976 THE STRUCTURE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
make their appearances. The most typical of all this is the theory of 'punctuated
equilibrium'... This theory holds that organic evolution proceeds by leaps and
bounds and not through continuous change."
- TEXTBOOKS. This criterion may be viewed as the most unenviable of all,
but when a new idea enters textbooks as a "standard," almost obligatory item
(remember that no other written genre ranks as more conservative or more cloned
through endless copying and regimentation by publishers' requirements), then we
may affirm that the notion has flowed into a cultural mainstream. As I shall
document on pages 994 - 999, punctuated equilibrium has become a standard entry
in textbooks at both the college and high school levels in America. - AN ITEM IN GENERAL CULTURE. When the National Center for Science
Education, America's leading anti-creationist organization, put out two bumper
stickers as sardonic comments upon the favored evangelical "Honk if you love
Jesus," they chose "Honk if you love Darwin" and "Honk if you understand
punctuated equilibrium." (Niles Eldredge tells me that, in his car one day, he
became frightened by a persistent honker; when he ventured a sheepish glance,
fearing an encounter with a gun, or at least an upraised third finger, he noted only a
smile on the other driver's face, and a finger pointing downward to the bumper
sticker.) My colleagues may be satirizing punctuated equilibrium as terminological
mumbo jumbo, but at least they thought they could raise some money (and some
laughs) with this item!
Although not always understood or properly employed (but often, to my
surprise and gratification, excellently epitomized and tactfully used), punctuated
equilibrium has become a recognized term and concept both in scholarship of
widely disparate fields, and in popular culture. I first noted this spread in 1978, a
few years before punctuated equilibrium splashed into public recognition, when
nationally syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman featured punctuated equilibrium in
an op-ed piece entitled "Crisis is a way of life bringing sudden change." I feel that
Goodman, then unknown to me but now a respected colleague and friend, captured
the essence of punctuated equilibrium's suggestions about the general nature of
change, and did so with clarity and insight—a good beginning, not always
followed in later commentary. Goodman wrote (in part):
I am not normally the sort of person who curls up in front of the fire with a
good science book. The last time I found Charles Darwin interesting was in
"Inherit the Wind." But I was still intrigued by Stephen Ray [sic] Gould's
thoughts about evolution... [for he] has written about natural change in a
way that makes sense out of our current lives and not just out of fossils.
Gould thinks Darwin's view of evolution... was actually "a philosophy of
change, not an indication from nature." he says that "gradualism" was part
of the 19th century prejudice in favor of orderliness ... In that sense, I
suppose we are all still Darwinians. How many of us harbor the hope that
the change in our lives will be gradual, rather