Gould's 
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

  The Eonic Effect

  The Structure of Evolutionary Theory
by Stephen Jay Gould

Darwin, read Adam Smith   This remarkable new book by the major Postdarwinian who insists on still calling himself a Darwinian will be welcomed by punk-eekers everywhere. This is a major work, and capstone of the author's Ontogeny and Phylogeny, dealing with the entire status of evolutionary theory. Bringing together much of the author's previous research we find a new perspective on hierarchical levels, species selection, and an extensive clarification of punctuated equilibrium, exaptation, and much else, a potent mix filled with an immense amount of historical discussion. Fourteen hundred pages and massively detailed, the result seems like an attempt to foist continuity on a paradigm discontinuity, with excessive solicitude for Darwin at the masthead, and incomplete clarity as to the status of natural selection preserved against the facts. The author's interesting theory of species selection, in relation to punctuated equilibrium, and species individuality, are an important discussion, but one must protest that after disposing of genetic reductionism and outsmarting his opponents Gould is in free fall here, visible in the attempt to thrash about for the 'point of application of evolutionary causality'. This cannot be determined on the basis of the discussion given, or without clearer evidence of how evolution actually happens at closer zoom levels. We just go up and down the scales for the unit of analysis, to wonder why, to use Gould's own note here, modern science restricts itself to one causal category of the Aristotelian tetrad, which also includes the factor of directionality Darwinists have decided they can't find, even in the middle of the strong suggestion it is there. I believe it was Popper who muttered something about metaphysical research programs.
Near the beginning of the book is a revealing discussion of Lamarck's approach to evolution, with its two factor perspective as evolutionary progression and lateral adaptation. Forgetting the quite different issue of Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characters, and granting the many crudities and flaws of his legacy, we must suspect that he had it right in essence the first time, in broad strokes. Lamarck's thinking here contained the simplest and most obvious type of explanation of the facts now being stuffed into a Darwin box where they don't fit. The claim that Darwin's monist theory, 'disposing' of Lamarck, produced the answer is clearly most dubious, as Gould is at pains to reflect Lamarck, yet preserve Darwin. The basic confusion is so chronic that it doesn't sink in. The problem of natural selection is confusing all discussion.
Another symptom of the basic confusion is Gould's economic ideology, as he notes, "I would advance the even stronger claim that the theory of natural selection is, in essence, Adam Smith's economics transferred to nature". This immortal fallacy, and the extended material on Darwin and Adam Smith, is a puzzling stance from one we had thought a leftist. If this is all that such new complexity in so many details can produce as an explanation of evolution, then we know the total is hiding a deep fallacy, and we should be on guard at the facade of complexity, however important and interesting. In any case, we are still without some account of the descent of man here. The argument will crash just here, for the comparison of natural selection to economic function clearly led Darwin astray, and it is altogether baffling Gould falls for this. We cannot explain man's descent in this fashion. Economics is a subprocess of the greater historical process, whose core is completely non-Darwinian, and where natural selection is a liability, not the mechanism. The paradox is that Adam Smith said you _should_ do such and such to improve economies. He was not describing laws, but 'shoulds'. Where (ideology apart) is this 'should' in natural selection or general evolution? And what is the evolution of these philosophies? Is this also random? It is not. In fact the whole comparison fails, and you can't make that mistake and claim to have a theory of evolution.
None of this obviates the great interest of this book. The sheer scope of this work is remarkable, and I could hardly claim to have done justice to its wealth of cumulative detail. The price is almost a giveaway.
It is worth also recalling Soren Lovtrup's Darwinism: Refutation of a Myth. This is the developmental tradition he predicted would resurface. Watch everyone trying to change their story, and don't be hoodwinked.

In any case, this work is fascinating and the value of the detail is tremendous for those in need of study resources for the considerable changes going on in many fields of research. But the one thing it lacks is a theory of evolution. In fact, I think this is only the first stage of a major series of earthquakes that are on the way, for we are in a curious hybrid gray area of Darwinism remorphing. I certainly recommend reading this work, for evolutionary theory is on the move. However, the basic difficulty of applying Darwinism to history and the descent of man remain as before