Mystery of Mysteries : Is Evolution a Social Construction

by Michael Ruse

With the recent Sokal hoax--the publication of a prominent physicist's pseudo-article in a leading journal of cultural studies--the status of science moved sharply from debate to dispute. Is science objective, a disinterested reflection of reality, as Karl Popper and his followers believed? Or is it subjective, a social construction, as Thomas Kuhn and his students maintained? Into the fray comes Mystery of Mysteries , an enlightening inquiry into the nature of science, using evolutionary theory as a case study. Michael Ruse begins with such colorful luminaries as Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) and Julian Huxley (brother of novelist Aldous and grandson of T. H. Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog" ) and ends with the work of the English game theorist Geoffrey Parker--a microevolutionist who made his mark studying the mating strategies of dung flies--and the American paleontologist Jack Sepkoski, whose computer-generated models reconstruct mass extinctions and other macro events in life's history. Along the way Ruse considers two great popularizers of evolution, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, as well as two leaders in the field of evolutionary studies, Richard Lewontin and Edward O. Wilson, paying close attention to these figures' cultural Gould's transplanted Germanic idealism, Dawkins's male-dominated Oxbridge circle, Lewontin's Jewish background, and Wilson's southern childhood. Ruse explicates the role of metaphor and metavalues in evolutionary thought and draws significant conclusions about the cultural impregnation of science. Identifying strengths and weaknesses on both sides of the "science wars," he demonstrates that a resolution of the objective and subjective debate is nonetheless possible.

Genres: Philosophy, Science

320 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 1999

About the author

Michael Escott Ruse was a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specialised in the philosophy of biology and worked on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcation problem within science. Ruse began his career teaching at The University of Guelph and spent many years at Florida State University.

Reviews

[Nichi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is interesting on two fronts: making a philosophical point and the history of science, particularly biological evolution.

Most of the book is spent on exposition on the history of evolution, and this exposition is interesting in its own right. The work of E. Darwin, C. Darwin, Huxley, Dobzhansky, Dawkins, Gould, Lewontin, Wilson, Parker, and Sepkoski is explained and explored. The explanations are detailed but not laborious. I found the coverage of the earlier scientists very interesting, and the coverage of the current thinkers a bit harder to get through, though the material was still interesting. The difference is likely a symptom of more contemporary work simply being slower and thus less spectacular.

The philosophical point is well-made. At the outset of the book, Ruse presents the two sides, evolution as something plainly objective and as a "mere" social construct. The exposition in the middle chapters is clearly presented to serve the philosophical investigation. I will not go in depth here into my thoughts on whether the argument is correct, but I will at least say that the argument leaves Popperians and Kuhnians, realists and anti-realists alike with some complications to deal with. The point reminds me of Feyerabend's "How to Be a Good Empiricist"---namely that there's no single straight and narrow path to truth, so things like metaphysics and, as Ruse emphasizes, metaphor must be used to get different angles.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

DARWINISM IS USED AS A "CASE STUDY" TO STUDY PHILOSOPHY

Michael Ruse (born 1940) is a philosopher of science who teaches at Florida State University, and has written/edited books such as 'Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA,' 'But Is It Science?,' 'The Darwinian Revolution,' 'The Evolution-Creation Struggle,' 'Darwinism and its Discontents,' etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1999 book, "This is a book about the nature of science using evolutionary theory as a case study... in this book I am using biology to try to understand philosophy... This book is intended more for a general audience."

He notes, "[Theodosius] Dobzhansky, though he hated war, nevertheless thought that the West must maintain its nuclear superiority and that if this means testing, then so be it. He and his students were therefore keen to show that the radiation artificially introduced into the atmosphere has little or no bad effect---possibly a good effect even!... I have little doubt that cultural factors lying behind the formal science ... helped significantly to flesh out the gaps between the proven and the presumed. The fact that the Atomic Energy Commission was delighted with these results and happy to support the work ... was a nice bonus. Everybody's ends were being served." (Pg. 110-111)

He observes, "when it comes to saltationism---the claim that evolution would have come about ... only through large new variations... [Richard Dawkins says], 'By what mysterious, built-in wisdom does the body choose to mutate in the direction of getting better, rather than getting worse'? Normally, variations are deleterious, and large variations are very deleterious. This is an empirical fact, yet one entirely ignored or minimized by saltationism." (Pg. 127)

He suggests, "A huge amount of hostility to religion is also characteristic of Dawkins's writings... Recently, this hostility has become so obsessional and so overt that one might truly say that today this value---blasting religious beliefs---is a major reason why Dawkins does what he does... It is precisely because Darwinism can so substitute for Christianity that Dawkins finds the theory attractive." (Pg. 130)

He admits, "Charles Darwin took magnificent leaps forward. At the same time he had epistemic weaknesses: there was certainly nothing much by way of exact prediction, and there were perceived epistemic failures as well---the inconsistency of his theory with the earth-dating findings from physics, for example." (Pg. 237)

This book will interest those interested in the Creation/Evolution debate.

[Alberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro me ha cambiado la perspectiva de observación de los fenómenos epistemológicos. La estrategias que lleva a cabo el autor es sumamente útil para la hipótesis inicial, y los datos aportados se ajustan adecuadamente.
De hecho, he optado por utilizar esta estrategia en un caso de estudio concreto, obteniendo resultados positivos. Siendo así una teoría fértil la del autor.

[Robert Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book!