Recently deceased, Stephen Jay Gould remains at the front of the American stage with respect to evolution. Gould, known as Mr. Evolution, loved baseball and used it wherever possible to demonstrate statistical laws about random occurrences. His conclusion about random events can be summed up in a nutshell: If we toss a coin 100 times, we might see streaks of say 5 heads or 5 tails but such streaks are random and insignificant. This, in a sense, is Gould’s evolution theory for he argues that all life forms, including human beings, are mere random occurrences.
Gould dispenses with all theoretical notions of genetics, such as the selfish, sharing or cultural gene and remains disinterested in anything unrelated to baseball. His views include little on such common genetic issues like IQ. In comparison to Darwin and others, Gould’s view of evolution, punctuated equilibrium, can actually be seen as anti-evolution theory. In his work, Gould argues that evolution does not really occur. To put it bluntly, Gould does not believe that evolution occurs in the manner it has long been viewed. To Gould, new species arise intermittently with rapid evolutionary change on a geological time scale that is interminably slow compared to human time scales. This results in the sudden and dramatic appearance of new life forms in the fossil record. This process creates punctuations of rapid change against a backdrop of steady equilibrium.
Gould talks of statistics but pays little attention to genetics. Species in his mind are basically chance permutations. To Gould, even if mammals eventually lead to human beings, over a period of billions of years they will still equate to virtually an insignificant blip on the ocean of bacteria radar screen. In Gould’s worldview, there is no evolution, no development, no direction and certainly no improvement. He finds no need to determine if culture is a genetic t
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