examining the role of cultural versus epistemic values in the work of ten prominent evolutionists to discover what role cultural values play for each, and whether there is a set or body of norms, values or constraints that guide scientists in their theorizing and observing...Ruse's trek through 250 years of evolutionary biology yields another interesting finding: as a science matures and becomes more professionalized, epistemic values internal to the discipline become more explicit, more important and more thoroughly satisfied, whereas cultural values, although never completely absent, become relatively less significant.”―Timothy Shanahan, Tree

“In addition to criticism of several generations of leading evolutionary scientists, Ruse offers a vital clarification of what is at issue in the 'science wars,' noting that the 'reality' Popperian (and perhaps most) scientists seek to understand is reality versus illusion, rather than a definitive answer to the ancient philosophical question of realism versus nonrealism.”―Mary Carroll, Booklist

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0674005430
• ISBN 13: 9780674005433
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320