1000 THE STRUCTURE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
a posteriori tells us little about the ineluctably nonlogical motives and feelings
behind any decision to frame such an argument at a given time, and in the hope of a
particular outcome.
Nonetheless, because punctuated equilibrium has provoked so much com-
mentary of a personal nature from scientific colleagues, often expressed with unusual
intensity both pro and con (for statements published in professional literature), I don't
know how else to parse the content in this case. I discussed the rich and numerous
intellectual critiques in the main body of this chapter, but what can be done with the
large residuum of unusual personal commentary? I cannot simply ignore it, both
because the discussion would then be so selectively incomplete, and also (for
personal reasons of course) because I find so much of the most negative commentary
so false and unfair—and I do wish to exercise what Roberts Rules calls a "point of
personal privilege" as expressed in a basic right of reply. Thus, I have tried to
separate personal commentary (in this section) from the critical discourse of ideas,
while acknowledging the small psychological sense of such a division. The heuristic
advantages of thus splitting each side's clutter from the other's content may justify
this procedure.
The case ad hominem against punctuated equilibrium
I should state up front that I regard this discourse as rooted in little more than
complex fallout from professional jealousy, often unrecognized and therefore
especially potent. I shall, in the next subsection (pp. 1010-1012), own what I regard
as the share of responsibility that Eldredge and I bear for standard misconceptions
about punctuated equilibrium, but I believe that the ad hominem literature on this
subject primarily records inchoate and unanalyzed feelings and habits of thought
among our most negatively inclined colleagues.
The common denominator to all these expressions lies in a charge—the basis of
most claims on the low road of accusation ad hominem—that punctuated equilibrium
is false, empty, or trivial, and that the volume of discussion, both in professional
literature and general culture, can only record our trickery, our bombast, our
dishonesty, our quest for personal fame, or (in the kindest version) our massive
confusion. (But what then must these detractors conclude about the intellectual
acumen of so many of their peers who support punctuated equilibrium, or at least find
the discussion interesting?) I read the case ad hominem as a brief composed of two
charges, culminating in what has almost become an "urban legend" equivalent in
veracity to those alligators in the sewers of New York City, indefensible in fact or
logic, but propagated by confident repetition within the club of true believers. I will
respond to each point by analyzing the passages from my writing that have become
virtually canonical as supposed confirmation.
- In the kindest version, we are depicted as merely confused and overly
hopeful. We develop a good little modest idea that might help the benighted
community of paleontologists, but we then begin to suffer delusions of grandeur, and
to believe that we might have something to say about evolution in general. (We really
don't of course, for punctuated equilibrium only confirms