CHAPTER SIX
Pattern and Progress on
the Geological StageThe Predominance of Biotic Competition and Its Sequelae
A Geological License for Progress
A plethora of mottoes reminds us that political revolutions are never tidy— not a
gentleman says one, no good omelette without cracking eggshells says another.
Intellectual revolutions may avoid trails of blood (or they may not, at least
metaphorically), but transitions in ideas can become as messy and complex as
overthrows of temporal government. One world cannot be substituted for another
without leaving some loose ends and some substantial pieces of an uncompleted
puzzle.
Darwin got a great deal right, and he organized even more material into an
internally coherent logic of argument. But he failed to achieve resolution on
several important issues (especially when cultural convention clashed with
implications of his theory), including some questions of great salience for him.
Following his customary frankness, Darwin made no false claims for consistency,
and ambiguities remain in his writing. In so doing, he followed the prescription for
greatness in two famous statements by celebrated Americans: "A foolish
consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" (R. W. Emerson, 1841, Self-Reliance).
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes).
(Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, from Leaves of Grass)Darwin's greatest failure of resolution centered on an issue that assumed
cardinal importance in Victorian culture—progress (both its definition, and its
empirical and theoretical justification). Our current world of nuclear weaponry and
global pollution does not rank this issue so centrally, but we have never escaped its
allure. Several key figures of the Modern Synthesis devoted books to the subject
(Huxley, 1953; Simpson, 1947; Dobzhansky, 1967; Stebbins, 1969), while
symposia and volumes still appear with great regularity (Nitecki, 1988; Ruse,
1996; and Gould, 1996a, for a contrary view).
Darwin's dilemma can be stated easily: The bare-bones mechanics of the