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Summary: Dissolving The Problem of Evolutionary "Progress"
Review: I had read a lot about Stephen Jay Gould, but had only read some of his essays, and never one of his book-length works, before a few weeks ago I noticed a copy of Full House at a sale of old stock from the local central library. The press on Gould has been particularly voluminous this year, after he died in May, aged 60, to the cancer he had evaded earlier in his life -- and so he had been higher on my list (you know, the list, the neverending, constantly shifting ranked order of titles of works you want to read, most of which are destined to remain keys to unexplored worlds at your own death). Finding the book was particularly fortuitous for me, however, since one of the big problems I have been wrestling with during the year has been why evolution should drive towards complexity; and I didn't even know, buying Full House, that this was the central question it addresses. As soon as I started, I realised how lucky the find was, and felt straight away that I was talking one-on-one with Gould about the problem; at every stage, he would anticipate my questions with his answers, as if I had been whispering doubts in his ear as he composed it. The book is really quite a bit longer than it needs to be to answer the question, in the end -- and it isn't long, a well-spaced 230 pages, with illustrations. The solution, in the grand theme of intellectual revolutions, is actually a dissolution -- an argument that it is a mistake to see evolution as driving anywhere at all. Complexity turns out to be something that results given enough free play in a randomly varying system, rather than a pre-ordained endpoint towards which the system is aimed. We have been misled, Gould argues, by the same anthropocentrism that saw us at the centre of the Ptolemaic universe, to view ourselves as a kind of endpoint of evolution -- when by any measure available, the humble bacteria remains the most successful form of life around. Bacteria is the most numerous form of life in terms of any number of measures: raw numbers of individuals, numbers of species, genetic range between different species, ubiquity in differing environments, and even, perhaps, biomass (the argument here relies on the empirically somewhat shaky speculation that bacteria prosper throughout at least the outer crust of the earth, fed by geothermal rather than solar energy -- an argument needed to get their biomass over that of plant life, which otherwise easily dominates due to the weight of the worlds forests). However, our anthropocentrism leads us to draw those quaint evolutionary sequences from single-celled through multi-celled, through plant, animal and finally human life, as if evolution in total is pushing in our direction -- as if it is progressing, when really what we have is simply variation away from the bacteria. Life cannot really get any simpler than the simplest bacteria, and so an increasing amount of variation could only result in an increasingly complex few forms of life, so long as they are adaptively successful -- like the drunk man's random walk between a wall (through which he cannot pass) and a gutter (into which he will fall), he's going to end in the gutter eventually, even if he never aimed there. Progress towards complexity, then, is a by-product of random variation given enough time, and so can be gotten out of local adaptational principles without adding anything at all that dictates an overall trend towards complexity. Pretty simple really, and made all the more clear by Gould's reverse example of the disappearance of 0.400 hitting in baseball, which is an example of variation shrinking over time, giving the illusion of a driving trend (the illusory trend being the decline of hitting skill). In addition to the substance of the book, I liked Gould's often celebrated knack for quoting cultural sources in the midst of scientific argument -- in Full House he drops Whitman, Shakespeare, the Bible, Peirce and many others like they are the air he breathes. The only thing that remains troubling for me is Gould's conjecture that if a replay of evolution were played, we might not end up with conscious life, because of the many chance events required. He does say that he argues independently for this claim elsewhere (I think the book is called Wonderful Life, from memory), and so I might have to check that out -- I recall seeing a headline the other day in one of the popular science journals that proclaimed precisely the reverse, however -- a principle of convergence that entails a universe with physical laws the same as our own will produce life, as if inevitably, every replay. It's a shame we don't have Gould around any more, to see what his own reaction would be.
Rating: 
Summary: This is one of my favorite books
Review: I like Gould's style. He is a scientist and not a philosopher. So many other books of this type present purely philosophical, or even worse religious, arguments which have nothing to do with reality (you can "prove" anything with pure logic if you make the correct initial assumptions). This sort of pap is an insult the reader's intelligence. Stephen Gould makes a compelling and logical argument which is supported by empirical evidence and not assumptions. Before reading this book I accepted the popular myth that evolution tends to produce complexity. This book has reduced my ignorance. I thought the link between baseball and evolution was clever. Gould is a master at finding connections between seemingly disparate subjects. I
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but overblown
Review: I thought that Gould made very interesting and convincing arguments about the nature of evolution on Earth. For baseball fans, his explanation of the disappearance of the .400 hitter was great. The problem with this book is that it was simply too long. Gould made his point over and over; he gives the reader much less credit than other popularizers of science. He makes a strong case for bacteria as the most successful form of life on earth, but after making his point, this book seemed to turn into "Ode to bacteria." Worth reading for its many interesting points, but skimming may be in order
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Summary: See existing Review
Review: I would like to modify my prior review to add my email address and not make it annonymous. Can you do this?
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Summary: An Excellent Excavation of Natural History, but...
Review: I'm a Gould fan. He can do what I think a great popularizer of science should be able to do: Write in a manner that makes topics I would have assumed that I have no interest in actually captivate my attention. This book is no exception, though the expressions of healthy self-esteem noted in other reviews may be off-putting to some. I have one quibble: The forays into cultural history that closes the book suffer from the kind of myopia Gould chastises many natural historians for commiting. I love european "classical" music, too. (I just witnessed an excellent performance of Alexander Nevsky last night.) But to use this tiny branch of a huge bush to draw many conclusions about cultural history is like using human beings to draw conclusions about natural history, Gould's arguments to the contrary not-withstanding. But that is a minor point. What I would really love to see: Gould tackle the implications of Kuhn's _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_ in relation to his work in Natural History.
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Summary: Good, but...
Review: I'm still reading the book, so I can't say what I think about the WHOLE book. I have to say that, if I were to choose between Gould's thesis and Dawkins's Thesis, I would choose the later. But I am totaly in agree with Gould about the meaning of evolution. That's why I bought the book (and I don't regret it!). Now, the only problem is the same thing can be draw from modern sociobiology, wich follows genetic selectionism, and in a very deterministic way. In fact, we could say that if we were to come, so were AIDS, cancer, snails, rocks, me... if EVERYTHING is in the begining, then, in a sense, there is no precedence of one over the others (maybe this mail is the ULTIMATE end of the Universe. Besides, if we become extinct (I don't see why we would last forever), like so many species before us, we would have to assume (now, not then!!!) that we are not the ultimate end of the Universe. But the actual theory of evolutions is in line with Spinosa's epistemology: God (the Universe) is selfish, it does not care for you. No need, and no use, in praying. God is there FOR HIMSELF. You, take care of yourself... In conclusion: I think Gould is wright, but argues wrong. But that's better then arguing good and being wrong! P.S. I am sorry for my bad written English.
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Summary: Not the best book in the world, but an insightful idea
Review: I've read several other books by Gould, and while it was not as entertaining as some of his others, it was very good. The central idea that he is proposing is very cool. He makes an excellent arguement. I can remember being taught that evolution lacks forsight and that goals are not part of the program. Even though this is what is being taught, Gould shows that people still have the notion of progress firmly attached to the concept of evolution. He makes a good point, the anology of the tail wagging the dog makes it very clear. My fiends and I have always gotten into arguements over who ruled the modern world, was it man or insects (I'm no entomolgist but I chose insects). Gould makes it very clear that we were all wrong and that bacteria by most standards rule the world. OK fine, bacteria rule the world, but snakes are much cooler. I'm not a baseball fan, but his baseball section was really intersting and a good read. I knew that they kept stats, but I had no idea they kept that many stats. Overall I enjoyed the book. The main idea is going to stimulate lots of people. This book will make you think, some people hate it and say that Gould is a fool with an inflated ego, some poeple love it and praise Gould for saying what needed to be said. Both of these reasons make this book a worthwile read. It's probabally not the best book he has written. But I'd certainly recommed it to anybody who has an interest in evolutionary biology (read Wonderful Life first).
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Summary: An essential read
Review: If you do not agree with Gould, then you must be missing the point. His uprooting of conventional thinking about evolution is so compelling it is as if he is correcting a typo in our book of thought - not offering an opinion. I am convinced Gould's insights will rapidly become paradigm. I agree with other reviewers that Gould could have presented his entire argument much shorter (probably fifty pages), but instead unnecessarily (and sometimes annoyingly) iterates his general thesis over 230 pages. So although skimming is appropriate in much of the book, I still highly recommend it. Be aware that Gould's writing style is both eloquent and dense.
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Summary: Evolving to a dead head
Review: If you enjoy boring yourself with an argument which could easily be set forth in its entirety in about five pages, but which is stretched out over 200 pages, then this is the book for you. If, on the other hand, you are required to read this book, you can save yourself a lot of time by reading just chapter 2 and the final paragraph of Chapter 14. You won't miss much. Gould successfully builds the argument that life is accidental and that the result of evolution is not a drive towards complexity, but the result of randomness. That is, it is a successful argument based upon his underlying premise (fact as he calls it) that evolution is true. I find it humorous (even naive) that Gould accepts evolution as fact in spite of the fact that he says, in reference to the evolutionary path of nearly all animals, we "have no convention for depicting, or even (really) for conceiving their evolution (page 64)." Later, in regards to the same thing, it was unclear if he was being sarcastic or honest when he said, "who needs proof of anything so obvious (page 212.)" Obviously I do not accept evolution as fact, but based upon Gould's argument, I accept this book as an accident.
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Summary: This book is interesting and worth the time spent reading it
Review: In Full House, Mr. Gould has presented a fascinating discussion of both the eveolution of baseball (the disappearnace of the 400 hitter) and the mistakes behind the "theology" of evolution. I sincerely hope that after reading many of his books, I do not make the mistakes that Mr. Gould points to. His explanation of how evolution does work, was both interesting and readily understandable. I highly recommend this book to other readers
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