Stephen Jay Gould: An Appreciation

Abstract

[...] Gould was more well known (and a better writer); and so, for instance, one popular account of recent debates in science lumps one whole "camp" together as "Gouldians" (against the "Dawkinsians").1 "Gouldism," in this simplification, stood for the social engagement of science, against racism, against genetic determinism, against science having ideas above its station the recognition of the value of other areas of human enquiry, like social science, and indeed religion. "Sociobiology" as a discipline launched itself on the world with a book of that name by Harvard entomologist EO Wilson in 1975.1 Probably, had it not included a final chapter on human beings, Wilson's magnum opus would have been seen as a stuffy old text book.