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L. L. Bean, Inc. 
atively few data were available now 
appears to be much more complex 
and much less gradualistic.” Raup 
goes on to discuss the potential of 
chance processes to bring about ap- 
parently patterned evolutionary 
change — in particular, the extinction 
of lineages. 
Gould’s article is also about prob- 
lems with Darwinian gradualism. It 
takes to task those biologists and an- 
thropologists who argue that species 
boundaries are artifacts of the human 
capacity to classify and construct ar- 
tificial divisions. Gould argues, as 
Ernst Mayr did years before, that spe- 
cies are real biological entities, but 
he does not suggest that they are ge- 
nealogically unrelated to one another 
or that they cannot give rise to new 
species. 
Despite the attempts of scientific 
creationists to play up the signs of 
controversy among evolutionists, there 
is actually widespread agreement in 
scientific circles that the evidence 
overwhelmingly supports evolution- 
ism. Confirmation has sometimes 
taken unexpected forms, as in the high 
correlation between the degree of bio- 
chemical difference between pairs of 
species and the amount of paleonto- 
logical time since their apparent sep- 
aration. 
There is agreement that the pattern 
of origin of taxa in the paleontological 
record strongly supports genetic con- 
tinuity and, therefore, evolution. The 
punctuationalists’ concept of evolu- 
tionary stasis has been misused by 
creationists to argue against such a 
pattern, but evolutionary stasis con- 
tradicts only strict gradualism, not 
evolution. The fact is, the genus Homo 
does not occur in the Mesozoic along- 
side brontosaurus, as the creationists 
claim; if it did, we would indeed have 
to question our evolutionary assump- 
tions. 
Scientists do ask questions about 
the pattern of evolutionary change. 
In particular, does the fossil record 
bear witness to the slow, continuous, 
gradual change envisioned by Darwin 
and supported by neo-Darwinists? Al- 
though still a matter of considerable 
debate, some form of punctuational- 
ism is gaining increasing support 
among evolutionists. Scientists also 
ask questions about the process or 
mechanism of evolutionary change: 
for example, given a pattern of punc- 
tuational change, is Darwinian nat- 
ural selection the best explanation for 
macroevolutionary trends? 
The current debate is complicated 
because the concept of natural selec- 
tion embraced by Darwinians has 
changed with the introduction of pop- 
ulation genetics. Steven Stanley’s con- 
cept of species selection (the differ- 
ential survival of species) is part of 
natural selection as formulated by 
Darwin and some modern biologists, 
but not as formulated by population 
geneticists focusing on selection op- 
erating within populations. Therefore, 
when Eldredge, Gould, and Stanley 
proclaim natural selection to be an 
inadequate explanation of macroevo- 
lutionary change, it is important to 
realize that they are talking about nat- 
ural selection as mathematized, refor- 
mulated, and restricted to popula- 
tional variation by population genet- 
icists in the 1930s. 
When a creationist such as Parker 
describes the putative failure of nat- 
ural selection, however, it is to an au- 
dience that simplistically equates nat- 
ural selection with evolution — an 
audience that does not know the dif- 
ference between natural selection and 
species selection. Most students of sci- 
entific creationism know little about 
the debate between the phyletic grad- 
ualists and punctuationalists or that 
between proponents of Darwinian 
(nonrandom) and non-Darwinian (ran- 
dom) processes of change. And they 
will not learn what the debates are 
about from Parker and his colleagues. 
“It’s so utterly infuriating to find 
oneself quoted, consciously incor- 
rectly, by creationists,” Gould has 
said. “None of this controversy within 
evolutionary theory should give any 
comfort, not the slightest iota, to any 
creationist.” Yet the scientific crea- 
tionists, by misrepresenting the ongo- 
ing work of evolutionists, have helped 
the antievolutionary cause to gain 
more momentum than ever before in 
the twentieth century. Scientific crea- 
tionists are widely viewed as learned 
scholars with impressive credentials, 
and more and more people are being 
persuaded that staggering evidence is 
on their side. Many scientists are baf- 
fled that such poor science can be 
so easily swallowed, and that creation 
is being taught as science in some 
schools around the country. Scientific 
creationism may be poor science, but 
it is powerful politics. And politically, 
it may succeed. 
Laurie R. Godfrey teaches physical 
anthropology at the University of 
Massachusetts, Amherst. 
10 
