The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

566 THE STRUCTURE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

rejected (see Gould, 1986, on Darwin's use of historical science, and 1989c, on
applications to the history of life at greatest scale). Much of the best science—
inevitably and properly—relies upon inference and insight, not always upon direct
sight.
Young scientists can easily succumb to the thrall of such proclamations by
leaders. The stupidest passage I ever wrote occurs in the heart of a contribution to
independent macroevolutionary theory—our original piece on punctuated
equilibrium, where I stated (this excerpt comes from my part of a joint text with
Niles Eldredge):

First, we must emphasize that mechanisms of speciation can be studied

directly only with experimental and field techniques applied to living

organisms. No theory of evolutionary mechanisms can be generated

directly from paleontological data. Instead, theories developed by students

of the modern biota generate predictions about the course of evolution in

time... We can apply and test, but we cannot generate new mechanisms. If

discrepancies are found between paleontological data and the expected

patterns, we may be able to identify those aspects of a general theory that

need improvement. But we cannot formulate these improvements ourselves

(Eldredge and Gould, 1972, pp. 93-94).

Stanley (1975) then properly rebuked us for such unwarranted subservience.
Our current partnership with "neobiology," based on the "bonded independence" of
macroevolutionary theory—the recognition that we can generate and test novel
concepts but cannot come close to a fully adequate account of macroevolution
without the vital input of microevolutionary theory—produces a better balance of
subdisciplines. This mutually sustaining interaction must benefit paleontology, but
such an enlarged view will also aid anyone, in any evolutionary subdiscipline, who
wishes to comprehend the "grandeur in this view of life."

From Overstressed Doubt to Overextended Certainty

A TALE OF TWO CENTENNIALS

Darwin did all Americans a mnemonic favor by entering the world on the same
day as Abraham Lincoln—February 12, 1809. He also made life simpler for
conference organizers by publishing the Origin of Species in 1859, at age 50—thus
intensifying the force of commemorations and cutting their required number in
half. We have indeed celebrated mightily at the requisite times, with the usual
array of resulting Festschriften. As others have noted, and as I have stated
throughout this chapter, the two celebrations of the 20th century occurred at
maximally disparate moments in the history of evolutionary theory: in 1909 at the
heyday of doubt about natural selection as a potent mechanism, and in 1959 at the
apotheosis of certainty about the nearly exclusive power of selection as an agent of
evolutionary change. A comparison of