I wrote a short answer about Gould answer on Quora ( https://www.quora.com/Did-the-Marxism-of-famous-social-scientist-Stephen-Jay-Gould-affect-his-scientific-conclusions-Does-it-affect-those-of-the-nearly-20-of-social-scientists-today-who-describe-themselves-as-Marxist/answer/Jim-Farmelant#comments ) several years ago. There I wrote:
> > > > Stephen Jay Gould was not a social scientist. Rather, he was a biologist > who specialized in paleontology and evolutionary biology. He was a “red > diaper baby,” who would sometimes speak of having learned Marxism at his > father’s knee. And yes, he freely admitted that his theory of punctuated > equilibrium had been influenced by his Marxism, although, he also pointed > out that Niles Eldredge, with whom he created that theory was not a > Marxist and did not share his Marxist background. > > > > Here is John Horgan on Gould: Stephen Jay Gould on Marx, Kuhn and Punk Meek > ( > https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/stephen-jay-gould-on-marx-kuhn-and-punk-meek/ > ) > > > > In The Panda's Thumb, in the essay "Episodic Evolutionary Change," Gould > sketched out the relation of his punctuationalism with dialectics. There, > he wrote: > > > > * If gradualism is more a product of Western thought than a fact of > nature, then we should consider alternate philosophies of change to > enlarge our realm of constraining prejudices. In the Soviet Union, for > example, for example, scientists are trained with a very different > philosophy of change - the so-called dialectical laws, reformulated by > Engels from Hegel's philosophy. The dialectical laws are explicitly > punctuational. They speak, for example, of the "transformation of quantity > into quality." This may sound like mumbo jumbo, but it suggests that > change occurs in large leaps following a slow accumulation of stresses > that a system resists until it reaches the breaking point. Heat water and > it eventually boils. Oppress the workers more and more and bring on the > revolution. Eldredge and I were fascinated to learn that many Russian > paleontologists support a model very similar to our punctuated equilibria. > > * I emphatically do not assert the general "truth" of this philosophy of > punctuational change. Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of > such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical. Gradualism > sometimes works well. (I often fly over the folded Appalachians and marvel > at the striking parallel ridges left standing by gradual erosion of the > softer rocks surrounding them). I make a simple plea for pluralism in > guiding philosophies, and for the recognition of such philosophies, > however hidden and unarticulated, constrain all our thought. The > dialectical laws express an ideology quite openly; our Western preference > for gradualism does the same more subtly. > * Nonetheless, I will confess to a personal belief that a punctuational > view may prove to map tempos of biological and geologic change more > accurately and more often than any of its competitors - if only because > complex systems in steady state are both common and highly resistant to > change." > > > > > I think a careful reading of Gould's words will indicate that he viewed > dialectics as a heuristic for generating hypotheses concerning the > behavior of complex systems. Note that he considered what he called the > punctuational view to be a "constraining prejudice" - what Gerald Holton > (about whom Gould had written favorably in the NY Review of Books ) would > call a 'themata.' Note also that Gould talked about expanding our range of > "constraining prejudices" rather than dogmatically insisting upon the need > to replace gradualism by punctuationalism. Gould recognized that such > views are not ultimately true or false but only more or less useful in > helping us to formulate new testable hypotheses. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#34604): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/34604 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/110591586/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
