Everyone’s blogging about Stephen J. Gould’s Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Razib, John Lynch, Laelaps). I’m not. The book’s too long, and I’m too busy. But that doesn’t mean I can’t link to them, and to another review of Gould. The other is Richard Lewontin’s review of two Gould books: The Richness of Life: The Essential Stephen Jay Gould and Punctuated Equilibrium. The latter is a chapter in Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Yes, a chapter of a book was released as a book on its own.
Lewontin’s review of the two books isn’t really a review of the two books. It’s more of a eulogy or an obit for Gould written a couple of years to late. Of course, it’s published in the New York Review of Books, which, from what I can gather, doesn’t really publish book reviews. Anyway, it’s an interesting piece, but don’t look to it for information about the two books it’s allegedly reviewing.
That said, one passage really caught my eye:
Of the best known and most active of active public intellectuals, only two have resisted the impulse to invent and advertise theories of human nature, its evolution, and its manifestation in history and social institutions. One was Carl Sagan, who largely avoided grand theories of humanity and, with the modesty appropriate to an astronomer, stuck to explaining the universe. The other was Stephen Jay Gould.
So, how do you explain the reissue of The Mismeasure of Man? No matter which side of the bell curve you fall on, that was done to address theories of human nature, its evolution, and its manifestation in history and social institutions.