David Moore and Elliot Gould are ganging up on "pore-old" Darwin and saying he got it wrong. This is just a continuation of the assault on the Church that began with the advocacy of Thomas Henry Huxley when he took up Darwin's case and argued it before Samuel Wilberforce (Bishop of Oxford).
Basically the argument is the same, we know more than you do, so you're wrong. It is left to the reader to decide if actually Moore and company do know more than their contemporaries or predecessor(s). It seems strange that in most cases, after presenting the case, the caveat is, "we need more studies for confirmation."
Both Moore and Gould make/made good arguments for not rushing to judgement, yet they are both inclined to throw the baby out with the bath water when it doesn't fit their models.
Moore's book, The Independent Gene permits us to discover he has a social axe to grind, not unlike Thomas Henry Huxley before him. Huxley was making an assault on the Church and used Darwin as a shill in his debates with Wilberforce So does Moore use the lack of fit between Nature and Nourish to insert his social agenda that refutes any thought that some people are more (or less) capable than others.
This is not to say that both Huxley and Moore do not serve a useful purpose. Of course, it is good to reexamine accepted dogma and as better information becomes available to introduce it into the wealth of knowledge we share.
In Moore's case, his arguments often fall back on animal experiments that demonstrate that some of the accepted theories were just theories and are now proven false. Other times when the data doesn't quite fit, he uses the well-worn plea for more research, and of course he is right, we need to continue to delve into what constitutes the where and why that individuals are alike and different. If you accept his arguments, you will conclude that the only reason some individuals are more intelligent than others is that their nurturing environment makes it so. Accordingly, all that is necessary is for "big brother (or sister)" to step forward and implement a uniform system of learning, nutrition, health care, family structure and so forth, so that all have the same chance.
He refutes the obvious; that "inborn" characteristics give certain individuals an advantage or disadvantage. An example of an inborn error in metabolism causes some individuals to be unable to metabolize, i.e., breakdown phenylalanine with the result that, untreated the individual will be mentally retarded. Moore uses this to argue that with treatment the individual can be normal, thus rushing to judgement that it's the environment's fault, not faulty genes. Or in the case of sickle-cell anemia which is caused by a genetic difference in the hemoglobin, those persons affected suffer from painful joints, to mention just one of their disabilities. But, and it is an important but - they share a common trait of being more resistant to malaria than their fellow man who does not have this abnormality of the blood. Moore's right in this case, the environment selected those individuals that could survive the assault of mosquitoes. Would Moore argue that those less fortunate, regarding malaria are actually just as well off and capable as their brothers with the "sickle cell" gene. Of course when they die of malaria it's difficult to convince their parents and sibs of this point.
In the case of the mating of Africans with those of European blood lines, a somewhat similar bit of genetics can be explored. At one time in the United States, the percent of white or black blood was carefully recorded up to one-sixteenth of one race or the other. Is it possible to find a genetic relationship between intellectual ability and racial makeup? Unless you ask, you'll never know the answer. And perhaps it is better not to raise the question.
There is an animal model that can be considered, granted the generation time discourages scientist who like the quick turn-around of fruit flies, mice and microorganisms. Many centuries ago, it was discovered that by crossing a horse with an ass, a mule was produced. This unique animal is essentially sterile as the parents contributed an unlike number of chromosomes which makes it near impossible to replicate the germ cells and produce viable sperm or eggs. The mating pair can be either stallion or mare with a jack or jenny. Interesting the offspring of the two yields very different results. Here is a mother-lode of genetic engineering to be explored. But no one's interested, or are they.
These experimental areas may provide an easy method to determine if the path in "The Garden" on which Gould and Moore are following, will bear fruit.
Perhaps it seems like "Stealing pennies from a deadman's eyes." to criticize Elliott Gould, one just dead, but it cannot go unsaid to point out some of the foibles of Dr. Gould and his rewriting history concerning evolutionary theory. He was never short of words so perhaps if others speak it would not be out of order.
One must question what and who Dr. Gould was. Was he a famous chemist? Not really, he never reached the level of Nobel Prize winner, or make important contributions to the advancement of his field. Was he an historian? If an historian is one who fairly records events and orders the happenings so that they can be better understood, without entering his own personality and bias, then one could say he was an historian, but he fails these test, so an historian he was not. Was he a writer? The answer is of course. But of what did he write so that he can be more carefully judged? Gould took it upon himself to try to interpret the trends in evolution so that his name would stand out. But since he paid little attention to those who didn't contribute to his story, the bias in his writing comes to front.
Consider the Darwinian "Descent of Man", the concept championed by Huxley, Thomas Henry by name, who if he had not spoken out, Charles Darwin and his ideas would have remained pretty much out of the limelight until others who were better spoken would have surely claimed the mantle of Evolutionary concepts. Huxley and the Episcopal Bishop Wilberforce openly debated the role of evolution in man.
Huxley was Darwin's "Bulldog" to advance Huxley's causes. He could have just as easily used a number of other prominent (and not so prominent but advanced thinkers) but they were of the earlier times and so didn't have the forcefulness of new thought. Herbert Spencer was disregarded because, after all, he wasn't a physical scientist. Rafinesque was off in America finding things under every rock and although he put his finger on the nature of evolution, neither Huxley, or for that matter anyone else on the continent was about to pay attention to the writings of this peculiar American.
So Huxley played the Darwin card and much to the distress of Gould, he wasn't there to make his (Gould's) claims to fame. But Gould had the advantage in that he had the press some hundred or so years later and Dr. Gould has made the most of it. How shall we judge him?
Elliott Gould should be remembered as a publicist, a self promoter and one capable of stirring controversy, but not as an historian! And surely not as a scientist who contributed to our understanding of the "Decline of Man."
Certainly, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Constantine Rafinesque and a multitude of others in another century could have envisioned hereditary change and evolution of species to have followed the trend of selection. And that is pretty much what they did. Difference being, now with the advantage of hind-sight many of the writers of today consider Darwin et. al., were wrong. Not at all. Those that came before were better at science than many of today's specialist, and properly refrained from extrapolating information upon a shaky base.
Perhaps Darwin's observations and research were to him proof that man was descending from God. Huxley and the politically motivated have convincingly shown that man continues his descent into hell. Not exactly what evolutionist would have you believe.
And, the John Thomas Scopes trial in Tennessee was nothing but a blustering show of trial lawyers before an entranced press. This is shown no better than in William Manchester's book about H. L. Mencken who covered the trial and wrote many of the press releases that fanned fires across the nation. Disturber of the Peace or the life of H. L. Mencken, reveals Mencken's life long desire to be an antagonist to conventional thinking and a defender of the avant guard, the liberals, socialist, Nazis, and communist. He saw in Clarence Darrow, a way to put a stick in the eye of the ignorant southerner, hillbilly, farmer and laboring class, who just happened to believe in the Bible. William Jennings Bryan was the opposition and he won the case and convicted Scopes in partisan Dayton, Tennessee. The case was overturned and thus Darrow got credit for his oratory ability and winning ways (see The Crime of the Century by Hal Higdon for a replay in the Chicago murder trial.) All but forgotten is Mencken's comment at the time regarding Darrow, "The net effect of Clarence Darrow's great speech yesterday seems to be precisely the same as if he had bawled it up a rainspout in the interior of Afghanistan...."
So it is that moving through more than a century, the advocates of dissent stir the pot. Sirs Moore and Gould are only followers, not leaders.
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