Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution

Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould was, until his death in 2002, America's best-known natural scientist. His monthly essays in Natural History magazine were widely read by both scientists and ordinary citizens with an interest in science. One of his books won the National Book Award, and another was a bestseller in three countries. Philosopher Daniel Dennett proclaimed him "America's evolutionist laureate."

While many people have written about Gould's science, pro and con, and a few have written about his politics, this is the first book to explore his science and politics as a consistent whole. Political scientist David F. Prindle argues that Gould's mind worked along two tracks simultaneously—the scientific and the political. All of his concepts and arguments were bona fide contributions to science, but all of them also contained specifically political implications.

As one example among many, Prindle cites Gould’s controversial argument that if the "tape of evolution" could be rewound and then allowed to unspool again, nothing resembling human beings would likely evolve. This was part of his larger thesis that people are not the result of a natural tendency toward perfection in evolution, but the result of chance, or as Gould put it, "contingency." As Prindle notes, Gould’s scientific ideas often sought to attack human hubris, and thus prepare the ground for the political argument that people should treat nature with more restraint.

Prindle evaluates Gould’s concepts of punctuated equilibrium (developed with Niles Eldredge), "spandrels," and "exaptation"; his stance on sociobiology, on human inequality and intelligence testing; his pivotal role in the culture wars between science and fundamentalist Christianity; and claims that he was a closet Marxist, which Prindle disputes. He continually emphasizes that in all these debates Gould’s science cannot be understood without an understanding of his politics. He concludes by considering whether Gould offered a new theory of evolution.

Anyone with an interest in one of America’s great scientists, or in paleontology, evolutionary theory, or intellectual history will find Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution to be a fascinating exploration of the man and his ideas.

David F. Prindle (Austin, TX) is the author of The Paradox of Democratic Capitalism: Politics and Economics in American Thought, among other books and articles. He is professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin.