Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [146]
3. Post-Darwinian grandeur, says Gould, falls on the nonprogressive and contingent end of the theme, with many paleontologists espousing the view that evolution contains no inherent progress within its processes and that if “the tape of life could be replayed from scratch” humans would be unlikely to arise again. “Bell exalted humans as the top rung of an inevitable ladder. Darwin perceived us as a branch on a tree, but still as a topmost shoot representing a predictable direction of growth. Many paleontologists, myself included, now view Homo sapiens as a tiny and unpredictable twig on a richly ramifying tree of life—a happy accident of the last geological moment, unlikely ever to appear again if we could regrow the tree from seed.”47
How are we to react to this loss of grandeur? Gould considers John Stuart Mill’s suggestion that it is “better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied,” but he rejects that and turns instead to the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of grandeur: “transcendent greatness or nobility of intrinsic character.” Finishing with a flourish Gould then ties together history, theory, and themata while admitting that ultimately there is an element of subjectivity in science: “For me then—and I will admit that grandeur must remain a largely personal and aesthetic concept—the modern view is grandest of all, for we have finally freed nature from primary judgment for placement of one little twig upon its copious bush. We can now step off and back—and see nature as something so vast, so strange (yet comprehensive), and so majestic in pursuing its own ways without human interference, that grandeur becomes the best word of all for expressing our interest, and our respect.”48
We see in this 3,600-word essay the interaction of Gouldian history, theory, philosophy, and science, wrapped up in a tight literary package marketed to both professionals and the public. Gould is using the history of science to bolster his prejudices for certain theoretical interpretations of life’s data—both biological and cultural—in support of the ends of the thematic pairs that best fit his worldview. As his critics are wont to point out, not all paleontologists accept this contingent and nonprogressive view of life, so Gould is building his case through every channel available. Gould is a historian and philosopher of science, but not intrinsically so. Yes, he is intensely passionate about “touching history” for its own sake, but this yearning is secondary to a larger purpose.49 Not surprisingly, that purpose is very Darwinian.
Darwin’s Dictum and Gould’s Purpose
In 1861, less than two years after the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, in a session before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, a critic claimed that Darwin’s book was too theoretical and that he should have just “put his facts before us and let them rest.” In a letter to his friend Henry Fawcett, who was in attendance in his defense, Darwin explained the proper relationship between theory and data: “About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorize; and I well remember someone saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must