Punctuated Equilibrium and the Validation of Macroevolutionary Theory 1007
era ... of middle-period punctuationism [which] gave abundant aid and comfort to
creationists and other enemies of scientific truth." In the other major strategy of
insulation from refutation, supporters of this "urban legend" about the modest origin,
bombastic rise, and spectacular fall of punctuated equilibrium forge a tale that allows
them to read any potential disconfirmation as an event within the fiction itself. (Old
style gradualism pursued exactly the same strategy in reading contrary data as marks
of imperfect evidence within the accepted theory—and thus could not be refuted from
within. I am struck by the eerie similarity between the structure of the old theory and
the historical gloss invented by opponents of a proposed replacement.)
In particular, and most offensive to me, the urban legend rests on the false belief
that radical, "middle-period" punctuated equilibrium became a saltational theory
wedded to Goldschmidt's hopeful monsters as a mechanism. I have labored to refute
this nonsensical charge from the day I first heard it. But my efforts are doomed
within the self-affirming structure of the urban legend. We all know, for so the legend
proclaims, that I once took the Goldschmidtian plunge. So if I ever deny the link, I
can only be retreating from an embarrassing error. And if I continue to deny the link
with force and gusto, well, then I am only backtracking even harder (into stage 3) and
apologizing (or obfuscating) all the more. How about the obvious (and accurate)
alternative: that we never made the Goldschmidtian link; that this common error
embodies a false construction; and that our efforts at correction have always
represented an honorable attempt to relieve the confusion of others.
But the urban legend remains too simplistically neat, and too resonant with a
favorite theme of Western sagas, to permit refutation by mere evidence. So Dennett
(1995, pp. 283-284) writes: "There was no mention in the first paper of any radical
theory of speciation or mutation. But later, about 1980, Gould decided that
punctuated equilibrium was a revolutionary idea after all ... [But] it was too
revolutionary, and it was hooted down with the same sort of ferocity the
establishment reserves for heretics like Elaine Morgan. Gould backpedaled hard,
offering repeated denials that he has ever meant anything so outrageous." And
Halstead (1985, p. 318) wrote of me (with equal poverty in both logic and grammar):
"He seems to be setting up a face-saving formula to enable him to retreat from his
earlier aggressive saltationism, having had a bit of a thrashing, his current tack is to
suggest that perhaps we should keep the door open in case he can find some evidence
to support his pet theories so let us be 'pluralist.'"
I do not, of course, claim that our views about punctuated equilibrium have
never changed through the years of debate (only a dull and uninteresting theory could
remain so static in the face of such wide discussion). Nor do I maintain a position that
would be even sillier—namely, that we made no important errors requiring
corrections to the theory. Of course we made mistakes, and of course we have tried to
amend them. But I look upon the history of punctuated equilibrium (from my partisan
vantage point of course) as a fairly standard development for successful theories in
science. We did, indeed,