disparaging Gould

From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Jan 26 1999 - 08:03:42 MST


At 01:24 PM 1/25/99 -0800, Lee quoted:

> "But I eventually came to realize that working biologists regard
> [Stephen Jay] Gould much the same way that economists regard
> Robert Reich: talented writer, too bad he never gets anything right."
>
> --Paul Krugman

I've seen this cited a few times as though it proved something. Do we have
any reason to suppose Paul Krugman (a biologist I'm unfamiliar with) knows
what he's talking about in this respect? Leaving aside the flip generality
of the remark, presumably meant to be funny rather than literally accurate,
it's absurd to dismiss a whole approach to evolutionary theory filiated
with, say, Richard Lewontin and Niles Eldredge; all three biologists have
copious and frequently-cited formal publications.

Damien Broderick



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