Ah! Mas eu quero saber se o D. Antunes é criacionista! Isto podia justificar a sua repulsão por Gould que é um evolucionista e acérrimo detrator dos criacionistas americanos... (teríamos de abrir outro thread para debater a coisa, claro. )
Criacionista? Sou Darwiniano.
A minha repulsão por Gould tem bases diferentes.
Como julguei que sabias, Stephen Jay Gould envolveu-se em grandes disputas intelectuais com os sociobiologistas (E. Wilson, R. Dawkins). Criticava nestes aquilo que chamava de determinismo biológico e reificação.
Gould reduzia o papel da seleção a nível do gene ou a nível do indivíduo na evolução, que tentava equilibrar com a importância da seleção entre diferentes populações locais ou, inclusivé, entre espécies diferente ou entre grupos de espécies diferentes com antepassados comuns ("clades") e com a importância de macro-mutações, que originariam uma evolução por saltos com intervalos de estabilidade.
Também questionava a explicação dos sociobiologistas para comportamentos humanos, como o aparecimento do altruísmo. Ele considerava que muitas características do cérebro humano eram subprodutos ou efeitos laterais da evolução e não adaptações diretas (os sociobiologistas posteriormente criaram modelos matemáticos que explicavam muitos comportamentos humanos, como o altruísmo, como adaptativos).
Gould teve que reconhecer: "Sociobiologists have broadened their range of selective stories by invoking concepts of inclusive fitness and kin selection to solve (successfully I think) the vexatious problem of altruism—previously the greatest stumbling block to a Darwinian theory of social behavior... Here sociobiology has had and will continue to have success. And here I wish it well. For it represents an extension of basic Darwinism to a realm where it should apply."
Gould muitas vezes criticava posições que há décadas ninguém tinha, procurando extrair atenção e reconhecimento e usando a sua capacidade de comunicação.
"In the field of evolutionary biology at large, Gould's reputation is mud. Not because he was wrong. Many honest scientists have made honest mistakes. What Gould did was much worse, involving deliberate misrepresentation of science."
Os críticos apontavam-lhe uma escolha de dados no mínimo parcial que parecia derivar da vontade de negar a existência de diferenças biológicas que expliquem as disparidades sociais e económicas entre indivíduos ou grupos de indivíduos. Ele próprio admitiu que: "Objectivity must be operationally defined as fair treatment of data, not absence of preference" e "it is dangerous for a scholar even to imagine that he might attain complete neutrality"
Gould was the author of The Mismeasure of Man (1981), a history and inquiry of psychometrics and intelligence testing. Gould investigated the methods of nineteenth century craniometry, as well as the history of psychological testing. Gould claimed that both theories developed from an unfounded belief in biological determinism, the view that "social and economic differences between human groups—primarily races, classes, and sexes—arise from inherited, inborn distinctions and that society, in this sense, is an accurate reflection of biology."
In 2011, a study conducted by six anthropologists reanalyzed Gould's claim that Samuel Morton unconsciously manipulated his skull measurements,[82] and concluded that Gould's analysis was poorly supported and incorrect. They praised Gould for his "staunch opposition to racism" but concluded, "we find that Morton's initial reputation as the objectivist of his era was well-deserved."[83] Ralph Holloway, one of the co-authors of the study, commented, "I just didn't trust Gould. ... I had the feeling that his ideological stance was supreme. When the 1996 version of 'The Mismeasure of Man' came and he never even bothered to mention Michael'sstudy, I just felt he was a charlatan."
The group's paper was also criticized by philosopher of science Michael Weisberg, also of the University of Pennsylvania. Weisberg argues that "most of Gould's arguments against Morton are sound. Although Gould made some errors and overstated his case in a number of places, he provided prima facia evidence, as yet unrefuted, that Morton did indeed mismeasure his skulls in ways that conformed to 19th century racial biases."[86]
Biologists and philosophers Jonathan Kaplan,Massimo Pigliucci, and Joshua Alexander Banta also published a critique of the groups's paper, arguing that many of its claims were misleading and the re-measurements were "completely irrelevant to an evaluation of Gould's published analysis." They also argued that the "methods deployed by Morton and Gould were both inappropriate" and that "Gould's statistical analysis of Morton's data is in many ways no better than Morton's own."
Ver mais aqui:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/06/did_stephen_jay_gould_fudge_hi.html(os comentários tb são interessantes)