[awkward]

Characterizations of Gould as a Marxist biologist are roughly as ad hominem as that article accuses Gould of being.

As another non biologist, I understand that Gould's main contribution was punctuated equilibrium. he thought that the primary driver in evolutionary change was rare and relatively quick changes across a population - the external environment would change, or a new advantageous trait would develop which would transmit rapidly. It also clashes with attempts to determine more gradual models of genetic propagation throughout populations.

[tokenadult]

Characterizations of Gould as a Marxist biologist are roughly as ad hominem as that article accuses Gould of being.

As I have asked people to do before,

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=555734

I'd love to hear from people who disagree with [insert name of controversial figure here] just why they disagree with that person, not just their party label for that person. It is perfectly possible for a person who has wrong ideas to have other, correct ideas.

[berntb]

>>It is perfectly possible for a person who has wrong ideas to have other, correct ideas.

Agreed. But here we have an author that researchers in two fields argue are intellectually dishonest in his public writing.

Only experts in the field (or maybe amateurs which read the discussion carefully) can have an opinion.

So do you really want to use your time by reading books about subject X which you know might be have 5-50 percent slanted content to agree with e.g. the Mormon church?

It is not just that you get real information, it is that some of the information you get will be twisted...

Edit: And since it is relevant to your comment, note that someone voted me down but lacked counter arguments... :-)

[berntb]

Well, I already mentioned that you should check who the critics were. Maynard Smith, Wilson and Mayr. AFAIK, they each have more than double the cred in the field as Gould and Dawkins have -- together.

Marxist... Lewontin, Steven Rose Kamin et al can hardly be described as liberal or right wing... :-)

Can you mention three non-leftwing well known biologists in that camp? One?

The fun part about Gould is the criticism from intelligence researchers. They more or less accuse Gould of misrepresenting the contents of their field -- very similar to how Gould is described by evolutionary biologists...

Edit: I might also add that there were lots of discussion about how new "punctuated equilibrium" really where.

Edit II: First post by a user 460 days old? I am honored! :-)

[awkward]

Not to completely throw up a smokescreen to hide the fact that I think you're better read on this debate than I am, but your challenge is pretty reminiscent of what bugs me about this debate: It's often framed as a debate between politically motivated hacks vs their more sensible, less biased opponents, when there was real scientific disagreement at stake, and a disagreement that has at least some practical political implication. Admittedly, this defense works better when talking about controversy between Gould and Dawkins (who is not at all apolitical himself) than between Gould and Wilson.

That, and I thought that the best place I could find on the internet to defend Gould would be in the middle of a thread full of amateur evolutionary psychologists making up stories about why depression came into being. :-)

re your edit II: There was some stuff about this on Pharyngula recently that put it on my mind, and plus the combination of screeching flamewar and biological debate in this makes it pretty interesting reading.

[berntb]

Evolutionary biology interests me and to have a clue, I had to understand the controversy. Time wasted, which I want back. :-(

As I wrote, the easiest way to understand is to note that the heavy people of both evolutionary biology and intelligence research agree on Gould's intellectual dishonesty.

(Almost all positive reviews on Gould's book on intelligence came from the extreme left or from non-psychologists.)

The top levels of the intelligence researchers and the evolutionary biologists were incompetent idiots and/or in a conspiracy? (More or less what the creationists argue about evolutionary biologists, by the way!)

It is just not believable.

> when there was real scientific disagreement at stake

It was mainly Gould's public writing that was criticized, not the research.

Note that my previous comments were downvoted by someone that obviously disagrees, but lacks arguments... True believers are sad.