In The Evolutionists Richard Morris tells the tale of the disputes between Stephen Jay Gould & company and the “orthodox” Neo-Darwinians (J.M. Smith, Richard Dawkins, etc.). In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea Daniel Dennett comes very close to accusing Gould of being a closet theist. On this blog we do take our pot shots at Gould. Often it is because of his involvement in social issues, from his solidarity with those who smeared E.O. Wilson to his book, The Mismeasure of Man, a screed against ancient and discredited science repackaged as a rebuttal of modern psychometrics and behavorial genetics.
But then there is the Gould who is the bane of the “Ultra-Darwinians.” Many in the latter camp suggest that Gould’s espousal of Punctuated Equilibrium and rejection of natural selection as the guiding hand behind marcoevolution has led many in the public off course. I sympathize with this view, and for rather personal reasons.
When I was in 8th grade my Earth Science teacher declared to my class, about 2/3 of whom were Creationists (more or less), that he was not a Darwinist. Nevertheless, he did exposit to us the geological timelines, and it became clear he was not a Creationist himself. You see, he explained, he believed in Punctuated Equilibrium, which was the new way to go. Later, in personal conversation he was adamant that Darwinism was past its prime, that Stephen Jay Gould had revolutionized evolutionary biology.
I understand what my teacher was trying to do, by rejecting Darwinism and promoting Punctuated Equilibrium as an alternative he was attempting a bait & switch on my Creationist classmates, trying to drag evolution through the backdoor. Unfortunately, I quickly realized from talking to my friends that they stopped listening at “I am not a Darwinist.”