The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

972 THE STRUCTURE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

and we did encourage scholars in distant fields to apply a mode of thinking, and a
model of change, that had formerly been as unconventional (or even denigrated) in
their fields as in ours. But we do find ourselves in the paradoxical, and at least
mildly uncomfortable, position—as we tried to express in these closing words of
our earlier article—of having developed a theory with empirical power, and at least
some theoretical interest, in its own evolutionary realm, but that must largely
depend, for any ultimate historical assessment, upon the fate and efficacy of more
general intellectual currents (including both dangerous winds of fashion and solid
strata of documentation) well beyond our control of competence.

In summarizing the impact of recent theories upon human concepts of

nature's order, we cannot yet know whether we have witnessed a mighty

gain in insight about the natural world (against anthropocentric hopes and

biases that always hold us down), or just another transient blip in the

history of correspondence between misperceptions of nature and prevailing

social realities of war and uncertainty. Nonetheless, contemporary science

has massively substituted notions of indeterminacy, historical contingency,

chaos and punctuation for previous convictions about gradual, progressive,

predictable determinism. These transitions have occurred in field after field.

Punctuated equilibrium, in this light, is only paleontology's contribution to

a Zeitgeist, and Zeitgeists, as (literally) transient ghosts of time, should

never be trusted. Thus, in developing punctuated equilibrium, we have

either been toadies and panderers to fashion, or therefore destined for

history's ashheap, or we had a spark of insight about nature's constitution.

Only the punctuational and unpredictable future can tell.

Appendix: A Largely Sociological (and Fully Partisan)
History of the Impact and Critique of Punctuated
Equilibrium

THE ENTRANCE OF PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM INTO COMMON

LANGUAGE AND GENERAL CULTURE

As a personal indulgence, after nearly 20 years' work on this book, I wish to
present an unabashedly subjective, but in no sense either consciously inaccurate or
even incomplete, account of the extra-scientific impact and criticism of punctuated
equilibrium during its first quarter century. As extra-scientific, I include both the
spread and influence of punctuated equilibrium into non-biological fields and into
general culture, and also the subset of opinions voiced by biological colleagues,
that, in my judgment, are not based on logical or empirical argument, but rather on
personal feelings spanning the gamut from appreciation to bitter jealousy and
anger. I realize that such an effort, which I do regard as self-indulgent, may be
viewed as unseemly by some colleagues. I would only reply, first—speaking
personally—that I have, perhaps,