Why did Goulds admission that neo-Darwinism is “effectively dead” have no significant effect on believers in Darwinism ?
The paradigm rule explains why Gould’s acknowledgment that neo-Darwinism is “effectively dead” had no significant effect on the Darwinist faithful, or even on Gould himself. Gould made that statement in a paper predicting the emergence of a new general theory of evolution, one based on the macromutational speculations of the Berkeley geneticist Richard Goldschmidt.[ 3] When the new theory did not arrive as anticipated, the alternatives were either to stick with Ernst Mayr’s version of neo-Darwinism, or to concede that biologists do not after all know of a naturalistic mechanism that can produce biological complexity. That was no choice at all. Gould had to beat a hasty retreat back to classical Darwinism to avoid giving aid and comfort to the enemies of scientific naturalism, including those disgusting creationists. Having to defend a dead theory tooth and nail can hardly be a satisfying activity, and it is no wonder that Gould lashes out with fury at people such as Prof. Johnson, who
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