Punctuated Equilibrium and the Validation of Macroevolutionary Theory 967
To end on a more personal note, if I were to cite any one factor as probably
most important among the numerous influences that predisposed my own mind
toward joining Niles Eldredge in the formulation of punctuated equilibrium, I
would mention my reading, as a first year graduate student in 1963, of one of the
20th century's most influential works at the interface of philosophy, sociology and
the history of ideas: Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(1962). (My friend Mike Ross, then studying with the eminent sociologist of
science R. K. Merton in the building next to Columbia's geology department, ran
up to me one day in excitement, saying "you just have to read this book right
away." I usually ignore such breathless admonitions, but I respected Mike's
judgment, and I'm surely glad that I followed his advice. In fact, I went right to the
bookstore and bought a copy of Kuhn's slim volume.)
Of course, Kuhn's notion of the history of change in scientific concepts
advances a punctuational theory for the history of ideas—going from stable
"paradigms" of "normal science" in the "puzzle solving" mode, through
accumulating anomalies that build anxiety but do not yet force the basic structure
to change, through rapid transitions to new paradigms so different from the old that
even "conserved" technical terms change their meaning to a sufficient extent that
the two successive theories become "incommensurable." The book has also served,
I suspect, as the single most important scholarly impetus towards punctuational
thinking in other disciplines.
Since the appearance of our initial paper on punctuated equilibrium in 1972,
several colleagues have pointed out to me that Kuhn himself, in a single passage,
used the word "punctuated" to epitomize the style of change described by his
theory. These colleagues have wondered if I borrowed the term, either consciously
or unconsciously, from this foundational source. But I could not have done so. (I
do not say this in an exculpatory way—for if I had so borrowed, I would be
honored to say so, given my enormous respect and personal affection for Kuhn,
and the pleasure I take in being part of his intellectual lineage. We did, but in an
entirely different discussion about the definition of paradigms, cite Kuhn's book in
our 1972 paper.) Kuhn used the word "punctuated" in the 1969 "postscript" that he
added to the second edition of his book (see quotation below). In 1972,1 had only
read the first edition.
I mention this final point not as pure self-indulgence, but largely because
Kuhn's single use of the word "punctuated," located in the closing paragraphs of
the seventh and last section (entitled "the nature of science") of his postscript,
expresses a surprising opinion that seems eminently exaptable as an appropriate
finale to this chapter. Like all scholars whose works become widely known
through constantly degraded repetition that strays further and further from unread
original sources, Kuhn could become quite prickly about fallacious interpretations,
and even more perturbed by bastardized and simplistic readings that caricatured his
original richness.
He therefore ended his postscript by discussing two "recurrent reactions"
(1969, p. 207) to his original text. He regarded the first reaction (irrelevant to this
chapter) as simply unwarranted, so he just tried to correct his critics. But