The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins  (70)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Though this final book is not the most accessible of Stephen Jay Gould's meditations on science and culture, it is a complex and revealing look at one of the late paleontologist's great passions: the unity of human endeavour. The titular hedgehog and fox refer to the classic dichotomy of persistence opposed to agility of thought, which Gould uses as a backbone in comparing, contrasting and balancing science and the humanities. Unlike many scientists, he does not consider humanities (nor religion) to be inferior to his discipline.
Though this final book is not the most accessible of Stephen Jay Gould's meditations on science and culture, it is a complex and revealing look at one of the late paleontologist's great passions: the unity of human endeavour. The titular hedgehog and fox refer to the classic dichotomy of persistence opposed to agility of thought, which Gould uses as a backbone in comparing, contrasting and balancing science and the humanities. Unlike many scientists, he does not consider humanities (nor religion) to be inferior to his discipline.
Drawing liberally from Renaissance and Scientific Revolution sources, Gould shows that the perceived differences in the two cultures are mostly false. Readers of EO Wilson's Consilience will find many similarities here, though Gould emphatically rejects Wilson's conclusion that reductionism is an appropriate way to unite the two cultures and offers examples of when such an approach might fail.
If we discover that a majority of human cultures have favored infanticide under certain conditions, and that such a practice arose for good Darwinian reasons, shall we then claim that we have resolved the question of the rightness of such a practice with a "yea"?
This volume is presented by its editor almost unchanged from the manuscript Gould had finished shortly before his death. The result is a book with such unedited detail that its dense blend of history and philosophy is at times overwhelmingly difficult. Nevertheless, Gould's deeply held conviction that human understanding comes from every one of our cultural efforts shines through. --Therese Littleton, Amazon.com
Review
Stephen Jay Gould is in full and eloquent posthumous voice as he laments a false dichotomy that has pitted science against the humanities since the seventeenth century. To illustrate the dichotomy he cites a Greek proverb which has a clever fox (read: humanities scholars) employing many cunning behavioural strategies, while the hedgehog (read: scientist) plods along with a single, albeit very effective strategy (curling up in a motionless ball with only its spiny backside showing). To make his case the author uses his beloved collection of early natural-history texts, including one that inspired the present volume, a sixteenth century piece on terrestrial mammals. It is this work that bears the mark of the Magister's pox: the Church censor left the text alone, but suppressed the names of the author and of Erasmus as iconoclasts who were not shining models of Catholic orthodoxy. Gould uses his textual evidence both to illustrate the fusion of science and the humanities as well as to show how they have always stood in opposition. He argues that in fact each of them should borrow from each other and thereby improve their own given disciplines and writes of the" absolute necessity of both domains to any life deemed intellectually and spiritually full." Gould, who lived and died exemplifying that sort of consilience has the last word. (Kirkus UK)
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