Punctuated Equilibrium and the Validation of Macroevolutionary Theory 991
accept what they hear too uncritically. (Journalists should check, of course, and must
therefore bear part of the blame, but scientists should begin any general critique of
the press with an acknowledgment of our own in camera foibles.)
The extensive press coverage of punctuated equilibrium has generally
maintained adequate to high quality. Ironically, though, the most common errors—
which like the old soldiers, cats and bad pennies of our mottoes, never seem to fade
but turn up, however sparsely, again and again with no diminution in frequency—
match the mistakes cited by creationists for utterly different purposes. If willful
misuse and unintentional, albeit careless, error repeat the same false arguments, then
what serves as a common source amidst such different motives (and different
frequencies of occurrence, of course—pervasive for creationists, rare for reputable
journalists)? Deep constraints on human mentality (common difficulties with
concepts of scaling and probability, for example)? Persistent historical and cultural
prejudices (about progress and gradualism, for example)? The malfeasance and hyped
misleading of original authors (as our severest critics like to claim)? In any case, I am
fascinated by the entire issue of commonality in errors across such a maximal range
of motives, and I believe that something deep about the nature of mentality and the
sociology of knowledge lies exposed therein.
Schemes of oversimplification must rank as the bete noire of journalism, at least
in the eyes of scientists and other scholars. Since dichotomization stands as our
primary mode of taxonomic oversimplification, probably imposed by the deep
structure of the human mind, we should not be surprised that journalists have tended
to treat the punctuated equilibrium debate as a dichotomous struggle between
gradualists and punctuationalists, superimposed upon another false dichotomy (with
supposedly perfect mapping between the two) of Darwinians (read gradualists)
against anti-Darwinians (read punctuationalists). This struggle then occurs within a
political dichotomy—a genuine division this time—of evolution vs. creationism. (The
misappropriation of punctuated equilibrium by creationists, as documented in the last
section, violates this last dichotomy and can thus be easily grasped as unfair by nearly
everyone.)
The error of dichotomy appears most starkly in the minimal length and maximal
hype of advertising copy for books. Pergamon's come-on for Nield and Tucker's
Paleontology, for example, promises that "the approach in the evolutionary
discussions is fully in line with the most recent understandings of the punctuated
equilibrium/phyletic gradualism debate." The blurb for Oliver Mayo's Natural
Selection and Its Constraints proclaims: "Among other topical matters, he touches
upon the controversial question of 'punctuated equilibrium' or 'phyletic gradualism' as
a mechanism for major evolutionary change."
A prominent cultural legend (with "The Emperor's New Clothes" as a prototype)
celebrates the young and honest naif as exposer of an evident truth that hidebound
adults will not or cannot admit. True to this scenario, the Summer 1993 publicity
blurb sheet of Mount Holyoke College reports the