The Mismeasure of Man. Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould, the biologist and author, once joked that were he an identical twin raised separately from his brother they could ‘hire ourselves out to a host of social scientists and practically name our fee’. In order to monetise Gould’s fantasy, one would want a form of twinship that could operate according to evidential, experimental, somatic and circumstantial ideals. And Gould admits that he and his brother would need to be viewed as ‘the only really adequate natural experiment for separating genetic from environmental effects in humans’. This chapter seeks to interrogate the evidential and experimental circumstances that may underpin the comic quips that guide modern biology. In human genetics, twins are used as experimental bodies that are made to matter in particular ways and for particular people; they become newly ‘animate’ for being enrolled into scientific research. Raised in cultures assumed to be alike or dissimilar, isolated by researchers for being valuable in the measured disentanglement of assembled molecular agents (which are sometimes distinguished from an assemblage referred to as an ‘environment’), twins achieve a status of experimental significance not just for what they do but also for what they are taken to be.

Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time. Stephen Jay Gould

Isis ◽

10.1086/354574 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 78 (4) ◽

pp. 608-609

Author(s):

Kenneth L. Taylor

Keyword(s):

Geological Time ◽

Stephen Jay Gould ◽

Time’S Arrow

CONFLITO ENTRE CIÊNCIA E RELIGIÃO EM GOULD, HARRIS E DAWKINS

Revista Relegens Thréskeia ◽

10.5380/rt.v9i2.75545 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 162

Author(s):

Rogério Fernandes Silva

Keyword(s):

Richard Dawkins ◽

Stephen Jay Gould

um dos assuntos recorrentes do debate sobre o ateísmo é a identidade que a tese do conflito entre ciência e religião costuma ocupar no discurso. A criação e divulgação da “tese de conflito” tem respaldo nas obras neoateístas. Sendo muito importante tanto os posicionamentos mais favoráveis à religião, neste caso, temos as afirmações de Stephen Jay Gould, que luta contra os aspectos negativos da tese. Por outro lado há pensadores ateus como Sam Harris e Richard Dawkins, que estão contra as afirmações de Gould, como se a tese de conflito fosse parte importante da identicidade ateísta. Este trabalho visa pensar como os dois lados antagônicos se posicionam.

Chance, Evolution, and the Metaphysical Implications of Paleontological Practice

10.1007/978-3-030-75797-7_7 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 119-143

Author(s):

Alan C. Love

Keyword(s):

Evolutionary Process ◽

Cambrian Explosion ◽

Burgess Shale ◽

Stephen Jay Gould ◽

History Of

AbstractFor several decades, a debate has been waged over how to interpret the significance of fossils from the Burgess Shale and Cambrian Explosion. Stephen Jay Gould argued that if the “tape of life” was rerun, then the resulting lineages would differ radically from what we find today, implying that humans are a happy accident of evolution. Simon Conway Morris argued that if the “tape of life” was rerun, the resulting lineages would be similar to what we now observe, implying that intelligence would still emerge from an evolutionary process. Recent methodological innovations in paleontological practice call into question both positions and suggest that global claims about the history of life, whether in terms of essential contingency or predictable convergence, are unwarranted.

The Scientific Sublime

10.1093/oso/9780190637774.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Alan G. Gross

Keyword(s):

Immanuel Kant ◽

18Th Century ◽

Adam Smith ◽

Popular Science ◽

Natural World ◽

Rachel Carson ◽

The Sublime ◽

Crucial Difference ◽

Stephen Jay Gould ◽

Stephen Hawking

The sublime evokes our awe, our terror, and our wonder. Applied first in ancient Greece to the heights of literary expression, in the 18th-century the sublime was extended to nature and to the sciences, enterprises that viewed the natural world as a manifestation of God's goodness, power, and wisdom. In The Scientific Sublime, Alan Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great popular scientists of our time--Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, Rachel Carson, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, and E. O. Wilson--evoke the sublime in response to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? How did life? How did language? These authors maintain a tradition initiated by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, towering 18th-century figures who adapted the literary sublime first to nature, then to science--though with one crucial difference: religion has been replaced wholly by science. In a final chapter, Gross explores science's attack on religion, an assault that attempts to sweep permanently under the rug two questions science cannot answer: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the good life?

L’hommage de Stephen Jay Gould à l’évolutionnisme de Nietzsche

Dialogue ◽

10.1017/s0012217315000864 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 54 (3) ◽

pp. 409-453

Author(s):

BARBARA STIEGLER

Keyword(s):

Daniel Dennett ◽

Stephen Jay Gould ◽

De Se ◽

Sciences Humaines ◽

Sciences Humaines Et Sociales

En 2002, le paléontologue américain Stephen Jay Gould a rendu un surprenant hommage à l’évolutionnisme de Nietzsche. J’explique ici leur proximité critique, déjà annoncée par Daniel Dennett en 1995, de trois façons différentes. Je montre d’abord qu’elle permet à Gould de se départir du partage dualiste entre sciences de la nature et sciences humaines et sociales, dans lequel Dennett essaie de l’enfermer. Je montre ensuite qu’elle ouvre, loin de toute tentation d’instaurer de nouveaux «crochets célestes», des voies fécondes et inattendues pour repenser l’hypothèse de la volonté de puissance. Je soutiens enfin qu’elle apporte des gages solides à l’ensemble de la critique nietzschéenne du darwinisme.

Book Review: Revolutionary Evolutionist: Stephen Jay Gould and his Legacy for Radical Human Geography

Human Geography ◽

10.1177/194277861400700102 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 110-116

Author(s):

Gwilym Eades

Keyword(s):

Human Geography ◽

Stephen Jay Gould

Dinosaurs in the Classroom: How We Know What We Know

The Paleontological Society Papers ◽

10.1017/s1089332600003260 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. 189-208

Author(s):

Craig A. Munsart ◽

Karen Alonzi-Van Gundy

Keyword(s):

Scientific Reasoning ◽

Thinking Skills ◽

Educational Value ◽

The Earth ◽

Stephen Jay Gould ◽

The Way

The Present wave of dinosaur mania makes it easy to utilize a student's interest in the former masters of the Earth to introduce a wide variety of concepts. Students are already familiar with the names and habits of many of the animals, but familiarity can accomplish much more. Stephen Jay Gould (1991) asks, “Could we not immediately subvert more of the dinosaur craze from crass commercialism to educational value? … Dinosaur facts and figures can inspire visceral interest and lead to greater wonder about science. Dinosaur theories and reconstructions can illustrate the rudiments of scientific reasoning.” We fervently share Gould's tenet that dinosaurs can be used as a medium not only to teach students about the way science works but to introduce a broad range of thinking skills as well.

Review: Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution by David F. Prindle

The New Scientist ◽

10.1016/s0262-4079(09)61330-0 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 202 (2708) ◽

pp. 48

Author(s):

Ewen Callaway

Keyword(s):

Stephen Jay Gould