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The Mismeasure of science: in his last book Stephen Jay Gould argues it is a mistake to judge the "magisterium" of science for its failure to engage ethical questions
Natural History, July-August, 2003 by Michael Ruse
The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities by Stephen Jay Gould Harmony Books, 2003; $25.95
My most vivid memories of Stephen Jay Gould date back to December 1981. The place was Little Rock, Arkansas, and the scene was a courtroom where evolution was under attack by so-called scientific creationists. The two-year interregnum in Bill Clinton's five-term gubernatorial leadership was at its midpoint, and had left the state with a governor whose surprise at gaining office was matched only by his inadequacy for the post. The creationists had managed to get the Arkansas house and senate to pass a bill mandating the teaching of both evolution and Genesis in publicly funded school biology classes, and the governor had signed it into law. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) immediately sprang into action to have the law declared unconstitutional, arguing an unwarranted breach of the separation of church and state. Steve and I served as expert witnesses, testifying that evolution is genuine science and that creationism is old-time religion.
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In the end the ACLU won the case handily, but at first things were tense. The state's attorney-general hammered away at the pro-evolution witnesses and, as happens in these cases, a certain amount of mud was thrown, and some of it stuck. But by the end of the third day it was clear that we were starting to come out on top. The Arkansas schoolteachers proved to be the most impressive witnesses of all, simply by demonstrating why they could never teach Genesis as biology, no matter what their religious beliefs. (As I remember the episode, all of them were Christians.)
That evening all the ACLU supporters--lawyers, expert witnesses, hangers-on--were relaxing in one of the superb restaurants of Little Rock. A lot of wine was drunk. Then the singing began--instigated by some rather angelic-looking law clerk. The only songs most of us knew in common were the Christian hymns of our childhood, so that was the way we went. And I'll never forget Steve Gould--Harvard professor, secular Jew, eminent evolutionist--belting out "Amazing Grace," especially those lines about being in heaven and praising God's grace for the first ten thousand years, at which point: "We've no less days to sing God's praise/Than when we'd first begun."
For me those recollections epitomize what Stephen Jay Gould was all about: First, that he was there at all--many other prominent figures, beginning with Carl Sagan, had been too busy to take time out to go to the South and fight the creationists. But Steve felt it was his public duty, and he never gave it another thought. Second, that he could fight a good fight. Guess who had just roughed up the lawyers for the state? Guess who had just given them a science lesson that they must remember to this day? Third, that he acted as part of a community, willing to share in the group's tensions as well as its triumphs. And fourth, that he could, and would, sing. Steve was well-known for his love of oratorio, and appreciated its power to move people's hearts.
Personally, Steve had no time for creationism, or for evangelical religion generally, but he understood why others were attracted to it. He was a genius, tremendously creative, and, to the regret of those of us who knew him, terribly arrogant at times. Yet ironically, one of his strengths lay in his capacity to empathize with regular folk, because he was regular folk--he was a born and bred New Yorker whose daddy had been a court reporter, who loved baseball, whose aged relatives could never understand why he hadn't become a "real" doctor. Those things stayed with him.
Stephen Jay Gould is gone now. Those of us who knew him, and many who didn't, are pained by the thought that he died too young, and yet inspired by the example of his personal courage: twenty years ago (shortly after the Arkansas trial), he fought back a particularly vile form of cancer and then continued writing, teaching, and lecturing for another two decades.
Now we have Gould's final book on science, published posthumously. The title--The Hedgehog, The Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities--is a bit misleading. Frankly, I am still unsure how "the magister's pox" fits in. But "the hedgehog" and "the fox," Gould tells us, refer to some lines attributed to the seventh-century B.C. Greek poet Archilochus: "The fox devises many strategies; the hedgehog knows one great and effective strategy." The sentiment might lead you to think Gould chose his title to differentiate between science on the one hand (perhaps foxlike in its many ways of going at things) and the humanities on the other (hedgehoglike in sticking to one theme or topic). But that reading doesn't hold up for long: foxlike behavior and hedgehoglike behavior, Gould says later on, characterize both fields, and neither approach can be considered entirely right or entirely wrong.
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