Rating: 
Summary: A book every true scientist should read!
Review: Truly enjoy the book, a passionate humanistic scientist in action! However, I do have some problems about the logic and arguments of the book: 1. Gould contributes the initial contention between science and the humanities to the turf battle and the power struggle between the Renaissance humanism and the rise of modern science, more specifically, to the Modern vs. Ancient debate in the 17th & 18th centuries. I suspect the historical accuracy of such analysis and doubt that it has any significant impact on the contention today. Maybe Gould himself commits to a fictional dichotomy which he argues against all along. 2. It seems to me that there is a significant inconsistency between chapter 5 in which he reveals the fallacious and fictional dichotomies between science and the humanities and chapter 6 in which he admits of the real tension between scientism and the critic of scientism (see pp. 113-115). It confirms my impression that "science wars" are for real and should be taken seriously, not just extremists' paranoid illusions. 3. What bothers me the most is an apparent paradox between Gould's fundamental assumption of the epistemic status of science (a magisterium about fact or IS) and the humanities (a magisterium about value or OUGHT) on the one hand and his relentless call for integration of these two "non-overlapping magisterial" (in brief, NOMA) as his overarching goal of the book on the other. First of all, if science and the humanities belong to two non-overlapping domains of discussion with logically totally different aims, methods and objects, then how could they be integrated since there is no any commonality between them??? Gould did try to answer this charge in chapter 8 in terms of a metaphor "one from many," but without any success in my humble judgment. Secondly, I believe that the above paradox is due to Gould's beloved separationism between science and the humanities (religion included), i.e., his thesis of NOMA as he defended fiercely in his Rocks of Ages. Ironically, it is the same Gould -- who warns us to guard against any dichotomous oppositions between science and the humanities throughout the book -- who introduces a more dangerous dichotomy between fact and value through the backdoor. As anyone who are familiar with the recent development of Science Studies and comparative studies of science and religion (all start from Thomas Kuhn) already knows, there is no such sharp distinction between fact and value. As Gould himself has admitted from time to time when he dismisses the myth of objectivity (p. 116ff), science is heavily value-laden. So besides the myth of objectivity of science, Gould has to give up his myth of fact/value dichotomy too! Otherwise his "divine" goal of integration between science and the humanities is doomed.
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