So farewell, then . . .
May. 21st, 2002 12:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zotzStephen Jay Gould has died of cancer. CNN obit here.
I don't know what to say. If you haven't read any of his essays, then you probably should. He was a prominent (and brilliant) evolutionary theorist and advocate. I'm not entirely in agreement with him on the technical issues, but his essays on biology and (often extremely tenuously related) topics are wonderful. His field of interest seemed to be "all knowledge", and reading his work is an education in itself. He also gave it all a very human feel - some people do, and some don't, give the impression that they are interested in and care about people generally. He did. His writing isn't dry and technical. It's warm, and alive. Some have criticiced it for being too easy and persuasive, jumping too smoothly over disputed points. But read it anyway. It's not perfect, but it's all good.
I don't know what to say. If you haven't read any of his essays, then you probably should. He was a prominent (and brilliant) evolutionary theorist and advocate. I'm not entirely in agreement with him on the technical issues, but his essays on biology and (often extremely tenuously related) topics are wonderful. His field of interest seemed to be "all knowledge", and reading his work is an education in itself. He also gave it all a very human feel - some people do, and some don't, give the impression that they are interested in and care about people generally. He did. His writing isn't dry and technical. It's warm, and alive. Some have criticiced it for being too easy and persuasive, jumping too smoothly over disputed points. But read it anyway. It's not perfect, but it's all good.
Yeah, I looked twice
Date: 2002-05-21 05:43 am (UTC)Not that he's got me interested in baseball, particularly.
(I remember one particular moment in 1991/2 when I was working as an assistant in the Vision lab in Oxford's Psychology department -- which shares a building and tea/coffee facilities with the Zoology Department, home of -- guess who -- Richard Dawkins. For some reason (probably because I had just read it myself) I went and asked Dawkins what he thought of Gould's latest book -- I think he had just reviewed it somewhere. Snottier than which no-one could be. Never cottoned on to Dawkins, though his science writing is generally reckoned to be more rigorous than Gould's.)
Re: Yeah, I looked twice
Date: 2002-05-21 05:59 am (UTC)Bollocks to that. Dawkins is blinded by his utter contempt for anyone who says 'Well, it's common sense that X...' without realising that he does it all the time himself. Just look at the PETWHAC section of Unweaving the Rainbow for a fine example of someone who's prepared to hand-wave some of the awkward details and fudge the statistics when it suits him.
Martin Gardener, now. There's someone who understands the pseudo-science he's debunking sufficiently well to debunk it, and who isn't afraid to say 'no, we can't actually prove this either, and I'm not going to claim we can' about some aspects of science.
Re: Yeah, I looked twice
Date: 2002-05-21 07:25 am (UTC)Re: Yeah, I looked twice
Date: 2002-05-21 09:05 am (UTC)Re: Yeah, I looked twice
Date: 2002-05-23 04:05 pm (UTC)As far as Gould/Dawkins and quality of science goes, I'm not a biologist or similar, and hence was relying on opinions of people who are -- but I do agree that Dawkins is an opinionated git who does seeem to allow his opinions get in the way of his arguments. I always thought it was good that Gould, for instance, is the sort of person who would be likely to take on a Creationist and argue sufficiently convincingly to demolish them -- while Dawkins would seem likely to just turn away and sneer.
Re: Yeah, I looked twice
Date: 2002-05-23 04:24 pm (UTC)Dawkins in manages-not-to-lose-temper shock. Hoodathunkit?
Re: Yeah, I looked twice
Date: 2002-05-23 10:51 am (UTC)ok at the PETWHAC section of Unweaving the Rainbow for a fine example of who's prepared to hand-wave some of the awkward details
PETWHAC? Wouldn't the RSPCA have something to say about that?
Dawkins is certainly a zealot. I'm not entirely in agreement with him, but then as I said I'm not entirely in agreement with Gould either. I'm closer to Dawkins, overall, but I don't have problems with some of the things he does. The much-touted dispute between the two of them has certainly been very vitriolic, but mostly it's over a) fairly fine points and b) personality. If you're after a more dispassionate (but still very Dawkinsian) PoV then you could do worse than look at Dan Dennet's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" (which, disappointingly, turns out not to have been alliteration after all). The points he scores off Gould (or tries to, at least) range from the petty (apparently San Marco has pendentives, not spandrels) to the fairly solid (WTF would qualify as a Spandrel anyway? And how could we tell?). It's a good general book, and doesn't waste too much time on this particular argument.
Martin Gardner's someone I'd like to read some stuff by, so I also will bear your recommendation in mind. Cheers.