Florida State University Libraries

Home , Hugh Falconer, Spandrel (biology)

Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2009 Literary Studies and the Third Culture Curtis D. Carbonell

Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected]

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

LITERARY STUDIES AND THE THIRD CULTURE

CURTIS D. CARBONELL

A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2009

The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Curtis D. Carbonell defended on December 9th, 2008.

______Mark Cooper Professor Co-Directing Dissertation

______Ralph Berry Professor Co-Directing Dissertation ______Michael Ruse Outside Committee Member

______David Johnson Committee Member Approved:

______David Johnson, Chair, Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities

TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS...... iii ABSTRACT...... v PREFACE ...... vii INTRODUCTION...... 1 Defining the Third Culture...... 1 Methodology ...... 9 Structure ...... 14 CHAPTER 1 THE WEDGE STRATEGY: INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND THE MECHANISMS OF POSTMODERNITY ...... 22 Introduction ...... 22 Postmodernism: A Quick Definition ...... 24 The Wedge Strategy...... 27 Johnson a Postmodernist?...... 31 Johnson and the Meta-Narrative of Christianity...... 34 Conclusion...... 36 CHAPTER 2 THE THIRD CULTURE AND THE PROBLEM OF THE HUMAN ...... 38 Introduction ...... 38 The Third Culture...... 39 Foucault and Problems of Representation...... 46 Cognitive Literary Theory as a New Interdisciplinarity ...... 56 Hayles and Hart: the Importance of Continua...... 60 Spolksy and Gaps ...... 62 Conclusion...... 65 CHAPTER 3 CONSILIENCE: THE THIRD CULTURE AND THE ENGAGEMENT OF THE SCIENCES AND THE HUMANITIES...... 67 Introduction ...... 67 Wilson: Sociobiology, Gene/Culture Coevolution, Biophilia, Consilience...... 70 Gould: A Different Definition of Consilience ...... 93 Conclusion...... 100 CHAPTER 4 SPANDRELS AND THE INSTITUTION OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY: A CULTURAL STUDIES APPROACH TO GOULD AND THE THIRD CULTURE ...102 Introduction ...... 102 Postmodern Turn ...... 103 Science as a Social Institution: Ideology, Spandrels, and the Adaptationist Programme ...... 105 Daniel Dennett‘s Response ...... 117 Conclusion...... 119 CHAPTER 5 GOULD AS A THIRD CULTURE THINKER: REVISING —DARWINISM“...... 120 Introduction ...... 120 Gould Contra Literary Darwinism...... 121

iii

Popular Sphere: the Comment and Response ...... 125 Professional Sphere: a Career of Opposition ...... 132 Conclusion...... 139 CHAPTER 6 EVOLUTIONARY LITERARY STUDIES: THE FAILURE OF LITERARY DARWINISM ...... 140 Introduction ...... 140 Literary Animal...... 141 Literary Darwinism: The Political Agenda ...... 147 Literary Darwinism: Methodology...... 158 Carroll Contra Gould ...... 160 Conclusion...... 165 CHAPTER 7 A CONSILIENT SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES: IAN MCEWAN‘S ENDURING LOVE ...... 167 Introduction ...... 167 Shared Ground between the Sciences and the Humanities...... 169 The novel ...... 172 Conclusion...... 184 REFERENCES...... 186 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 197

ABSTRACT

This dissertation is predicated on the notion that the concept of the Third Culture describes a dominant intellectual force in contemporary society and that literary and cultural studies thinkers must learn to engage it while maintaining and understanding the rich and varied history of humanistic thought (even its most skeptical kind). The Third Culture describes a move beyond the traditional categories of the —sciences“ and the —humanities“ to show how they have been transgressed and are being transgressed. Thus, such a new concept needs to address these disciplines that properly reflect how the sciences and humanities intersect. To do so, this dissertation analyzes the Third Culture through several avenues from critical theory to evolutionary biology to contemporary literature and culture. These avenues converge by viewing the sciences and the humanities as compatible domains, even while recognizing their important distinctions. Beginning with a cultural reading of the Wedge strategy, an Intelligent Design agenda aimed at reinserting theism into secular culture via the mechanisms of Postmodernity (media tools of an advanced post-industrial society), this dissertation announces the need for attention paid to finding common ground between humanists and scientists because of the difficulty of finding such ground (we don't read each other carefully enough) and because both are being attacked by the same parties (i.e., from the right by politically motivated theists). It follows by arguing via Michel Foucault and cognitive literary studies that John Brockman‘s use of humanism is misguided in his definition of the Third Culture. It then attempts a proper approach to the sciences and the humanities by revising E.O. Wilson‘s consilience of reductive unification via Stephen Jay Gould‘s consilience of equal regard. It presents Gould‘s thought as a corrective, in that he spent a career problematizing key categories within the institution of orthodox evolutionary biology. As an example of how literary studies should not engage the Third Culture, it then critiques Joseph Carroll‘s form of Literary Darwinism as faulty for failing to problematize categories such as —Darwinism,“ in its political agenda to challenge postmodern cultural theory. As an attempt at praxis reflecting the overall methodology and theory utilized in this dissertation, it provides a literary reading of Ian McEwan‘s novel, Enduring Love (1998), that represents the sciences and humanities as fully

consistent with this dissertation‘s conception of the Third Culture. In the end, it presents the Third Culture as a viable field of investigation for literary and cultural studies thinkers. The final product hopes to be an example of how one might approach the Third Culture: in an irenic spirit that values both domains of the sciences and the humanities.

PREFACE

As a preface, I‘d like to briefly detail how I became interested in the Third Culture. As a literary studies thinker, I have been aware of the need to hear marginalized voices since reading Gerald Graff‘s Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education (1992). In the mid nineties as an English literature graduate student, such insights opened my eyes to the contested world of a widening canon. The vital new readings of old texts within cultural and literary studies demonstrated the multivalent and protean nature of our endeavors. At the same time I became interested in how the sciences and humanities were intersecting in works like Frederick Turner‘s Genesis: an Epic Poem (1988), a ten thousand line Miltonic poem in five acts about terra-forming Mars. However, not long after, Intelligent Design became the new label for the creationist‘s movement to reinsert theism into modern secular culture. The idea of teaching the controversy sounded very similar to Graff‘s teaching the conflicts. While I knew the latter was important and viable, trying to articulate what was wrong with —teaching the controversy“ took years to articulate. Even a cultural relativist can see a problem in not challenging a claim like, —the world is only six thousand years old and it came into being by divine fiat.“ Either it did or it did not.1 In my search to articulate how to challenge such propositions, while still recognizing the need to champion marginalized voices, I began with E.O. Wilson‘s inspirational attempt at academic bridge building, Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge (1998). By the time I returned to the academy as a Ph.D. candidate, I found a way back into my old interest via a book of essays by Joseph Carroll, Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature (2004). My initial excitement at seeing a direct link from literature to the sort of evolutionary based thinking found in Wilson turned to dismay when I realized something was troubling in Carroll‘s thought. I wrote a paper in Dr. Ralph Berry‘s critical theory class which started me thinking about the failings of Carroll‘s thought. This portion of my journey began to gel

1 An important epistemological distinction needs to be admitted between events and their linguistic descriptions.

vii

when I finished the last essay in his book, a polemical attack on Stephen Jay Gould, whom I had read once as an M.A. student in a reading science as literature seminar. However, I knew very little about him. What I did know is that I wanted to understand why Carroll was so vehement in his attack on Gould. At this time I began taking courses in F.S.U.‘s History of Philosophy and Science program. Taking as a model the engagement of science and religion (Lindberg and Numbers 1986; Ferngren 2002), I began to think about how the sciences and humanities have influenced each other and could be conceptualized as compatible in many ways. I then encountered a book by John Brockman, The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1995) that describes the contemporary engagement of science and the humanities. At this point I met Dr. Michael Ruse and learned about his pivotal role in Arkansas as a witness for the A.C.L.U. I realized F.S.U. had a key resource regarding Third Culture issues, and I quickly signed up for a seminar with Dr. Ruse in which I began my attempt to articulate thoughts about Literary Darwinism‘s mishandling of Gould. At the same time I was working through a desk full of Dr. Ruse‘s monographs, I was thinking about how science operates as an institution, taking a key seminar with Dr. Mark Cooper. I also want to thank Dr. Cooper because at this time he began to field questions that kept me on the right track, in particular, how to conceptualize key issues related to how a cultural and literary studies thinker might assess the sciences. I began to see that the troublesome epistemological aspects of post-structuralism, often caricatured by one camp in the —science wars,“ do not in fact posit the sort of antirealism and extreme epistemological relativism its opponents claim. From this point, I began a critique of Literary Darwinism, primarily its narrow reading of —Darwinism“ and its political agenda to challenge postmodern cultural theory. In so doing, I formulated ideas about consilience that revise Wilson via Gould, as well as detailed more on Gould‘s thought. I eventually came to a conception of the Third Culture that values ideas and methodologies from both domains and realized the primary point of intersection is how to conceptualize the engagement of the sciences and the humanities. My readings of Ian McEwan‘s novel and Intelligent Design‘s use of the mechanisms of postmodernity are the end result of this study.

viii

INTRODUCTION

This dissertation attends to what a variety of thinkers mean by "science" and the "humanities" (along with such cognate terms as the "human") in order repeatedly to show that the differences are less stark than the polemicists maintain. Thus, talk of a —Third Culture"2 in which scientists stake a claim to territory once "owned" by the humanities mistakes the more complex relationship between the two endeavors. What these challenges of simplistic definitions lead to is a problematized TC, one that attempts to see how thinking within the humanities is as vital for knowledge building as is thinking in the sciences. Moreover, it should be noted that the terminology of a TC suggests a Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, etc., but that such an extrapolation is not needed because the Third functions as a blend of the two. What this dissertation does is attempt to explain why we should pursue the TC at all. To do so, this dissertation provides a working definition (see below). Such a formulation moves beyond the constraints established by the T.H. Huxley/Matthew Arnold debate and the later C.P. Snow/F.R. Leavis reiteration. It sees these debates as necessary precursors to revisions made later in which the sciences and humanities combine within contemporary culture to form hybridized disciplines. In particular, this dissertation‘s contribution is to sharpen focus. It is predicated on the notion that the divide which separated the thinking of the earlier incidents is less helpful than thinking about the debate in a new form: within the context of a complex contemporary moment whose key definitions and categories are being redefined by massive cultural and technological change on a global scale.

Defining the Third Culture

Before any talk of a TC begins, one should step back and address the concept of the two cultures debate that crystallized in the mid twentieth century after novelist C.P. Snow delivered a Rede lecture at Cambridge in 1959, —The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution“ (see Snow and Collini 1993; Snow 1969; Leavis and Yudkin 1963). At stake originally was an issue debated by Huxley and Arnold over the roles

2 Henceforth, TC (in this chapter).

science would play in British education. Huxley, of course, championed the new professional sciences as a vital part of any proper education, while Arnold represented the need for training in a classical curriculum bolstered with vernacular texts for the creation of a respectable liberal subject. By the time Snow delivered his Rede lecture, Huxley had been vindicated while Classics departments had been in decline for decades. The mantle of defender of the old tradition fell to thinkers like Leavis who resisted adopting the technoscience that Snow represented. Snow reflected tensions in the British academy and literary culture between two dominant forces in intellectual society: that of the sciences and the humanities (for Snow, the literary). However, more was at stake for Snow than simply the definition of academic disciplines in the modern educational systems or the internal squabbling among intellectuals and men of science. His main argument was political: that science was the primary tool to alleviate world poverty and that contemporary literary intellectuals were unequipped to handle the challenge.3 The current concept of a TC that would be different from Snow‘s two cultures was popularized by a science literary agent, John Brockman, in the 1990s. Brockman cleverly revised Snow‘s original lecture title with his own book, The Third Culture and the Scientific Revolution (1995). This dissertation will define the TC in a way that moves beyond Brockman‘s simplistic definition (detailed in Chapter 2). Whereas Brockman sees the TC as comprised of scientists who speak to humanists (but not the other way around), this dissertation follows Steven Best and Douglas Kellner in defining the great transformations of contemporary culture as a —postmodern adventure“ in which science/technology support a vast system of global capital influencing human culture/society on a scale never seen before. This dissertation takes from Best and Kellner, in its definition of a TC, the idea that the traditional categories of the —sciences“ and the —humanities“ have been transgressed and are being transgressed in this expansion of postmodern global capital and culture. Thus, a new concept needs to address these matrix disciplines that properly reflect how the sciences and humanities interact. The —TC“ is such a concept for this dissertation. Referencing such an interaction, Stefan Collini writes about how Snow‘s —two cultures,“ that of a traditional literary intellectual and a science-minded thinker in the mid century, has not been frozen:

3 In fact, he originally wanted to call his lecture, —The Rich and the Poor.“

Instead of Snow‘s research physicist and literary critic encountering mutual incomprehension over the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the plays of Shakespeare at a Cambridge high table, the emblematic figures representing his ”two cultures‘ at the end of the twentieth century should perhaps be a Singapore- Chinese economic analyst E-mailing her American software designer boyfriend about the latest Afro-Caribbean poet to win the Nobel Prize for literature (Snow and Collini 1993, p. lxvi).

The TC, then, belongs as fully to literary studies thinkers interested in understanding these cultural transformations as it does to science-oriented thinkers. For this dissertation, a focus on one emerging arena, evolutionary biology, will suffice because of its relevance as a place where historians, cultural critics, and scientists answer key questions (among other things) that have direct influence on educational policy in America. Moreover, evolutionary biology has been a key field for thinkers interested in understanding how the humanities and life sciences intersect. Even before Darwin‘s 1859 monumental contribution, comments like Robert Chambers Vestiges of Creation (1844) attempted (incorrectly, but with flair) to blend natural science and history and philosophy in grand narratives about how biological life evolved on this planet. Evolutionary biology today has become a key site of contest in an ongoing culture war. In particular, American school boards arbitrate between (often) a fundamentalist Christian worldview and modern science in policy debates over the role of religion in the class room. Furthermore, the move from professional to popular interest is evident even in the entertainment sector with examples from popular culture like the agitprop documentaries Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) and Religulous (2008). For this dissertation, evolutionary biology functions as a fruitful field of TC investigation via a look into how E.O. Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould differently define consilience and how their differences help us to see that the debate over the —two cultures“ of the sciences and the humanities affects how we frame the human. In fact, this dissertation reads both —humanism“ and (modern) “science“4 as 19th century

4 An institution comprised of —scientists,“ a term first used in the 19th century.

constructions designed to better articulate ideas within burgeoning professional academic spheres. In this way, the institution of science plays a key role, not only in the overall transformations of human culture (and its identities), but in how we conceptualize the relationship of the sciences and the humanities. This dissertation follows Best, Kellner, Collini and others in offering literary studies thinkers ways to challenge Brockman‘s representation, particularly by challenging misuses of ideas from the life sciences in conducting literary interpretations (as is the case with Literary Darwinism). In the end, this dissertation makes a plea for adjudicating these boundary disputes and cross border engagements on intellectual/philosophical rather than political grounds. Its aim is to depoliticize the TC–that is, while this dissertation accepts that the TC will always be informed by cultural and institutional politics it claims that the TC ought not be equated with any particular viewpoint, nor should we assume it to be inherently hostile to politically progressive work in the humanities. Furthermore, this dissertation adopts the premise that understanding is not enabled, but thwarted, by disciplinary distinctions. In adopting this premise, I conceive "understanding" as a process operating within the human social realm, a complex space that requires its own methods and mechanisms (for its articulation) beyond that of scientific reductionism. Whereas the production of knowledge is also embedded within this difficult intersection, —understanding“ requires a broad spectrum of mechanisms and methods for attacking complex philosophical problems (like consilience or the human). Getting beyond the traditional boundaries demarcated by fields of study and their guiding disciplines may be a necessary step that recognizes the aim of this dissertation. In doing so, then, —understanding“ becomes an active process in which an open eye toward the generative aspects of human thinking explains why we encounter such difficulties born of cross-border disciplinary interaction. Furthermore, this collaborative spirit of interdisciplinarity is best represented as one in which knowledge is viewed through generative lenses, highly influenced by the notion that so much of what we think (and know) is predicated, not only on our limits and possibilities, but on our potentials as well. This jouissance, freedom, play, etc., born of the unlikely marriage of criticism with so many other disciplines is not meant to minimize the pitfalls associated with depoliticizing the TC. One must acknowledge that the TC is a formation born of a

professional managerial class within the academy. The institution of knowledge building that caused the wrangle between Arnold and Huxley, then annoyed Snow, with its apparent division, is very much a part of the socio-economic system born out of the modern research institution‘s rise to prominence in the last two centuries. Moreover, this program has become global, the combination of Western techno-science influencing world culture, now the dominant form of human social interaction. Previous concepts by social theorists to describe such prevalent patterns have ranged from the —unconscious“ to —ideology“ and —class“ to —discourse“ to —postmodernity.“ Today, the move from —Americanization“ to —globalization“ is often the most common description of this global socio-cultural phenomena, with the TC as a driving force in its dominance. This dissertation in no way means to diminish the important work that must be done explaining how the TC has become global (and what that means for the world). Before this can be done, though, understanding what the TC is and how the sciences and the humanities overlap in its articulation is vital. Furthermore, this dissertation argues from the assumption that theoretical space needs to be found for non-political knowledge within critical theory (again, while still admitting knowledge is, often, political). This plea for a critical —space“ reflects a growing concern that something has stalled within the critical enterprise. A special issue of Critical Inquiry5 dedicated to understanding criticism‘s future role begins with an explication of such a need. In "Why has Critique run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern," the sociologist of science and leading voice in Science and Technology Studies (STS), Bruno Latour tries to explain a shift in his own thinking related to fundamental positions within critical theory. He sees himself originally attempting to help "emancipate the public from prematurely naturalized objectified facts" in his role as an —anthropologist“ revealing how the institution of science actually functions. But today, because so many controversies exist, he is worried critique has no proper tools for distinguishing matters of fact from ideological arguments posturing as fact. He wants out of the predicament when faced with —bad guys“ who use naturalized facts or social constructions when it suits them. As a solution, he wants to turn the

5 2003-04, 30:2

attitude of critique on itself and ask "what we were we really after when we were so intent on showing the social construction of scientific facts" (2004b, p. 227). Latour wants to avoid the problems with "gullible criticism" (2004b, p. 230), that which happens when popular forms of criticism devolve into apparati for supporting conspiracy theories. Today, when the hard work done by thinkers like Nietzsche can be had by simply watching any modern film asking existential questions or challenging middle class values, Latour wonders if the entire system of criticism needs to be rethought to address the saturation (and dilution) of critical ideas. Latour's solution:

My argument is that a certain form of critical spirit has sent us down the wrong path, encouraging us to fight the wrong enemies, and worst of all, to be considered as friend with the wrong sort of allies because of a little mistake in the definition of its main target. The question was never to get away from facts but closer to them, not fighting empiricism, but on the contrary, renewing empiricism (2004b, p. 231).

As Latour plainly states, his neo-empiricism will elevate matters of concern over matters of fact. To do so, Latour provides an interesting sketch of how western intellectuals conceptualized an object vs. a thing, the latter having an additional property of concern over simple fact. Latour begins with the idea that the etymology of the word "thing" connotes that objects become things by being gathered together. He is providing us his particular definition of —the social,“ wherein human and non-human elements are taken together as collectivities. He wants to account not just for traditional human social sites, like the family, or their products like the higher human cognitive elements of love, the good, justice, etc., but he wants to explain how to handle our investigation and articulation of something as complex in the natural world as the Gulf Stream (and how we come to understand it). He wants us to see such a —thing“ as a place of entanglement between many things, both —natural“ and —social.“ Latour wants to revise the false binary of fact vs. value and find another position, a broader one he labels a —fair“ position. Along with this new position must come new critical tools in this investigation into a neo-empiricism/realism. To do so, even the —social“ must be reassessed. The social can't

be, in another false binary, opposed to science. It becomes a place of scientific investigation because it is made of human and non-human elements in associations/collectivities/assemblages, etc. Latour believes that once we reconceptualize ourselves in these roles, criticism can move forward (2004b, p. 247). Instead of the destruction of the things we love via the usual suspects of deep, dark hidden forces, criticism can be a tool to elucidate things by adding to them in its elucidation of collectivities. His project of finding a new route for criticism reflects a need to find a space in which non-political knowledge can be assessed. While Latour worries about shysters using science to argue against something as potentially damaging as global warming, other instances can be found. This dissertation is predicated on the notion that one avenue Latour‘s new route might take is via the investigation of the TC. It does not advocate a TC devoid of political consequence. However, I agree with Latour that engagement among humanists and scientists is urgently needed. One particular need for engagement that informs this dissertation has to do with the supposed —controversy“ surrounding evolutionary biology. Advocates of such a controversy have marked it with the most preposterous abuses of serious intellectual work. For instance, a major misrecognition occurs when Young Earth Creationists are associated with postmodern cultural theory as enemies of science. To describe this as a misrecognition of serious intellectual inquiry means being willing to state, flatly, that some claims are invalid or incorrect (i.e., the world was created by divine fiat some six thousand years ago), while others are not. However, as Latour has suggested and others have as well (Bhaskar 1998), championing neo-realisms/empiricisms does not mean harkening back to old models that would deny the instability of language or does not mean refusing to see discourse as a tool of power creation. We need a reassessment of concepts and how they are wielded. In the case of YECs, a criticism serious about science has to be equally serious about rhetoric. It must admit that we live in a world where almost any marginalized voice can posit that a claim is valid simply because it has been marginalized. What gives these fringe voices credence is not a theory of discourse so much as a rhetorical strategy that popularizes itself by using —postmodern theory“ as an alibi.

Locating such mechanisms of misrecognition will be a big part of the overall endeavor for a new critical theory. For example, in Chapter 1, this dissertation examines how a conservative organization (The Discovery Institute) promotes a reinsertion of theism into modern culture. While, this, in itself, may be acceptable for religious traditionalists, it does so by attacking a key concept of modern evolutionary biology, —Darwinism.“ What it does, in fact, is to malign a valid area of scientific investigation (the natural history of biological organisms and its primary theory) to promote a cultural worldview. It is through the thorough rejection of this use of —religion“ within a scientific context that this dissertation views the importance of the TC. In particular, an investigation into two key thinkers regarding such an issue, Edward O. Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould, one sees two differing notions of how to conceptualize these two domains. Wilson is noted for his advocacy of joining the great branches of learning (including religion) around a dominant branch, biology, while Gould has advocated N.O.M.A., non-overlapping magisteria.6 Wilson would have —religion“ (and the humanities, in general) explained and subsumed within —science,“ while Gould argues both domains are valid in explaining their particular objects: science in explaining matters of fact; religion, matters of value (Gould 1999). It is in this way that the only thorough rejection of religion that must take place is the one advocated by the likes of the Discovery Institute. An overtly theistic agenda that aims at cultural change via pseudo- scientific validity is a problem, while either a fully explainable morality and ethics via a science such as evolutionary theory (Wilson) or a worldview that values both domains (Gould) would allow for a working compromise. It should be noted that Gould‘s N.O.M.A., in which science and religion, are viewed as compatible but distinct domains does present an unsolved problem, while providing détente between the camps. Gould does not provide a fully fleshed-out description of the distinction between religion as a domain of value and the humanities,

6 For Gould, science addresses matter of empirical investigation into the natural world, while religion (as one aspect of the humanities) investigates morality and matters of axiology. A problem, here, for Gould is that these two domains appear to be the sort of artificial dichotomy this dissertation works against. In fact, his original assessment in which he addresses science/religion (1999) was presented as a way to separate the domains in order to provide legitimacy for both. His later assessment (2003) in which he addresses science/humanities demonstrates how the two domains are compatible, its focus more in line with this dissertation‘s insight that conceptualizing concepts as continua are helpful when addressing concepts within the human social realm.

in general, as a domain of value. There is much in modern science that is opposed to traditional religious thought (e.g., origins, for one). And while Gould has been very adamant in his support for modern geological and biological knowledge, he allows religion its domain for areas of human value. However, modern secular humanism (for one) provides value in much the same way as this denuded Gouldian religious magisterium. Gould does not explain fully why both are acceptable. Nor does he fully detail whether religion is a subset under the broader space of the humanities or something completely different. One can read Gould as viewing religion as another field within the broader field of the humanities, on equal footing with literature, history, philosophy, etc. In attempting to clarify Gould‘s position, this dissertation suggests that both religion and modern philosophies like secular humanism are aspects within the greater domain of the humanities and, thus, are both viable in his sense. The key for Gould is that these domains are problematic when they overstep their bounds of presenting value judgments to presenting fact-based claims of reality (which need the more rigorous methodologies of science for their validation).

Methodology

In terms of methodology, this dissertation offers a series of readings of professional and popular texts by TC and literary studies thinkers. These, readings reveal a series of problems that result from presenting the relation between the sciences and the humanities (and associated concepts) as a dichotomy. Following poststructuralist insistence on identifying, undermining, and then supplementing common binaries to reveal meaning in texts, this dissertation reveals how simplistic binaries like science vs. the humanities are often more troublesome than helpful. It calls for the problematization of these concepts again and again. This is done because so much of what it means to do —science“ is conditioned by aspects that go beyond the stereotype of mere reductive analysis. There is much in science that operates in a similar fashion to that in the humanities. However, this dissertation does not want to diminish the very important (and often described) differences between the sciences and the humanities. One very important distinction,

regardless of how much the two branches share, is that modern science is an accretive endeavor. Knowledge is built piecemeal and is often reflected in application via technology (e.g., microprocessors have increasingly gotten smaller and faster over time). Issues in the philosophy of science have even problematized this process and asked whether scientific knowledge does indeed build on its self or does it simply stop asking old questions and start asking knew ones. Regardless, even if a limited form of accretion can be attributed to its results, that is more than what can be said of how humanistic knowledge works, which has no internal mechanisms of refutation other than intuition and insight and the dogma of sacred texts. The phase of articulating doubt through testable validation, so well rehearsed in modern science, is lacking in much humanistic thought and demonstrates why the need for a TC is vital. It should be noted, that the humanistic endeavor of hermeneutics does allow for suspicious reading (doubt), although no analog exists for predictive testing within the humanities. In fact, hermeneutics is a mechanism of refutation other than intuition, insight, dogma–it is disciplinary and quasi- accretive (interpretations build on other interpretations, sometimes challenge them, etc.), as was seen in the highly systematic (but often eccentric) examples from the European Renaissance. Moreover, scientia, knowledge, was used to describe any type of general knowledge before the rise of natural philosophers turned professional —scientists“ (a term William Whewell coined to describe the activity of this new field) in the 19th century. Moreover, even modern science is not so easily contained. Many qualities that might, at first, seem incommensurate with the definition of science as a networked activity of hypothesis, prediction, testing, validation, etc., are vital. For example, the many processes that comprise modern science are informed by an intuition similar to what we might call the —imagination“ in literature (see Barbour 1997). There is a tendency to look for elegance in explanation that appears much like a classical appreciation of beautiful form. Furthermore, defining what is usually put in opposition to science, as well, is not so easy. By the —humanities,“ I mean those varied avenues of hermeneutic investigation from Renaissance scholarship that privileged textual analysis. The humanities in the modern academy are those areas of investigation that rely less on the methods of the natural and life sciences. Philosophy, history, literature, religion, the arts, etc. are key

domains within humanistic study, while disciplines such as psychology and sociology have taken on the mantels of the human\social sciences yet still retain much in common with their humanistic lineages. Furthermore, this dissertation‘s use of —literature“ is predicated on the notion that literature is not simply a reflection of a national literary tradition or the tools of creating a liberal subject, nor is it merely the reflections of an evolved human nature (it can be these things, certainly, but not exclusively). This dissertation is highly informed by the notion that —literature“ can be found in a variety of non-traditional forms. We can find elements of literature in film, in comic books, in video games, etc. Thus, popular culture is an open field for investigation via methods and concepts from literary and cultural studies. The endeavor becomes less about defining what literature is than using the techniques within the disciplines to describe phenomena in the social. The central theoretical stance that we should problematize highly complex binaries stems from several sources as fundamental as the poststructural revision of Claude Lévi-Strauss‘s less than fully critical account of the nature/culture dichotomy. We know that Jacques Derrida‘s seminal essay, —Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,“ helped inaugurate poststructural philosophy in the United States. The essay is often used to introduce Derrida‘s critique of Western metaphysics of presence and the de-centering of naïve epistemology, and works well as an example of the problems inherent with dichotomous thinking. While this is true, we also find an interesting admission of affirmation within the essay that is in the spirit of the rising TC. Derrida does not mourn the rupture he investigates in Western thought. He embraces it. A central precept that informs this dissertation can be found with Derrida‘s leveling insight that —language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique“ (Richter 1989, p. 964). In explicating this, he details two disparate ways of thinking: that of the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss‘s and his own. We are told by Derrida that Lévi-Strauss‘s mode of thinking represents a sad, nostalgic desire for presence and meaning, while Derrida offers his as an example of one that accepts the prevalence of absence–not only accepts the freeplay of signifiers but affirms this phenomenon. He details this binary to put himself in opposition to Lévi-Strauss, whose way of thinking Derrida considers non-affirmative. Why? Lévi-Strauss will not accept that absence has

triumphed over presence in Western philosophy. The curious passage begins by describing the structuralism of Lévi-Strauss —as a turning toward the presence,“ then as the —sad, negative, nostalgic, guilty, Rousseauist facet of the thinking of freeplay.“ Derrida positions structuralism as a backward looking philosophy of nostalgia, one that mourns the loss of the center, of presence, of origin. The pessimism and negativity is undeniable. By describing it in such terms, Derrida sets up his approach as an alternative to Lévi-Strauss‘s: an optimistic affirmation that this dissertation attempts to duplicate in its examination of the TC.

The Nietzschean affirmation–the joyous affirmation of the freeplay of the world and without truth, without origin, offered to an active interpretation–would be the other side [of Lévi-Strauss‘ way of thinking].

Derrida is praising his own acceptance of metaphysical, ontological, epistemological (choose your category) absence. He tells us that he affirms the freeplay (of the endless chain of signification) and the lack of a ground or origin. He is preparing the stage for what would later become poststructural philosophy. Derrida, though, suggests an optimistic tone for what many might find troublesome. —This affirmation then determines the non-center otherwise than as loss of the center.“ If the non-center is something other than loss, what is it? He doesn‘t tell us. But he writes, —And it plays the game without security. For there is a sure freeplay“ (Richter 1989, p. 970). He switches our focus from concern over the loss of a center to affirmation that all we have is —a sure freeplay.“ This dissertation asserts this affirmative (I would even say, celebratory) aspect of poststructural thinking to suggest a further step: the continued need to problematize assumed dichotomies used to describe aspects of the social. And lest we think only poststructuralists see the importance of such endeavors, critiques within evolutionary epistemology by someone like Gould see dichotomies as possibly helpful within the arena of survival within out evolutionary past (e.g., fight or flight) or with making sense of reality (e.g., night vs. day; man vs. woman) but not so helpful with metaphysical questions (see Gould‘s understanding of Lévi-Strauss‘s structuralism regarding dichotomies as a basic structure of human thinking, 2002, p. 598). However, Gould does

not think like a Derridean because he is not focused on language issues, yet aspects of deconstruction do help us understand Gould because it shows how thinking in simplistic binaries is a problem for both thinkers. For Derrida the binaries often reveal a powerplay with one over the other. For Gould, the binaries simplify what are often complexities. This dissertation argues from the assumption that aspects of —the social“ are better described as continua rather than antipodal positions.7 This is not simply an extension of the often described historical process wherein issues in ontology have been superceded by those in epistemology. What are aspects of the social: those elements that describe human interactions with others and with the world. Thus, when attempting to describe something as fundamental to human culture (the social) as literature, as the humanities, as science, as what it means to be human, etc., a proper approach toward a descriptive definition will see these explanations existing along a range of descriptions according to what is being asked. From epistemology to culture, "things" are better described as existing along a range between extremes rather than at the poles. In particular, when trying to define "science" and "literature" it may be better to locate them at various places on a continuum between say areas of fact vs. areas of value based on what exactly is being asked. For example, attempting to define whether Shakespeare is a —good“ or —bad“ writer is not helpful. Describing his writing within specific contexts will put him at different points along a continuum, according to what is being asked (if good is associated with —most things Shakespeare,“ from complex use of language to providing cogent descriptions of the human condition, he‘ll rank toward the good; if good is defined as a minimalist aesthetic and spare use of language, he‘ll move toward the other pole . . . ). Finally, this dissertation offers critical readings for a practical purpose: to offer an example of how literary and cultural studies can interrogate the TC. In the end such an approach reminds us to challenge simple notions of key categories for the humanities, i.e., the human, the TC, consilience, etc., and most importantly, the sciences and the humanities.

7 For example, while it is necessary to allow for an off or on state for the functioning of computer binary language (i.e., 0 or 1), much of human language functions beyond the simple answers of yes and no in providing complete descriptions of things. In particular, when aspects of the social are described, the validation of yes or invalidation of no for claims often do not suffice. Instead, these described elements exist within a variety of ontological states–that is, they are best thought of as existing as positions along a range between antipodal states.

Structure

This dissertation is structured into seven chapters, with the first and last chapters providing critical readings that bookend the core theoretical chapters. The second chapter will introduce the key concept of the TC and its simplistic definition by Brockman. The central three chapters will address issues within evolutionary biology and how these concepts have been addressed. The penultimate chapter presents another misuse of ideas from the life sciences, this time a literary studies approach: Literary Darwinism. Chapter 1, —The Wedge Strategy: Intelligent Design and the Mechanisms of postmodernity,“ begins by providing a critical reading of Intelligent Design proponents‘ attempt to create a wedge in secular society to reinsert a theistic worldview. This chapter argues they attempt to assert their wedge via the mechanisms of postmodernity: following Frederic Jameson, those informational elements of mass culture that allow them to present their ideas as an alternate to that posed by evolutionary biology. This chapter demonstrates how a literary and cultural studies approach to the TC can step outside a traditional written literary text to address topical issues in culture. While most of this dissertation will affirm the possibility of unified human understanding between the sciences and the humanities, operating under a theoretical impulse that values continua over dichotomies for elements within the social realm, this first chapter argues that an important distinction must be made between science and pseudo-science. To do so, this chapter centers on a representation (by the philosopher of science Robert Pennock) of Intelligent Design advocate, Philip E. Johnson as a postmodern thinker. This chapter revises Pennock, claiming that while Johnson does attack modern science in his project to champion Intelligent Design, Johnson is not a representative of many precepts of postmodernism. In particular, this chapter reads Johnson as clearly supporting a Christian metanarrative. In this way, he does not demonstrate the sort of suspicion that Jean- François Lyotard calls for. Moreover, Johnson is a representative of a strategy formulated by the conservative organization, The Discovery Institute, and their campaign called the Wedge Strategy. Exemplified by an internal document leaked to the internet, the Wedge is a clearly explicated strategy to combat secular society. This chapter argues that literary

and cultural studies thinkers need to engage the life sciences because Intelligent Design proponents are using the mechanisms of postmodernity (without the theoretical insight) to win a cultural PR campaign. Thus, while the TC can be viewed (from a literary studies perspective) as an arena in which —scientists“ do —bad“ philosophy in order to trample humanists, and people of faith use humanist arguments to delegitimate science, the TC should be seen as a rubric under which various professional disciplines might collaborate on articulating definitions of the human. These definitions will doubtlessly be political in their effects, but they will neither derive from nor legitimate themselves through political claims. Chapter 2, —The Third Culture and the Problem of the Human,“ attempts to situate the category of the TC within a historical context to better understand the proper relationship of the humanities to the sciences. To do so it investigates how the human gets framed (often, inadvertently) through several concepts by thinkers from critical theory to the life sciences. This chapter begins with the literary agent John Brockman‘s version of humanism and demonstrates that it fails to address the rich philosophical history of the term. It briefly charts Paul Davies‘ definition of humanism to show how the term was applied in the 19th century as a tool to reimagine Greek ideals in a burgeoning new modern world. Davies is helpful because he demonstrates how the term, humanism, functions as a 19th century creation, not that dissimilar from how —scientist“ was also used to organize the concept of modern western science. As a corrective to Brockman‘s simplistic use, Foucault‘s more precise rendition of the death of man thesis shows how the attack on —the human“ as a universal term actually signals the concept‘s return and, thus, demonstrates how the category must be viewed as contested and multivalent. To provide an example of how such a conception of the human enables interdisciplinary exchange, the chapter follows with a brief description of how cognitive science and literary studies might engage one another. Ellen Spolsky and F. Elizabeth Hart demonstrate that the supposed central epistemological debate in the —science wars“ between realist and relativists can be solved by thinking in terms of continua instead of dichotomies. Hart challenges Slavoj Šišek's simplistic reading of cognitive vs. literary to demonstrate that cultural studies thinkers can also be guilty of using false binaries. Spolsky argues that Darwinism and deconstruction work well together, in that our

cognitive architecture may be highly informed by poststructural concepts like gaps and flexibility and, thus, may add to a key aspect of what it means to be human. Finally, what this chapter attempts to sort out is how the broad disciplines of the humanities are to engage the life sciences from cognitive science to evolutionary biology. It makes such an attempt through critical readings of Brockman, Foucault, Hart, and Spolksy. Thus, this chapter recognizes that in an older story, the humanities historicized the human while science naturalized it. This chapter tells a new story in which the sciences and the humanities collaborate to provide the human with a future that has yet to be written. Chapter 3. This dissertation delves into a key TC field, evolutionary biology, with, —Consilience: the Third Culture and the Engagement of the Sciences and the Humanities.“ This border crossing is made to show that evolutionary biology is central for investigations into the TC and how various positions were construed and misconstrued through it. It does so by looking at two evolutionary theorists‘ ideas about this relationship, E.O. Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould, whose differing notions of consilience reflect a fundamental divide on the nature of the relationship. This chapter reads Wilson as seeing a need for the social sciences and humanities to move toward the reductive methods and principles of the natural sciences. This chapter charts a brief intellectual history of Wilson by first looking at his groundbreaking text, Sociobiology (1975). In it we see an attempt to define human nature via grounding in our evolutionary history. This chapter follows with a look at On Human Nature (1978), a direct explication of his earlier attempt at defining the human. With Promethean Fire (1983) arrives a clear example of his unification project wherein gene/culture coevolution is conceptualized as working together. With Biophilia (1984) Wilson continues his representation of human nature, this time as innately given to an appreciation for nature. Finally, the intellectual history focuses on Consilience (1998) and Wilson‘s ultimate argument that the best way to understand these issues of what it means to be human is to see that the humanities should move closer to the sciences in a joining of the great branches of learning. As a way to problematize this fundamental TC concept, this chapter presents Gould and his wish to approach the sciences and the humanities as independent domains of investigation that should be conceptualized as working in tandem. In such a synergistic way, this chapter views Gould as a TC thinker who is exemplary for the humanities. At

issue between Gould and Wilson is the weight given to analysis and synthesis. Wilson is keen to argue that both methods, the analytical breaking down of parts via reduction and the synthetic rebuilding of knowledge, are important in his endeavor of consilience. But, this chapter argues that reduction is weighted heavier by Wilson (if only because the sciences are better at it). However, Gould‘s approach values the sort of synthesis that can also be found in the humanities, predicated on the basic understanding that the parts cannot always describe the whole. In this way, the synthetic move upward from analysis is considered to be a different process altogether. Thus, Gould looks to the humanities as an example of how this might be done. In such a way, Gould functions within this dissertation an example of a TC thinker who, like Wilson, moves between both worlds of the sciences and humanities. But, in so doing, he promotes an equal engagement by both domains instead of marginalizing one at the benefit of the other. Finally, this chapter reads beyond Gould‘s ideas of two distinct but compatible domains (religion/humanities vs. the sciences) to suggest that Gould‘s thinking in coupling the two is an example of how to conceptualize artificial dichotomies as, in fact, continua. Chapter 4, —Spandrels and the Institution of Evolutionary Biology: A Cultural Studies approach to Gould and the Third Culture,“ acts as a companion piece to the previous chapter and part of a set with the next chapter, both of which demonstrate how Gould is a realist who recognizes the power of language and its political uses. This chapter focuses on Gould by examining how his (and Richard Lewontin‘s) notion of —spandrels“ has functioned within the institution of evolutionary biology. Why the importance of —science“ as an institution? Because it is largely responsible in defining the TC. This chapter takes a theoretical look at the concept of spandrels and how one might address it from within literary and cultural studies. This chapter works from within the context of postmodern studies and how one might approach evolutionary biology as an institution. Utilizing concepts from philosophy professors Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, as well as social anthropologist Mary Douglas, this chapter views the institution of evolutionary biology as ripe for examination by literary and cultural studies thinkers. In particular a concept like spandrels and its champions (like Gould) pose as perfect case studies for how TC thinkers work within social institutions. This chapter begins with a definition of contemporary society (via Best and Kellner) as a reconstructed

postmodernity in which we acknowledge the rise of a TC for a third millennium. Best and Kellner define contemporary postmodern society as an intersection of the sciences and the humanities. This chapter follows them with a look at Lewontin‘s notions of how ideology works within science, demonstrating that the sort of knowledge legitimation issues clearly evident within literary and cultural studies is also evident to leading scientists and TC thinkers. This chapter then focuses on a paper by Gould and Lewontin that uses a literary metaphor, spandrels, to communicate ideas within evolutionary biology that are both epistemological and political. (In terms of knowledge building, they hoped to challenge what they called the adaptationist programme with a critique, while politically they were challenging the rise of sociobiological thinking.) This chapter ends by calling attention to Gould‘s admission that their project was ideological but that the stakes were high and that the consequences required such rhetorical moves. Thus, this first full chapter on Gould commences a set (Chapter 4 and 5, taken together) that views Gould as a quintessential TC thinker. Together these two chapters 1) provide plenty of space for fact-telling in a real world with real objects while 2) admitting that language is powerful in its mediation of this world and its objects and 3) acknowledging the inescapability of politics in the endeavor of this knowledge building. Chapter 5, —Gould as a Third Culture Thinker: Revising ”Darwinism,‘“ centers on a comment made by John Maynard Smith about Gould in The New York Review of Books (1995), one that reduces Gould‘s thinking about evolutionary biology to such a base level he is represented as simply confused. Gould is often used by one camp in the —science wars“ as an example of rhetoric over substance. Gould, though, has been at challenging orthodoxy in evolutionary biology for most of his career. (As a historian and a scientist, he was in a curious position to do so.) This chapter charts some key concepts from his last technical book (2002) in which he demonstrates how he revises the key concept of Darwinism. In particular, Gould attacks what he considers to be the prevalence of Darwinian functionalism in the Modern Synthesis on two fronts: the popular and professional. In his popular writings, demonstrated via an exchange of papers in The New York Review of Books (Dennett 1997; Gould 1997a; Gould 1997c; Gould 1997b), Gould challenges functionalism through the language of religion, calling his opponents Darwinian fundamentalists. In the professional, The Structure of Evolutionary

Theory (2002) revises Darwinian functionalism along three avenues: the agency, efficacy, and scope of natural selection for a broader definition. I work through these concepts as a corrective to Joseph Carroll (as detailed in the next chapter), using Gould to demonstrate how debates within evolutionary biology and their theoretical pursuits cannot help but also be aware of their political stakes. Therefore, this chapter acts a corrective to the failings of Literary Darwinism but also argues against John Maynard Smith‘s hostile attack by viewing Gould as a complex thinker with a complex intellectual history attempting to describe complex processes. Chapter 6, —Evolutionary Literary Studies: the Failure of Literary Darwinism,“ utilizes Gould to challenge an explicitly political use of Darwinism by Joseph Carroll, a literary studies thinker highly influenced by E.O. Wilson. In a fitting example of how Carroll perfectly exemplifies the position Gould designates ”fundamentalist,‘ Carroll‘s Literary Darwinism aims to replace the indeterminacy and textualism of poststructuralism with a more traditional approach to literary studies via ideas from evolutionary psychology. The chapter argues 1) that Carroll doesn‘t adequately describe or explain the debates within the science he imports and 2) that he imports them on a false pretext, namely, to wage a fight that has nothing to do with science but rather with a rear guard effort to defend old-fashioned literary interpretation. Key categories like —evolution,“ —adaptation,“ —Darwinism,“ that have been thoroughly analyzed and articulated in the philosophy of biology get short shrift by Carroll because he wants an unproblematized notion of human nature so that he can argue (like a secular neo-theist fundamentalist) that great art reflects this human nature. In particular, he wants to reinsert the notion of an author writing about characters in settings as not only a necessary but sufficient triad for the investigation of literature. He presents an alternative methodology that would replace the textualism and indeterminacy of poststructuralism with his triad and with his idea that human motivations (as seen in literature) can be charted onto our fundamental cognitive structures. That his agenda is anti-poststructuralist more than it is pro-evolutionary biology becomes clearest in his omission of key categories in critical theory (e.g, the importance of intertextuality and the importance of the social and historical context of a text). He reveals the shallowness of his engagement with both humanistic and scientific pursuits when he simply imports a definition of human nature from evolutionary

psychology. Although this borrowing allows Carroll to presents himself as picking sides with —positivists/realists“ in the supposed —science wars,“ its uncritical stance toward concepts like the natural or human nature undermines Carroll‘s approach. Thus, this chapter views Carroll as an extreme example of evolutionary literary studies gone wrong. In fact, this dissertation has been predicated on the attempt that getting right a working approach to the life sciences is critical for a contemporary literary studies moving into the twenty-first century. Carroll‘s approach isn‘t just a wrong turn. It‘s a pitfall that must be avoided. Chapter 7, —The Science and the Humanities: Ian McEwan‘s Enduring Love“ (1998), provides a reading of a TC novel that foregrounds the relationship of the sciences and the humanities. In McEwan‘s novel we get a perfect example of how literary thinkers are listening to the world of science and speaking to it in return. This chapter begins by responding to Stephen Greenberg‘s ideas about how Neo-Darwinian themes in the novel point to social themes and suggests that what underlies both of these is a deeper structure: the tension between C.P. Snow‘s Two Cultures (1969), which is only one cycle in a longer engagement/conflict between science and the humanities. In particular, this chapter reads McEwan‘s primary character, science-minded thinker, Joe Rose, as juxtaposed by two foils that represent the humanities: a Keats‘ scholar, his wife, Clarissa; and a religious fanatic and erotomaniac, Jed Parry. This chapter reads the novel as demonstrating that Joe‘s rationality isn‘t quite so rational. McEwan presents him as a complex character to complicate a falsely simplistic dichotomy of the sciences and the humanities. The novel is best read, therefore, as an example of how a TC might be envisioned as a true melding of the two categories. However, this is not to say that the religious character is treated equally with the literary. While McEwan presents his science-minded character as balanced with elements from the humanities, his two representatives from the humanities receive different weight. Literature comes off much better. What McEwan does with his fundamentalist erotomaniac is to represents the extreme religious mind (only one sector within the humanities) as sincere but deranged. In this way, McEwan as a TC intellectual is consistent with this dissertation‘s notion that certain aspects of religious thought (i.e., those so certain in their worldview they might

challenge modern science or secular humanism or, in the novel‘s case, reality in general) are inconsistent with a working TC.

CHAPTER 1

THE WEDGE STRATEGY: INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND THE MECHANISMS OF POSTMODERNITY

Introduction

This chapter examines the impact of Intelligent Design on contemporary culture. As a beginning for this dissertation, it precedes a critical reading of a novel (Chapter 6) with a critical reading of a cultural phenomenon: the Intelligent Design movement‘s political agenda to create a wedge in secular society so that it might reinsert a theistic view. In particular, this chapter acts as an example of how literary and cultural studies thinkers can interrogate elements of the Third Culture.8 In this particular case, a religious strategy aimed at attacking science, a key aspect that informs this chapter is that the institution of science, while fully ideological, does not mean it is on equal ground with any other attempt at explaining reality. A line must be drawn at some point, and in so doing one does not diminish the very social aspects of science. Moreover, and even as we acknowledge that the legitimation of knowledge is predicated on social elements highly problematized in literary and cultural studies, some social sites (like Intelligent Design or alchemy or Scientology or mind-reading) should be examined for their validity and not automatically accepted just because they may be discredited by dominant institutions, like modern western science. A key element that informs this chapter is the importance of distinguishing between the very real need to acknowledge a marketplace full of voices and the need for valid knowledge about reality. Such a need (the latter) is not incompatible with a postmodern impulse to hear marginalized voices in proper contexts (like humanities classrooms, i.e., philosophy, literature, religious studies, history, etc.); however, as this dissertation has argued in favor of problematizing the boundaries between science and the humanities, it does not wish to do so as an agent that supports pseudo sciences with political agendas contrary to modern, contemporary, secular society.

8 Henceforth, TC (in this chapter).

As a way to demonstrate that not all engagements between science and the humanities are merely theoretical, this chapter focuses on a strategy created by the Discovery Institute‘s Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (now the Center for Science and Culture), commonly referred to as the Wedge Strategy, and how it is articulated by Berkeley law professor Emeritus, Philip E. Johnson. This chapter demonstrates that proponents of IDC9, like Johnson, use the mechanisms of postmodernism–tools of an advanced post-industrial society such as the internet; sophisticated public relations campaigns; the proliferation of popular books pretending to be professional academic writing; advertising; main-stream media; entertainment such as video games, books, TV, film, etc.; and most recently, agitprop documentaries like Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed–to challenge evolutionary biology and modern science while remaining foundational and essentialist in their worldview. I will not review the science behind the Darwinism vs. Creationism debate, which is beyond the purview of this examination (for a few examples of good places to start, see Numbers 1993; Ruse 1988; Ruse 2005). I hope to show that the possible danger to modern secular science is not in the supposed validity of IDC‘s arguments; it is in IDC‘s ability to market itself in a postmodern age where —truth“ is often legitimated by strident declamations and clever public relations instead of corresponding or cohering to reality, providing working models of reality, or even being merely instrumental. This examination is organized in four parts. I begin with a quick review of the concept of postmodernism and define it via the French philosopher Jean Francois Lyotard and the American cultural critic Frederic Jameson. I argue that the critique of rational science was actually well underway during the Enlightenment and continued afterward. While postmodern critics continue this critique, what defines them (among other things) as postmodern is a move into a socio-technical/post-industrial society in which new means of communication allow for the rapid dissemination of information. I follow with a description of the Wedge Strategy, an IDC initiative aimed at reinserting theism into modern secular society. I then attempt to clarify a problematic representation of Johnson (and IDC) by Robert T. Pennock, one of IDC‘s most lucid opponents, in which he depicts

9 Pennock‘s term for Intelligent Design Creationism. IDCs, in the plural, stands for Intelligent Design Creationists (also, for a good survey of issues dealing with Intelligent Design, see Pennock 2001).

Johnson as a relativist and, by extension, thus, a postmodernist. I believe this characterization is only half correct in its representation of IDC as a supposed postmodern discourse. I acknowledge the fact that Johnson and IDC critique modern secular science, but I challenge the suggestion that this makes them postmodern. I end with a sketch of Johnson to demonstrate that while he attacks modern science he does so to replace it with a traditional Judeo/Christian worldview. In this way, his agenda has at its core a very non-postmodern acceptance of a monolithic and totalizing meta-narrative.

Postmodernism: A Quick Definition

As argued in Chapter 4, Steven Best and Douglas Kellner define postmodernity as a rise of the TC that seeks to reinterpret and utilize aspects of the Enlightenment worth saving. Moreover, literary studies thinker Madan Sarup‘s concise An Introductory Guide to Poststructuralism and Postmodernism (1993) helps as a place to start in confronting such difficult concepts as postmodernism and postmodernity (for a recent comment on drawing distinctions between the terms postmodernism vs. postmodernity, see Hassan 2001). Sarup interrogates the numerous definitions of modernity vs. modernism, postmodernity vs. postmodernism, postmodernism vs. poststructuralism, etc, and succinctly tells us

Postmodernity suggests what came after modernity; it refers to the incipient or actual dissolution of those social forms associated with modernity. Some thinkers assume that it is a movement towards a post-industrial age (1993, p. 130).

Following Sarup‘s lead, we see that a working definition of the general category of —the postmodern“ attempts to describe it as a phenomenon occurring, typically, after WW2 in which a curious form of post-industrial society emerged that excoriated certain tenets of modernism (Bell 1999; Bell 1976). Postmodern“ism“ is often contrasted with modern“ism,“ an aesthetic movement that valued meta-narratives of the self (however decentered or shattered) and the hope for social emancipation. Postmoderism focuses less on the angst of a fragmented self (Freudianism) and the loss of the utopian dream

(Marxism) in a world of consumerism and more on the pluralistic jouissance of playing on the surface of things (Barthes and Derrida). Eliot‘s —Wasteland“ has turned into Las Vegas. Postmodernism is often defined in terms of architecture and aesthetic theory but has found its way into most disciplines of the social sciences where theorists have defined small sectors of this phenomenon. In Lyotard‘s thought we find a pithy description for defining the postmodern: the grand recits of our collective tradition have lost their credibility.

In contemporary society and culture–postindustrial society, postmodern culture– the question of legitimation of knowledge is formulated in different terms. The grand narrative has lost its credibility, regardless of what mode of unification it uses, regardless of whether it is a speculative narrative or a narrative of emancipation (1984, p. 37).

Lyotard is adding his voice to the many critiques of the Enlightenment project, suggesting that even science itself utilizes the same sort of narrative techniques that more traditional forms (such as religion) of knowledge building once used. The two dominant myths of science, that of the liberation of humanity as detailed by the French Enlightenment and the speculative unity of totalizing knowledge as detailed by the German, appear under the lens of the postmodern merely as two more monolithic discourses. Jameson, on the other hand, broadens his scope beyond science and addresses the wider locus of general culture, suggesting that a new type of society emerged after WW2. He described this new society as based on

new types of consumption; planned obsolescence, an ever more rapid rhythm of fashion and styling changes; the penetration of advertising, television and the media generally to a hitherto unparalleled degree throughout society (1998, p. 19; see also 1991).

Jameson defines his idea explicitly: —I believe the emergence of the postmodern is closely related to the emergence of this new moment of late consumer or multinational capitalism“ (1998, p. 20). I will not go into the Neo-Marxist economics of these concepts. However, for my examination, I think Jameson‘s ideas about the postmodern are pertinent because the legitimation of knowledge within contemporary consumption culture is spreading on the back of the information age: popularizing books; hyper-reality of the internet through chatrooms, bulletin boards, fan sites, online journals, etc.; local conferences and documentaries aimed at apologetics and not general knowledge building, etc. These avenues may strike traditionalists as the heartless mechanisms of modern life, but they are proving to open local, niche environments to new forms of communication and interaction. Furthermore, one other important aspect of postmodernity should be noted. The critical theorist and novelist Umberto Eco has a helpful insight. The Name of the Rose (1994) is a postmodern novel reflecting nostalgia for the middle ages but one that recognizes the backward looking process and does so ironically and without false innocence. Eco uses his novel to recreate history, suggesting that anything we write about the past is corrupted by the present.10 In his helpful —Postscript“ to the novel, Eco examines the literary move from the avant-garde to postmodernism (the aesthetic theory) that occurred in the mid-sixties and explains how the postmodern has a curious ability to reflect on the past. In contrast, according to Eco, the avant-garde of Modernism seeks to eradicate the past, while postmodernism revisits it:

The avant garde destroys, defaces the past . . . destroys the figure, cancels it, arrives at the abstract, the informal, the white canvas, the slashed canvas, the charred canvas . . . in literature . . . silence, the white page.

Eco then juxtaposes the postmodern with this content destroying description of the avant- garde:

10 Eco believes that the middle ages provided a ground upon which artists and thinkers could stand to frame their worldviews, a ground that is gone in today‘s postmodern/global world.

The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently (1994, p. 530).

This last line, —with irony, not innocently,“ is helpful because he sees the postmodern less in terms of Lyotard‘s grand recits or Jameson‘s late capitalism; he sees it similar to the analogy of a man who loves a woman deeply but cannot use such banal words as —I love you dearly.“ Instead, he finds someone else‘s words and quotes them. This substitution is an honest assessment that we cannot comment about history without a self-reflexive awareness of our own complicity in rewriting it. For my examination, I hope to show that Johnson and IDC proponents are content with using Lyotard‘s (without naming him) critique of metaphysical naturalism (and its most salient form in modern secular science) so that they can offer an alternative that is actually a traditional grand recits: the meta-narrative of their particular version of Christianity. Moreover, Johnson sees no real knowledge legitimation problem because he draws a distinction between human and divine knowledge (see below). Furthermore, Jameson‘s ideas about the postmodern linked to late capitalism (and, by extension, to the mechanism of capitalism‘s market penetration) are pertinent because IDC is spreading on the back of the information age via the mechanisms of postmodernity. Finally, a touch of Eco reminds us that Johnson most certainly is not ironic in his look backward to a Christianized worldview. Nor does he admit to a nostalgia that is creative in its reimagining of the past.

The Wedge Strategy

In order to see a particular postmodern mechanism in action, an appropriate place to focus is with the Wedge Strategy, a slick public relations concept meant to undermine modern secular culture by any means possible. In Creationism‘s Trojan Horse: the Wedge of Intelligent Design (2004) Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross explain in detail how IDCs hope the Wedge will work as a mechanism of cultural change.

This movement seeks nothing less than to over-throw the system of rules and procedures of modern science and those intellectual footings of our culture laid down in the Enlightenment and over some 300 years . . . The Wedge admits that this is its aim. By its own boastful reports, the Wedge has undertaken to discredit the naturalistic methodology that has been the working principle of all effective science since the seventeenth century. It desires to substitute for it a particular version of —theistic science,“ whose chief argument is that nothing about nature is to be understood or taught without reference to supernatural or at least unknowable causes–in effect, to God.

The authors explain who IDCs hope to influence with the message of the Wedge: —It is aimed, rather, at a vast, mostly science-innocent populace and at the public officials and lawmakers who depend on it for votes“ (2004, p. 10). The authors‘ claim clearly depicts IDCs‘ hopes to cause a shift, not only in science, but in the broader cultural sphere of laymen and policy makers. Furthermore, in their insightful book, they detail the history of IDC and its development away from the traditional spheres of Creationism, to the formulation of the Wedge document, to the proliferation of the IDC message through popular books and conferences.

The new strategy is wonderfully simple. Here is how you implement it: exploiting that modern, nearly universal, liberal suspicion of zealotry, you accuse the branch of legitimate inquiry whose results you hate, in this case the evolutionary natural sciences, of–what else–zealotry! Fanaticism! (2004, p. 16)

The issues go beyond quibbles over problems with the fossil record or other internecine arguments and enter the realm of public discourse, where claims of such abstract categories like zealotry are nearly impossible to prove. The sophistic rhetorical technique is inflammatory and highly effective. Taking Forrest and Gross‘s cue, we see that if the message of the Wedge is shrill enough and aimed with precision at the proper audience, a multitude may hear it and respond.

What exactly is the Wedge? The Discovery Institute circulated an internal document called —The Wedge Strategy: Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture“ that candidly details their agenda. The document begins with an introduction decrying the current state of society in which the writers cement their argument against the naturalism of modern secular culture, what they label —materialism.“ They base their argument on a religious first principle: —that human beings are created in the image of God“ (“Intro.“ para. 1). The entire argument of the Wedge Strategy is based on the Judeo/Christian notion of —man“11 as a privileged being, a notion they claim acted as the bedrock for many developments in Western civilization (as if the Greeks and Romans had nothing to do with it). Moreover, the strategy sees —man‘s“ valued and privileged place in the great chain of being under attack by the sages of modernity: Darwin, Marx, Freud:

Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and Man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud, portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines.

The end result of this depersonalization: —This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and art“ (“Intro.“ para. 2). Thus, according to the Wedge Strategy, the —cultural consequences“ (“Intro.“ para. 3) of this materialism are moral relativism. Traditional values of right and wrong become antiquated because society either now blames the environment or blames our hardwired biology for its problems.12 Furthermore, the writers of the Wedge document offer another consequence of modern materialism: —the virulent strain of utopianism“ that occurred in the 20th century. The viral metaphor works well on fears of contamination, although their critique of the Enlightenment does not detail Italian, Spanish, or German Fascism, nor does it mention by name Leninist, Stalinist, or Maoist communism. The arguments are vague and declarative, as if the statements are

11 The authors of this document have not made the turn seen in literary and cultural studies from gender specific to gender neutral terminology. The obvious affront to any female speaker sensitized to the issue marks the use of —man“ as problematic, unless once is historically interrogating the concept, which typically would demonstrate how the category —man“ was not leveraged universally in describing all men on this planet (non-white, non-Europeans were typically left out until recently). 12 This is directed against thinkers we would regard as humanists (Marx, Freud) as well as those we would regard as scientists (Darwin)

self-evident. Finally, the Wedge Strategy plainly states its intentions: —nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies“ (“Intro.“ para. 5). The document proposes a five year plan, broken into phases, then goals that extend into the following decades. In this —Summary“ section, they offer the metaphor of the wedge and log:

If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a —wedge“ that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points.

They view the Wedge as their theistic worldview and the log as modern secular culture: scientific materialism; therefore, the battle over splitting the log sounds less concerned with science and more concerned with philosophy and politics. However, the document mentions a specific weak point it wishes to attack: —Darwinism“ (see Chapters 4 and 6 for a need to problematize this concept). By cracking secular culture open through an attack on Darwin‘s natural selection they hope to offer —a positive scientific alternative.“ But this desire for an alternative is disingenuous. They want a total cultural revolution. The document ties IDC‘s desire for cultural change to its religious foundation: —Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions“ (“Summary.“ para. 1). This cultural strategy fuels a film like Expelled. With IDC‘s first main foray into pop culture, it scores points for preaching to the choir and incensing its enemies. Reviews have consistently been negative by those representing modern science and praiseworthy by those seeking to challenge modern secular culture. The film claims that Darwinism leads to Auschwitz and the horrors of the modern crisis. Such a simplistic causal explanation for something as complex as the Die Endlösung (or for the even more complex rise of Modernity) should alert any keen viewers that something is amiss. Agitprop films such as this, though, do not rely on even-handed assessment of issues. It is a propaganda film aimed more at infusing sympathetic viewers with the right mix of a feel good cocktail. The problem, though, is that film and the blogosphere are power mediums in contemporary culture. Expelled may not change any minds in biology

departments, but it may have an affect on primary and secondary school boards and their students. What may not be at stake is modern science. But, what may be at stake is its image, which may seem inconsequential except for the fact that in America policy does affect what is taught where and to whom. Our future scientists may be disserved by field trips to Creationist museums, unless framed as a critical exercise.

Johnson a Postmodernist?

Such a film is dangerous because it uses postmodern cultural mechanisms to further a traditional, pre-modern worldview, as well as transferring cultural power to the ignorant. It masks itself as needed subversion, when in fact its ultimate goal is the reversal of lost cultural capital. What is interesting are its methods (the same ones that propel much of popular culture) and its disingenuous attack on science. Thus, Robert Pennock‘s representation of Johnson as a postmodernist in the Tower of Babel: Evidence Against the New Creationism (1999) needs a slight correction. Pennock explores the aims of IDCs by painstaking analysis of their cosmology, arguments, and political intentions to challenge the agenda of IDC‘s theistic cultural revolution. I am concerned with a small section of the book in chapter 4: —Of Naturalism and Negativity.“ In particular, I am concerned with a reading in which Pennock suggests that Johnson is a postmodernist because Johnson attacks the edifice of scientific naturalism, undermining it in the same way that deconstruction literary critics and other —postmodernists“ (whom he does not name and whom I would label poststructuralists13) undermine meaning and objectivity. While Johnson‘s attack on modern secular culture/science is an extension of an attack on methodological naturalism and, thus, a continuation of critiques originally leveled at the Enlightenment project,14 I believe Pennock defines the term —postmodern“ too broadly and does not fully make the distinction between the use of postmodern mechanisms of transmission (which Johnson utilizes) and Johnson‘s Judeo/Christian epistemology

13 A minor point but the term —deconstructionism“ (Pennock 1999, p. 208) is actually simply called —deconstruction“ by those in literary studies who male a profession of utilizing Derrida‘s concepts. For good introductions, see (Norris 1991; Norris 1987). 14 The critique of Enlightenment that appears in seminal thinkers such as Marx, Nietzsche, Horkheimer and Adorno, etc. also questions methodological naturalism, but from very different points of view that do not rely on a Judeo/Christian meta-narrative.

(which relies on absolutist revelation for ultimate truth in the justification of a foundational and essentialist worldview). Pennock complicates the issue when he mentions that Johnson claims to be a deconstructionist and postmodernist. A careless reader of Pennock will assume Johnson to be one. After reviewing Johnson‘s materials, though, a careful reader sees Johnson‘s claim as either disingenuous or proof he also does not understand the terminology. Pennock quotes Johnson as claiming, —I was a postmodernist and deconstructionist just like them, but aiming at a slightly different target“ (1999, p. 210). Pennock also quotes Johnson in claiming he will deconstruct roadblocks setup by materialist biology in order to —relativiz[e]“ its philosophy (1999, p. 211). The problem here is the loose use of the terminology.15 Regardless, Pennock echoes a standard caricature within the —science wars“ and ultimately claims that Johnson‘s critique of science merely equates to postmodern relativism, that —IDCs are in lockstep with postmodernism‘s skeptical contention that human truths, including scientific truths, are merely subjective narratives“ (1999, p. 212). Granted, Pennock avoids the trap of fully labeling Johnson a postmodernist by mentioning Johnson‘s belief in the difference between human and divine truths. Pennock acknowledges that Johnson thinks human truths are relative, while divine truths are not. Moreover, Pennock also details how creationists believe in a divine creator who speaks through divine revelation and the —absolute truth in Scripture“ (1999, p. 213), thus confusing us by cleansing his argument of the idea that IDC is a postmodern theory (but not until after several pages of slight misrepresentation). The pages Pennock devotes to Johnson‘s use of relativism to attack science remains problematic because Johnson‘s critique is anti-rational. That does not make it postmodern, though. Such criticisms predate postmodernity.16

15 I will not go into deconstruction literary techniques, but if Johnson means to find some crux in the text of biology in order to invert the dominant binary hierarchy in order to show how IDC is a marginalized, subaltern discourse, then the use of the Derridean term —deconstruction“ will apply. Otherwise, Johnson may be using it to mean —undermine,“ as many people wrongly do. 16 Regarding Pennock‘s representation of Johnson as postmodernist, I believe Pennock is correct in asserting that Johnson and IDC level an attack on science and western metaphysical naturalism–but, again, this attack does not make them postmodern. Most recently, this trend can be seen with the Romantics, who responded to the Augustan/Neo Classical sensibilities dominant in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century. The critique is not new. Cultural critics seeking to analyze aspects of Western culture usually begin with a critique of the Enlightenment project. This tradition has a long history, one

The problem as I see it is not whether Johnson is a relativist (which he clearly is not, as I detail below); the problem is to what extent does Johnson and IDC utilize the mechanism of postmodernity to enter American culture as a legitimate discourse. If we take Lyotard‘s notion that grand narratives are suspect, leaving open a space for local niche narratives, we see how IDC may enter the public consciousness by claiming to be just another critique of the Enlightenment aimed at legitimizing the discourse of a local community–just one more voice in the marketplace that should be heard (while its proponents still privately believe their discourse represents an absolute truth). IDC may gain credence for its niche audience even though, behind the rhetoric of relativism, it proposes the monolithic meta-narrative of Judeo/Christian cosmology. Moreover, as Jameson helps us see, IDC‘s means of social change will be to utilize particular aspects of post-industrial society, namely the proliferation of knowledge through rapid disseminating mediums like the internet, popular books found on the shelves of Walmart and Winn Dixie, and magazine covers, films, documentaries, etc., the mechanisms of postmodernity. The contest today between modern secular culture and IDC occurs via new forms of information diffusion that separates us from the past. For example, while the anti-Darwinian campaigns of the thirties may have marked similarities with those of today, they are vastly different in their means of transmission and dissemination. In terms of possible penetration, the internet can outdo a stack of pamphlets any day. The message is similar, the medium different. Moreover, while the current means of IDC‘s narrative transmission is primarily written, the proliferation of images through digital media as a mark of our current postmodern moment can be exemplified with the championing of a film like Expelled. Now that IDC has bridged this gap from the logocentric to the pictocentric, and we see Darwin and modern science punctuated by numerous intellectuals with various worldviews; however, many approaches in contemporary critical theory trace their way to Adorno and Horkheimer‘s Dialectic of Enlightenment. These members of the Frankfurt school remind us of the obvious: —Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened earth is radiant with triumphant calamity“ (1995, p. 1). This triumphant calamity, already having proved itself a hungry destroyer of humanity (and ideologies such as the inherent goodness of —man“) in the First World War, would soon appear again in the second. Here we see them as modernists struggling with their dilemma: acknowledging that the Enlightenment had not brought total peace and prosperity to the West. Johnson and IDC also level their attacks at modernity, but unlike Adorno and Horkheimer, they look to traditional Christian metaphysics for their remedy. This reliance on tradition marks them as something other than postmodern even though, as Pennock rightly notes, they level critiques at naturalism and scientific rationalism.

maligned not only in the internet but on billboards, within TV commercials, in the film industry, etc., a new level of penetration has been achieved. At this point, regardless of the truth, IDC may seem a viable alternative to many people inclined towards its message.

Johnson and the Meta-Narrative of Christianity

As one of IDC‘s most prominent leaders and outspoken critic of (what he calls) scientific naturalism, Philip E. Johnson embodies the Wedge Strategy. His approach, though, certainly critiques the Enlightenment project without forcing him into epistemological relativism or into embracing the cultural relativism of postmodernity. Johnson‘s rhetoric has changed from his first book, Darwin on Trial (1993), which focuses more on forming critiques of evolution than elucidating its cultural affects. —One thing I am not doing is taking sides in the Bible-science conflict“ (1993, p. 156). The early content is more focused on the arguments of evolution than the critique of modernity that comes in later works. However, even in Darwin on Trial, Johnson clearly states his cultural purpose: —to legitimate the assertion of a theistic worldview in the secular universities.“ This insertion of theism into science and culture remains his primary goal. He wants to overcome the —secret taboo of modernism“ (1993, p. 165) that science is based on the metaphysics of non-supernaturalism. He wants to force this topic to the forefront of conversation. Johnson foreshadows what is to come in later works when he mentions concessions Michael Ruse made in admitting that science is usually based on certain metaphysical assumptions (Ruse 2005; Ruse 1996; Ruse 1999; Ruse 2003; Ruse 2001; Ruse 2000c; Ruse 1986; Ruse 1982). Johnson considers this a victory for IDC: that some in the academy are admitting modern science is based on a metaphysical worldview: naturalism. Regarding the debate over metaphysics, Johnson‘s primary argument is that either the blind watchmaker thesis (Dawkins 1996a) is correct or it is not, either the universe and biologic life came into existence by a purposeless, emergent process in no need of a creator or it did not. And all of science is affected by how someone addresses that first issue. In pushing this issue, he hopes to reconcile theism and science by suggesting that a

theistic cosmology is a viable alternative to the naturalistic one. He ends his first book with a metaphor of Darwinism as a massive soviet battleship that has sprung a metaphysical leak. He sees its officers eventually abandoning ship. According to him, the fight to save the ship will be a spectacle that will last for a long time. —But in the end, reality will win“ (1993, p. 170).17 His final statement sets him in the camp of realists who believe in a foundation and ground upon which to justify a worldview–but one informed by Christian cosmology (an essentialism and foundationalism that in his later works is highly opposed to postmodern relativism). In Reason in the Balance: the Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law, and Education (1995) Johnson explicitly states the theistic implications of his previous work. He begins with an overtly religious rhetorical question: —Is God the true creator of everything that exists“ (1995, p. 7), then details how American academia is based on an anti-theistic, naturalistic worldview that has seeped into popular culture. Again, this is a critique of modernity, except Johnson eschews hard thinking and nuanced argument for easy rhetoric that addresses complex issues with simple answers. His concern with culture is becoming more evident. No longer is he worried about the academy. He is worried about policy making. A more recent book moves directly into the general sphere of American culture by admitting the wedge is a tool for social change. In the Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism (2002), extending his metaphor, Johnson notes that a wedge has a thick and thin part. The thin part represents his ideas and his efforts (what I would extend to contain the mechanisms of postmodernity), while the scientists who will supposedly deliver research represent the thick part of the wedge. However, these thick/thin edge aspects belie Johnson‘s importance in setting the metaphysical and political tone behind IDC. Johnson believes that American culture‘s fatal flaw is its lack of a creation myth (2002, p. 159) and that this leads to faulty reasoning and cultural relativism. He then jumps to the conclusion that Darwinism/naturalism will crumble like Marxism allegedly crumbled (2002, p. 161). Here, he works in full Enlightenment critique mode: —Enlightenment rationalism was essentially parasitic on Christianity

17 Note here the difference in the challenge to Darwinism as that provided by Gould in Chapter 5. Gould is not attempting to eradicate Darwinism, while Johnson is.

because it provided no alternative foundation on which reason could build“ (2002, p. 162). Throwing into the mix cultural relativism, antagonistic positivism, and a host of other problems, Johnson sees the re-emergence of the gospel of Christ as the antidote to the failed Enlightenment project. Johnson ends his book on a thoroughly religious note, calling for a new Christian rationalism:

If reason is to be a reliable guide, it must be grounded on a foundation that is more fundamental than logic and that provides a basis for reasoning to true conclusions about ends. Instrumental reason is not enough. That is why the fear of the Lord is not the beginning of superstition but the beginning of wisdom (2002, p. 176).

Pennock‘s representation of Johnson suffers because Pennock does not make a clear distinction between Johnson and IDCs‘ Christian philosophic worldview and their use of post-industrial technology to further their agendas. A revision of Pennock‘s representation of IDCs and Johnson is in order, especially how he positions them within a postmodern cultural context. Simply critiquing the Enlightenment and acknowledging postmodern techniques about discourse does not make you a postmodernist. Johnson‘s own works show him to be a traditionalist who believes in absolute truth. My attempt has been to clarify where he (and IDC) stands in relation to postmodern theory.

Conclusion

What is at stake for modern science and the TC may not simply be an assault on its structure. However, the natural sciences, especially evolutionary biology, need to consider its public image now that it is under attack by well-funded and determined entities like the Discovery Institute. If truth is not the determining factor whether the American public believes in the validity of an argument, if the rhetoric and the ability to convince is mostly what matters, maybe evolutionary biology needs a face-lift–not one that revises its science but one that revises its cultural image. This importance on —image“ suggests that modern science does not need to subordinate culture to its terms but to pay

attention to those who have studied it. At some point, a new Huxley-like defender of Darwin needs to arise to explain that there is no crisis other than what should be expected in a growing scientific field. Evolutionary popularizers like Richard Dawkins, E.O, Wilson, and Stephen Jay Gould do well what they do. But, a different type of thinker needs to step to the podium. This defender needs to utilize the mechanisms of postmodernity to achieve the desired effect, tools such as film, music, and literature, advertising, PR, satellite radio, the internet, and television. The epistemologically complex yet culture-shaping stuff of the humanities may need to be utilized to engage in the contest outside the laboratory and classroom. This conflict metaphor may seem antiquated, but with IDC now making movies like Expelled, the image of contemporary evolutionary biology may need to embrace it or else suffer a fate as unfortunate as the vanquished: the wrongly maligned.

CHAPTER 2

THE THIRD CULTURE AND THE PROBLEM OF THE HUMAN

Introduction

This chapter explores the implications of a particular view of neo-humanism, as represented by John Brockman in his two books The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1995) and The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003), and calls for greater care by Brockman in utilizing the concept. What becomes evident is the need for literary and cultural studies thinkers–acutely aware of the power of discursive systems in determining modes and methods of thought–to notice that literary topics (like what it means to be human) are being addressed by this emerging Third Culture,18 often obliquely, and without full recognition of their convoluted pasts. What we know from a simple investigation into the historiography of humanism is that ideas surrounding the human condition, humanity, man and woman, the neo-human, the post, the trans, etc., do not lend themselves to simplistic equations. Complexity defines the philosophic, literary, scientific, religious, artistic endeavors to map the contours of this human face. It is not a surprise, then, that thinkers from the life sciences are providing input into what has traditionally been a humanistic project, and making waves doing so (Wilson 1975; see two foundational text by Sociobiologists and later Evolutionary Psychologists on human behavior: Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby 1992). The problem, though, is that these thinkers often do not engage in the conversation of the humanities, and are overtly hostile (for a variety of reasons; some philosophic, some methodological, some political) to much of what they consider to be the worst excesses of —relativistic“ postmodern culture: the interpretive methods ascribed to poststructuralism. One reason may be a wish to avoid the very complexities.19

18 Henceforth, TC (in this chapter). 19 Moreover, the problem of the human is one that resists simple definitions because of a fundamental aspect of the defining process: a Kantian self-reflexivity restrains this process and provides a perimeter of understanding. Full exteriority is needed (if one so wishes) to garner a complete definition; full exteriority may be impossible.

Therefore, the TC is a concept that needs to be further articulated instead of simply accepted as comprised of science-minded thinkers answering questions related to the humanities. This chapter attempts to reimagine the term by challenging John Brockman‘s simplistic definition of humanism, a definition that sees a new humanism comprised mostly of scientists turned humanists, a definition without any hint of the long history of literary and philosophic thought aimed at understanding the human. Moreover, the unproblematized TC and simplistic view of its members as new humanists is challenged by a literary definition of new humanism. This chapter reads Michel Foucault as offering this challenge with his notions of the death of —man,“ an often misunderstood concept that some may think to be the ultimate antihumanism.20 Having reassessed Brockman‘s TC and demonstrated how a literary minded post-structural thinker might also suggest a type of neo-humanism more conversant with problems inherent in the process, this chapter investigates how other literary-minded thinkers have chosen to view important ideas from the life sciences. Cognitive literary theory does just this, a new type of interdisciplinarity that approaches the TC with a proper regard for both domains. In particular, this chapter then demonstrates how poststructural critical theory can mesh with a more nuanced concept of the TC. A major sticking point usually touted as a fundamental difference between the sciences and the humanities is an epistemological divide between realists and relativists. Following Katherine Hayles, F. Elizabeth Hart argues that false dichotomies such as these are problematic and that what may be helpful is to conceptualize these issues as continua. This chapter ends with another example of how poststructural critical theory can mesh with the TC taken from Mary Spolksy. She argues that Darwin and Derrida are compatible. In particular, that aspects of deconstruction like the inherent flexibility of language may be very much a part of our cognitive evolutionary history and may be a defining factor in what it means to be a human being.

The Third Culture

20 This chapter uses a standard reading of Foucault as suggesting that a particular concept of man (i.e., phenomenological, existential) might disappear so that a new conception can occur. He offered this foresight so he might suggest what this new —man“ might be, a conception of the human in which technes of the self allow one to formulate his or her own conception.

Writing about the effects of the scientific revolution and the rise of instrumental science and its dominance in the West as a tool of interrogating reality, Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin admits that when natural science overtook philosophy as the basic mode of inquiry into reality, most thinkers understood the shift (2000, p. xviii). But, he says that what is not so evident was the shift from the physical sciences to the biological sciences in prestige and economic significance. He writes that —the final enthronement of physics as Science Triumphant was proclaimed on August 6th, 1945, with a blast heard round the world“ but that the subsequent importance of physical science with the launching of Sputnik in 1957 slowly began to change when interest in the application of physics to the life sciences gave biology its lure (2000, p. xvii-xix). Moreover, he argues that since the time of Science Triumphant a more general shift in what we want to know about the world has occurred, from understanding physics to understanding ourselves. Using the example of Congress's cancellation of the supercollider project and its endorsement of the Human Genome Project, he claims "it is now widely believed that the main question of scientific investigation ought to be not what constitutes matter but what it means to be human" (2000, p. xx). This is the material of the humanities being championed by a leader in positive knowledge. Furthermore, the move from philosophy to physics to biology is affecting not just the life sciences, but the human sciences and the humanities as well. In the mid twentieth century, British novelist C.P. Snow delivered a Rede Lecture that depicted the current state of British academia as comprised of two fundamentally different endeavors: one literary, the other scientific (Snow 1969). He said the academy was split by these two cultures, that a fundamental divide existed, and that somehow literary folk like T.S. Eliot were considered intellectuals while men like Rutherford and Dirac were not. He wanted to know how this had occurred, suggesting it was an —intellectual“ crime that one should be held accountable for knowing Shakespeare but not for knowing the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.21

21 Snow also suggested that science would lead the progressive/liberal world in addressing global problems of poverty and that the humanities.

Fast forward to the nineties, where literary agent John Brockman writes an essay entitled, —The Emerging Third Culture,“ attempting to give a rhetorical face to a group he considers the cutting edge of scientific and humanistic thought and practice and who he considers to be mavericks moving beyond the divide that Snow depicted. In a book of conversations with people he considers to be leading TC thinkers, The Third Culture, Brockman inserts his original essay as an introductory chapter and provides a good working definition of the TC: scientists and others in the empirical world who are replacing —the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meaning of our lives, redefining who and what we are" (1995, p. 17). Brockman sees a shift in American intellectual thought since the fifties where a liberal education in Marx, Freud, and modernism was suitable to be considered equipped with an intellectual education. But he goes a step further to claim that the traditional American intellectual is resistant to scientific knowledge and to the cultural and intellectual changes that are occurring. He follows Snow in focusing on literary intellectuals and asks how they got away with referring to themselves as intellectuals in the first place. However, Brockman says his definition of the TC differs from Snow‘s, where literary and scientific thinkers would be on speaking terms. Brockman claims this is not occurring–that literary intellectuals are not speaking to scientists, but that scientists are communicating with the general public. He sums up his ideas with the statement, "third-culture thinkers are the new public intellectuals" (1995, p. 17-19). While such statements by fiat sound convincing, they make one wonder what is being elided with such tidy presentation. Brockman‘s approach not only avoids the intellectual conversations of the past century concerning the role of intellectuals in public life, it avoids digging for roots that so define modernity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. What we get from Brockman is a cursory dismissal of much humanistic thinking, as if Foucault, Gramsci, Sartre, or Habermas have nothing to say on the matter of what it means to be a public intellectual. He sticks to thinkers within the group he is attempting to describe. To his credit he does admit that the ideas posed by the TC are speculative, a positive first step in recognizing the fundamentally philosophical nature of much of the TC‘s projects. For example, some of the questions he says are important: "Where did the universe come

from? Where did life come from? Where did the mind come from?" (1995, p. 20)). In his second book, The New Humanists, these questions offer challenges to our basic assumptions "of who and what we are, and what it means to be human" (2003, p. 8). Here we see him claiming, through the types of questions asked, that members of the TC are not only new public intellectuals, but new humanists. He is doing so, of course, without a view of the complex conversations that —humanists“ have had in attempting to define what it means to be human. Any attempt at defining the human beyond the strictly biological (which, itself, is not so straightforward) encounters the challenge of handling its variety of uses, both as a broad concept describing socio-historical thought, as well as a rhetorical term used to reclaim ideas in a prior historical moment. A thorough examination of both the concept of humanism and how it has been deployed would require its own project. However, a cursory look at a few uses is in order (for additional helpful introductions, see Soper 1986; Kurtz 1973). The literary theorist Paul Davies provides a helpful sketch of the concept in an introductory guide to the term itself. Davies claims the word was coined in Germany to describe Greek ideals, as well as a German high-school curriculum in the nineteenth century based on what had been known as the humanities since the middle- ages: the study of Latin and Greek cultures, history, literature, languages and the people who spoke them. Davies notes that Burkhardt and other scholars then applied the concept to the learning of the Renaissance and the earlier umanisti (teachers/scholars) of fifteenth century Italy (1997, p. 9-10). This approach sought the conditions that made possible the Italian Renaissance and, ultimately, middle class modernity. Davies claims that Burkhardt found his answer in the humanistic leaning of secular individualism. He reminds us that Burkhardt‘s story focuses on the Renaissance individual overcoming stultifying medievalism, ultimately forming modern nation states full of individuals (1997, p. 15-16) but that these ideas must be seen forwarding a backdrop of nineteenth century concerns (1997, p. 19-20). In this way, the term is used nostalgically, as a tool of interpreting the past and a tool for forging the present. Moreover, the budding ideas of neuhumanistiche, adopted by other prominent German scholars like Hegel and von Humboldt, was designed to culturize the practical and vulgar philistines of the middle class. But this (new) humanism, Davies reminds us,

was refracted through the romantic leanings of Winckelmann, Goethe, and Hölderlin (1997, p. 10). The key here is in seeing the approach, not simply as nostalgic, but as forward thinking in building a new Germany. With the philosophy of Hegel, the idea became to awaken the Greek ideals of freedom, but this was to be sharply criticized and opposed by the dialectal materialism of thinkers like Marx (1997, p. 11). Furthermore, Davies describes another 19th century approach to humanism that universalizes man by seeking to find —man's“ point of view. This comes from Matthew Arnold and his appropriation of Burkhardt‘s ideas. Davies reads Arnold as championing Chaucer over medieval poetry for providing this human-centered point of view. It is here the concept of the human surfaces, not as a type, kind, or allegory, but a concept describing a modern authentic individual. Here, we see the creation of "the myth of the modern; the Renaissance in its infancy; and its guiding ethos, its watchword, is humanism" (1997, p. 20-22). What becomes apparent in Davies descriptions from Burkhardt to Arnold is that Renaissance humanism is a 19th century reinvented anachronism and that appeals to human nature and the human condition are actually recent notions in the development of Western thought. What is most important here for Davies is recognizing that the term humanism was used as a rhetorical tool to construct a variety of identities: for —man“ in general, for a German identity, and later for a British. Moreover, the use by the nascent 19th century academy in reimagining an ideal humanism from the Renaissance suggests the protean nature of the term. It is, then, not just a concept to be wielded to describe how things were, but a tool through which thinkers during a specific time period apply their own ideas to the past. Thus, Brockman‘s use of the title New Humanists in his book about the rising TC should alert us to a protean term deployed for rhetorical uses. Could it be he is wielding it to bolster a particular definition as well? The problem, though, is that humanism not only has competing definitions, often grounded in socio-political histories, it has a doppelganger in the form of an evil twin, anti-humanism. The term is quite new and demonstrates the inherent instability of the original term. Davies sees anti-humanism as a natural outcome of humanism and points to Nietzsche as an example of this paradox. For example, he mentions that Nietzsche began with a background in German philology and an acceptance into the academy of

Basil at age twenty-four. Davies notes that Nietzsche rejected the dominant philosophical mode of Hegelian historicism, attacked middle class values of science and religion, and ultimately knowledge itself (1997, p. 35-36). His anti-humanistic stance would latter be adopted by twentieth century thinkers who would claim him as an intellectual father. Davies mentions this grounding in Nietzsche's anti-humanistic linguistic turn and his "ultimate skepticism" as leading to Wittgenstein, Foucault, and Derrida (1997, p. 37). It should be noted that in The New Humanists Brockman does off-handedly attempt a few statements directed to the variety of definitions of humanism (not an easy task), claming that fifteenth century humanism was about holism (i.e., the combination of both art and science). Brockman, we see, wants to reestablish this simplified stance because at some point we must have lost it and need to get it back. (2003, p. 2-3). His narrative of disenchantment has been told in much greater detail by many thinkers from Marx to Weber. The notion that some break occurred with a Cartesian divorce between mind and matter that has caused our current intellectual malaise is nearly clichéd. The pre-Romantic critique of the Enlightenment (crystallized by thinkers like Rousseau) began such investigations with full vigor, but Brockman deftly avoids unpacking any of this by simply offering a few paragraphs about a dominant theme of twentieth century Western humanism: the notion of a sick society that leads to pessimism and its foundations on the misplaced romantic notion of the Noble Savage. As if he wasn‘t aware how postmodern thinking has shimmied beyond the modern crisis to skip about in the titillating distraction of late techno capitalism, he writes, —if you‘re still looking at the world through Spengler and Nietzsche,“ you must still be within a circle of academic pessimism (2003, p. 4-5). His caricature of humanistic thought as still suffering the great lament demonstrates he is not conversant with the many contemporary conversations that have moved beyond such pessimisms (for better or worse). For example, Habermas and Foucault are often on different sides of the conversation, but both provide ways of resistance from reinvigorating rationality in the public sphere (1987) to the care of one‘s own body and self (1978). Brockman‘s dismissal of humanistic conversations smacks of the same sort of critique Snow leveled at the literary (except turned on its head). Brockman is either not interested or unaware; either way, he offers an ersatz representation when something

more nuanced would reflect the true nature of the challenge. His attempt to reflect these complexities is grossly insufficient. When he claims that traditional humanistic pursuits are self-reflexive and hermeneutic, he heads in the right direction. But then he suggests a simple bromide: humanistic thought comments on the work of others, while scientific pursuits are self-correcting. He believes this leads to pessimism among humanists (2003, p. 4-5). The problem isn‘t that these descriptions don‘t have some truth to them. They are not correct enough. Pessimism is too vague a word for the complex array of ideas that define contemporary thought. One begins to see the strong antipathy Brockman holds for what he considers a traditional literary-minded thinker. He writes "Unlike the humanities academicians, who talk about each other, scientists talk about the universe" (2003, p. 6), as if there is not a social universe that needs its own methods and tools to investigate. This ad hominem in representing literary thinkers as academic automatons stuck in a circle of endless self- perpetuating dialog simplifies a very complex cultural phenomenon and demonstrates that Brockman refuses to recognize the depth of thought provided about the problems inherent in talking about one's self (and the physical universe). However, he does admit that some literary people have begun to think properly (according to him). How so? They have begun thinking like scientists. What this means is that they believe in a —real“ world they must explain scientifically, i.e., they test their ideas, and they do not defer to intellectual authorities. (2003, p. 7).22 Regardless of Brockman‘s ideas about who and what the TC is, the actual individuals in this nascent group have their own ideas about their work, and it is to them we must look for proper understanding how the sciences are refashioning public ideas. In

22 Brockman‘s scientism is apparent in its celebratory move in providing an answer for the divide, as well as offering a "counter-narrative" to the (alleged) cultural pessimism of humanistic studies: he believes such optimism stems from the claims that 1) the more science you do, the more there is to do and 2) that the new knowledge is often good news (2003, p. 7). Of course, both of these claims can be contested, that science simply produces more science and that good news is the result. For example, one contemporary science book in the popular realm asks if science has hit a ceiling (Horgan 1996). Much like Brockman‘s two books on the TC, this book is a compendium of conversations with eminent scientists on the limits of human rationality and whether we‘ve reached a place where we realize some questions are beyond our grasp, thus, limiting science. Such a notion has already been addressed by Wittgenstein and before him by Nietzsche. Moreover, whether science provides good news more often than not is also too problematic to be helpful other than as a rhetorical device. Nuclear physics is a simple but obvious example: the bomb garnered a Japanese surrender but demonstrated the horrors of atomic warfare. Nuclear energy provides an efficient alternative to fossil fuels but produces a new problem with waste. Furthermore, such examples don‘t even touch the surface of paradoxical issues science generates in culture.

Brockman‘s original book, he asks —who are the third-culture intellectuals (1995, p. 19)? You might imagine that in his list of interviews, Brockman privileges physicists, but he doesn‘t. In fact, he betrays his own humanistic leanings by placing the life sciences at the beginning of his list of interviewees. In it, he begins with the evolutionary theorists. What we realize is that Brockman sees the TC based on an emergent natural philosophy with evolution and complexity as key components (1995, p. 20). Moreover, Brockman‘s second book, titled The New Humanists, focuses primarily (two sections to one) on the human, as opposed to the universe. What we see is that the TC (as constructed by Brockman) composes both the physical and life sciences, but that the latter, like Richard Lewontin notes, is foregrounded. It is with such representations that traditional humanists must acknowledge what is being said, even as we try to understand our revised roles and our possible contributions.

Foucault and Problems of Representation

Herbert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow begin their classic text on Foucault by writing, "This is a book about how to study human beings." More importantly, they believe that most modern attempts at studying human beings have failed to properly provide a comprehensive study–and that Foucault is offered as an alternative (1982, p. xiii). Dreyfus and Rabinow chart Foucault‘s career through a depiction of him as a maverick providing the world with a new way of looking at itself. The authors believe Foucault sought to move beyond the major contenders of twentieth century thought in his attempts at archaeology and genealogy. They center their depiction of these earlier post Enlightenment contenders around the various responses to transcendental phenomenology and its acceptance of the paradoxical idea that man is both a subject and object. The authors claim there are two basic approaches to answering this riddle: structuralism and hermeneutics. Structuralism tried to remove the subject for universal laws of system, whereas the hermeneutic counter-movement was existential in nature. For example, they note that Heidegger focused on human subject formation occurring within his or her own historical circumstances, using the term hermeneutics for interpreting the interpretations of everyday experiences. The authors note that Heidegger

believed he found a deep truth: that interpretation of reality (the ground of being) is endless. The authors read this endlessness as pessimistic and see it opposed by Gadamer who thinks reinterpretation is an optimistic endeavor. While Heidegger is certainly an influential predecessor for Foucault, the authors see Foucault thinking differently from both Heidegger and Gadamer by choosing to ignore the search for a deep hidden truth (either its success or failure) and instead by looking to institutions and their discursive practices used by human beings as the most important areas of interest (1982, p. xvi-xix). Moreover, a quick point should be made why I do not perform a deeper investigation into Foucault‘s predecessors. One might ask, why not go back to Heidegger, or even Husserl in finding a critical apparatus by which to define the human? The question, then, is how Foucault helps us. What special insight does he provide? For this dissertation, he does a few important things. He presents a stunning case of anti-humanism in his death of man thesis. And, just as importantly, his later work on care of the self demonstrates a move that suggests a neo-humanism. Of course, Foucault ends his professional career thinking about a new category: techniques and governmentality of the self, what some consider to be a road to neo- humanism and what ultimately points to the central reason for Foucault‘s use in this chapter: his place as a champion of a —neo“ humanism (that isn‘t simply antithetical or transgressive). It is practical and applicable in a world increasingly dominated by TC thought. Furthermore, while Dreyfus and Rabinow‘s encapsulation of Foucault‘s importance in the history of continental philosophy is a good starting point, this chapter requires a more specific use of Foucault in why the defining of the human is difficult and one in which TC thinkers have yet to comment. A central claim of this chapter is that the TC (as drawn by Brockman) fails to acknowledge the depth of humanistic thought given to sculpting representations of the human. And this failure of vision stems from a lack of recognition of a simple idea. Dreyfus and Rabinow provide a fitting quote: —Foucault thinks the study of human beings took a decisive turn at the end of the eighteenth century when human beings came to be interpreted as knowing subjects, and, at the same time, objects of their own knowledge.“ (1982, p. xvi). Moreover, Foucault labels this subject/object fact of human knowledge building leading us to what he calls the analytic of finitude: simply, the idea that positive

knowledge does lead to advancement, but only so far. Or, that the limits of knowledge allow for positive, but finite knowledge (1982, p. 30). The analytical method is finite. And what is it limited by? Our own rational cognitive ceilings. Again, this is nothing new. Since Kant, these limits have been seen in a variety of socio-historical sectors, even as Lewontin‘s Science Triumphant has made its great strides. But our new intellectuals have yet to solve the riddle of this subject/object.23 However, Foucault himself grew dissatisfied with prior humanistic conversations about the human (from phenomenology to existentialism). In maybe his most brilliant book, The Order of Things: an Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1994, p. 387)24 Foucault followed Lévi-Strauss and the structuralists by not only placing system over the human as the focus of study, but by jettisoning —the human“ altogether. But the death of man concept, so popular with the structuralists, actually germinated before the mid twentieth century. Nietzsche‘s Zarathustra called for the last man at the same time he signaled the death of God. It is with the bravado of the early Prussian philologist that Foucault ends OT: —at the end of the eighteenth century, then one can certainly wager that man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea“ (1994, p. 387). It is with this sort of anti-humanistic rhetoric that marks Foucault‘s insights as a valuable milestone in the humanistic tradition because Foucault offers an out: he thinks that with the dissolution of many of the old questions about man, with the —death“ of man, the conundrum of existential modernity will be solved–that this dissolution will give us a chance to begin asking new questions again, to begin to think in new ways (see below). It is in this fashion that Foucault acts as a prophet of new forms of humanism (neo, anti, trans, post?) that are so fascinating current thinkers and demonstrating an optimism to what is usually labeled poststructural or postmodern critical theory.

23 Regarding the emergence of TC intellectuals, in an interview with Rabinow Foucault describes the move from universal intellectuals (traditionally a literary writer) to specific intellectuals (often, TC intellectuals). Foucault demonstrates he sees something along the lines of a TC emerging when he says, "Perhaps it was the atomic scientist (in a word, or rather a name: Oppenheimer) who acted as the point of transition between the universal and the specific intellectual" (Foucault 1984c, p. 69). Foucault argues that a specific type of thinker was born from the original universal intellectual, who was a jurist, a man of law, of someone who evoked the universality of law. While the new specific intellectual is an "expert" (Foucault 1984c, p. 70). Foucault then suggests that the makings of such an intellectual began even before Oppenheimer. And he points to Darwin and the post-Darwinian evolutionists from whom the specific intellectual takes shape. He argues that it at this point when the evolutionists cross path with traditional socialists (universal intellectuals) that they intervene in the name of scientific truth (Foucault 1984c, p. 70). 24 Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines. Henceforth, OT

However, Foucault did not remain rooted in one place. During his academic career, he shifted his focus from archaeologies of discursive practices to genealogies of power to techniques of the self, this final interest an analysis on the art of living a beautiful life. Such an approach can be viewed as a fulfillment of the prophetic words of OT, that

the end of man, for its part, is the return of the beginning of philosophy. It is no longer possible to think in our day other than in the void left by man‘s disappearance. For this void does not create a deficiency; it does not constitute a lacuna that must be filled. It is nothing more and nothing less, than the unfolding of a space in which it is once more possible to think (1994, p. 342)

As a way to rethink —man,“ Foucault looked to antiquity. He states he wanted to understand how the Greek's lived, their "techne of life, the techne tou bio, how to live" (1984b, p. 348). He believed these techniques comprised a general move from merely performing your duty as a citizen or member of a polis to one concerned with the care of one's self. He gives examples that demonstrate this move from Plato to Epicurus to Seneca. Here Foucault situates the body–not simply within a nexus of dominating forces, his biopower–but as a space within which to create an aesthetic life. But life itself becomes the overall content: "The idea of the bios as a material for an aesthetic piece of art is something which fascinates me" (1984b, p. 348).25 Regardless of whether Foucault succeeded in offering a way out of the anti- humanism abyss, I want to mention a few important aspects of OT that are crucial in understanding a resonant contemporary conceptualization of the human: a problem of simultaneously representing the human as both a subject and an object and one that

25 However, Foucault must be more specific, and he is, examining a variety of ethical systems as technes, or arts. He wants to demonstrate how ethical choices can make one's life a work of art. He is quick to suggest that what he is after is less a reinvigoration of Sartrean existential authenticity, a simple choice about how to live, and more a Nietzschean striving after a style of life (1984b, p. 351). Rabinow, as the interviewer, mentions that this business of the self is hard work. Foucault agrees and relates it to an activity that requires "attention, knowledge, technique" (1984b, p. 360). We begin to see how Foucault's interests in the ascetic systems of the Pagan and Christian worlds help. What becomes evident is that Foucault admires one fundamental humanistic difference. In antiquity such care of the self was not imposed by an outside force. It was imposed by an individual on his or her self (1984b, p. 361).

demonstrates why simplistic definitions of categories regarding the TC need articulation by humanities thinkers (from philosophers to historians to literary and cultural studies). Dreyfus and Rabinow write that at the time of OT, Foucault "played down his interest in social institutions, and concentrated almost exclusively on discourse" (1982, p. 17). He was interested in how human beings came to know themselves through "systems of self understanding." He focused on three primary areas: labor, life, and language, extending structuralist techniques to find a pure formalization within these areas (1982, p. 17). While his later genealogical works focused on how institutions allow power to mediate our lives, this earlier archaeological work focused on the function of discourse. And what is discourse, if not the tools used to provide meaning and value, especially for terms?26 Foucault grounds his insights about the problems of representation by showing how two key discursive shifts occurred since the Renaissance. He describes three periods as epistemes, or knowledge spaces: Renaissance, Classical, Modern. We learn that something he calls —resemblance“ is the basic attribute of the Renaissance episteme, whereas the Classical episteme is constituted by —representation“ and —mathesis.“ The Modern episteme concerns man as a special —subject/object“ (1982, p. 18). Resemblance can be imagined as an unmediated relationship between a thing and its meaning so that clarity is achieved. Representation and mathesis concerns the ordering of things, as if on a table–but without acknowledgement that someone is doing the ordering. And, the concept of man as both a subject/object reflects the awareness of the prior ordering conundrum: someone, traditionally, has been left out of the picture. It is from the Classical episteme of the Enlightenment that Foucault provides his most brilliant insights. Foucault argues that the use of a table for ordering was believed to

26 An important aspect of Foucault‘s thought in the OT can be found when he states he wrote the book because of a neglected subject, history of science. He gives place of status to the physical sciences but suggests he wanted to examine what systems dominate the more empirical life sciences between the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. His comparative method of discursive practices, his archaeology, examines how around 1800 natural history, analysis of wealth, and natural grammar transformed into biology, economics, and philology. His brilliance is in seeing the isomorphisms shared between these discursive systems in creating a space of knowledge with a different arrangement from the periods that came before or after. He is after what he calls a positive unconscious, a level that eludes the consciousness of a thinker but is part of the thinker's discourse, just as the commonalities of knowledge between Foucault's three domains were not apparent to Classical scientists. It is these unknown rules of formation that intrigue Foucault and what defines the objects of interest for his archaeological method (1994, p. ix-xi). Being unknown and, worse, unacknowledged, they remind us of contemporary growing pains TC thinkers encounter when commenting, however obliquely, on the human.

provide certainty to universal questions and points to Descartes as someone searching for certitude (1982, p. 19). Within the Classical episteme, man's role is to clarify god's creation through an artificial representation of the order that is already there, thus all the scientific systems of classification that begin at this time. Nature becomes something accessible, as if we just have to comment on it. And, likewise, human nature, then, becomes an act of knowing through language and signs put about in an orderly fashion. Foucault understands that the ability of language to properly represent nature was taken for granted and, therefore, not problematized. His metaphor of a table is appropriate. In the Classical episteme, nature was ordered as if on a table, but the orderer (god‘s substitute, man) was nowhere to be seen. —The activity of human beings in constructing the table could not itself be represented; there was no place for it on the table.“ Man as an ordering subject was not admitted as an object of knowledge (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982, p. 20). Foucault demonstrates this ubiquitous elision with his famous literary reading of Velazquez‘s Las Meninas, a few pages of brilliance that places him in a privileged category of cultural critics like Freud or Auerbach who could provide stunning readings of artistic works. A full explication of Foucault‘s thought is outside the scope of this chapter, but Dreyfus and Rabinow provide an excellent introduction. It is sufficient to note that the authors see Foucault‘s reading of the painting as an —emblem“ of the book by thematizing the problems of representation for the Classical and Modern epistemes (1982, p. 21).

The subject matter of Las Meninas is representation. What Las Meninas represents it the world of representation laid out in orderly fashion on a table, in this instance, in the painting itself. What is represented are the functions of representation. What is not represented is a unified and unifying subject who posits these representations and who makes an object for himself. This subject will emerge, in Foucault‘s account, with the emergence of man, with Kant . . . the central paradox of the painting turns on the impossibility of representing the act of representing (1982, p. 25).

Foucault‘s insight is that the concept man enters the scene of the painting only within the Modern episteme, that he takes the position of the king, and that he is the sovereign because he is enslaved by his own inadequacies (1982, p. 29-30). At this point "man becomes the subject and object of his own understanding" (1982, p. 28). Foucault begins to wonder what happens when language and representation become opaque and problematic. There is no longer simply an analysis of signs and representation but a Kantian analytic of positive, but limited knowledge. Man, then, is more than simply a subject and an object, he is an organizer of this opaque world (1982, p. 29). At the heart of this constructivist insight isn‘t the idea that a real world of real objects doesn‘t exist but that simply we are mediated by language and thought, especially in our understanding and descriptions of ourselves.27 Moreover, Foucault is also interested in a middle region where order seems to liberate itself within epistemological fields. He examines them through a look at two great "discontinuities" in Western culture: the inauguration of the Classical age in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the Modern at the beginning of the nineteenth century. And for all those who assume we think the same way as those in the Enlightenment, Foucault argues otherwise (1994, p. xxi-xxii), suggesting a self-reflexive impulse changed how we view representation and knowledge itself, even signaling a new conception of the human. Foucault thinks all the chimeras of the Modern episteme‘s new humanisms/anti-humanisms stem from this self-reflexivity and that the naive idea that man has been the subject of thought from Socrates misses the new position he has adopted (1994, p. xxiii). What is curious, though, in Foucault‘s thought is that he sees —man“ arriving on the threshold which separates us from the Classical at the same time —he“ appeared within the human sciences and that, simultaneously, his —disappearance“ began at the same time (1994, p. xxiv). Foucault spends a good portion of his book

27 Where else, exactly, can we look in the OT to find some of these insights that so complicate any simplistic representation of the human? Foucault begins with an extensive description of the power of an incongruous list to fascinate from a short story by the Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges. The point is that Borges does not provide an ordering table (which is what makes the passage of disjointed items so interesting). Foucault makes a distinction between a regular table on which you set items like an umbrella or a sewing machine and a tabula, or an apparatus for establishing the order among things (1994, p. xv- xvii). Foucault acknowledges that we can see that order does exists inherently within things, but that order also is given through classification systems on artificial tables, spaces, grids, etc, and–most importantly– that this imposed order exists as if already there (1994, p. xx).

analyzing how the appearance/disappearance of man is tied to the Classical episteme's shift to modernity through a variety of factors concerning man‘s body, labor, and language. These discursive sites of transformation move from tables of representation and ways of ordering things to what Foucault imagines as man reaching the ceiling of his finite knowledge (1994, p. 317-319). Yet, there is no pessimism here; he tells us with the disappearance of man "it is once more possible to think" (1994, p. 342). Could it be that Foucault is suggesting that with the fragmentation of discourse and the breakup of systems of the Classical episteme, modernity is about a generative constant critique, even of ourselves? He provides such a possible outlook in an answer he gives to Kant‘s question, Was ist Aufklärung? In his helpful essay, —What is Enlightenment?“ Foucault suggests that something important occurred during the Classical episteme and asks "what then is this event that is called the Aufklärung?" (1984d, p. 32). We understand the importance of such a question because the —event,“ often taken as the Enlightenment project has come to define many aspects of what we think about ourselves today. Foucault suggests that modern philosophy is primarily trying to answer this question, one raised over two centuries ago and still demanding an answer. Foucault admits that Western philosophy had certainly reflected on its own present time-period before, but that it had done so by 1) seeing the present "as belonging to a certain era of the world, distinct from others through some inherent characteristics, or separated from the others by some dramatic event," (1984d, p. 33) or by 2) seeing that "the present may be interrogated in an attempt to decipher in it the heralding signs of some forthcoming event" (1984d, p. 33), or by 3) seeing that the present may also be analyzed as a point of transition toward the dawning of a new world" (1984d, p. 34). Foucault reads Kant as offering a way out of viewing our time period in those initial three ways. He provides what he calls an exit to these strictures. An exit from what? A self imposed immaturity to authority via Kant‘s imperative: Sapere aude (dare to know). It is here that we see Foucault's theme that the Enlightenment (and modernity and ourselves) is about a constant critique. He tells us that at the moment when Western Europe was employing reason and shucking the bonds of authority (the vestiges of Christendom), "it is precisely at this moment that the critique is necessary" (1984d, p.

38). Foucault then delivers his famous theory of modernity, that the Enlightenment as critique can be an ever repeating process, an attitude, of internal critique (1984d, p. 39). Foucault states his thesis plainly:

I have been seeking to stress that the thread that may connect us with the Enlightenment is not faithfulness to doctrinal elements, but rather the permanent reactivation of an attitude–that is, of a philosophical ethos that could be described as a permanent critique of our historical era (1984d, p. 42).

Moreover, Foucault provides a warning, reminding us about the problems with the term humanism and how it is often confused with the Enlightenment. Foucault sees the term as a discursive tool that is often employed by "religion, science, or politics" for their own means (1984d, p. 44). Foucault is responding to the vast amounts of literature on the subject of the Enlightenment project and seeks to step out of the question of being either for or against its continuation. What he offers is a look at the limits of the self, what he calls an ontology of ourselves that breaks free, as much as possible from the general structures of discursive practices that so define us.28

28 The examination of genealogy and power is outside the scope of this dissertation, but I wish to note that while his earlier archaeological method sought the particular discursive practices and rules that underlay systems of thought, his later genealogical method sought to answer the question of how these formations arose. He looked to Nietzsche and his genealogy of morals for a method. Genealogy, then, became 1) a dismissal of searching for origins for fundamental social questions 2) a glance, instead, at many of the overlooked contingencies of history. In particular, Foucault tells us that "historical beginnings are lowly" and that "man originated with a grimace over his future developments" (1984a, p. 79). The language here is poetic and cryptic, but Foucault is suggesting that historical truth is to be found in other places than the grand, rational schemes of traditional historical method. He is famous for describing these micro details in his later books, even beginning one of his books on prison reform with a detailed description of an attempted regicide's torture and execution (1977). These traditionally overlooked events comprise the real stuff of Foucault‘s histories. In a question to Foucault, Rabinow describes an event by traditional ethnologists as something outside of structure. The event is the anomaly that doesn't fit nicely into a signifying field or a stable space of knowledge formation. Foucault answers by explaining that the event shouldn't be conceptualized as a whole, that there are multilevels to events and ways to think about them. Moreover, Foucault says "I believe one's point of reference should not be to the great model of language (langue) and signs, but to that of war and battle. The history which bears and determines us has the form of a war rather than that of a language: relations of power, not relations of meaning" (1984c, p. 55-56). He jettisons older attempts, from the dialectic to semiotics for not acknowledging the violent use of power within discursive systems. What becomes evident in much of Foucault's later work is that the body is the place upon which this often violent genealogy works. —Man“ as a concept is not helpful, thus his dismissal of it and his apparent anti-humanism. But, the human body still exists and upon it can be seen the effects of real life, sometime violent, sometimes beautiful. "Genealogy . . . is thus situated within the articulation of

Returning to the OT, Foucault attempts to get beyond the endless subjective arguments (exemplified at that time by Sartre) in existential philosophy. He also takes to task the human sciences for their endless attempts to classify man without recognizing that "man" is not simply an object to be analyzed, that man bears an endless stamp of self-reflexivity. Foucault mentions more than once that the human sciences themselves appeared when "man constituted himself in Western culture as both that which must be conceived of and that which is to be known," thus finding it important that the emergence of the human sciences occurred at the same time man gained knowledge of himself (1994, p. 344-345). Therefore, OT provides a seminal comment on how the human sciences (and the TC) have not acknowledged this conundrum. It stands as a milestone reminding us how the "endless controversy" defines our current endeavors (1994, p. 346). In the end, Foucault closes his most enigmatic book with a bit of poetic prose that hearkens back to his predecessor Nietzsche. Foucault reminds us of his belief that modern —man“ isn‘t our oldest or most constant problem, nor that he is anything but a recent invention. In this way, Foucault is minimizing the sort of existential and phenomenological issues that were prevalent at that very specific time, possibly so fed up with them he was asking for the death of a certain conceptualization of man so that new ones might be formed. And in a moment of possible prescience, Foucault seems to anticipate the TC by wondering if some unknown event will soon push us beyond the arrangements of the modern episteme and, in so doing, end our conundrum of man. The coming of artificial life or artificial intelligence are two hot topics among transhumanist thinkers (Kurzweil 2006; Kurzweil 2000; Kurzweil 1990), either one of which could prove to be the sort of social singularity that would force a new conception of man. What would we then think of as man? Possibly something else, something new or beyond or transgressed or even neo-retro, but something else. The question of how Foucault arrives at such an emancipated neo-humanism requires a brief comment. One humanities thinker, Alexander Nehamas, asks how is it that Foucault, who viewed the human subject as historically oppressed, and who viewed human history itself as governed by blind social powers, was able to adopt a sort of

the body and history. Its task is to expose a body totally imprinted by history and the process of history's destruction of the body" (1984a, p. 83).

individualist philosophy in his last lectures on Socrates (1998, p. 171-172). Nehamas gets directly to the point, that Foucault's later interest in techniques of the self and living a beautiful life seem almost impossible for someone whose career described an Olympian case of forces acting against this very notion. However, a trajectory can be found toward a hopeful emancipation by noting that Foucault was always interested in certain types of individuals, the oppressed, excluded, marginalized, thus the focus on systems of classification. The Enlightenment as the locus of new normalization reflects how subjects were formed–thus, his eventual interest in power/knowledge and its affects on the human body. Moreover, the archeological focus on the ruptures of the human sciences studied in his earlier career developed into the pessimistic micro analysis of his genealogical examinations of how power/knowledge permeates these systems. It is in this role, Foucault is seen as "distant and ironic, an anatomist but not a physician" as he spent two decades detailing the failings of the Enlightenment. But Nehamas mentions that even in Foucault's most early work there is a concern for the disenfranchised and that near the final years of his life when he reduced the vilifying rhetoric of the Enlightenment with a positive definition in his answer to Kant, an almost existential interest in the subject returns with his interest in the care of the self. In the end, Nehamas suggests that Foucault looked to techniques of the self not for us to discover ourselves but to help us create them out of the materials of our own lives (1998, p. 172- 178). Here is a positive form of humanism, a neo-humanism that answers the enigma of man possibly signaling something new in OT. Power still exists, but it is wielded by a human being on his or her own conception of self. Out of this practice comes the variety of techniques that comprise the ethics Foucault culled from antiquity. It is in acknowledging this debt that TC thinkers would do well in situating their humanistic pursuits within such a context. Foucault is recent and requires only a bit of work. The tradition he follows, though, is dense and requires a bit more.

Cognitive Literary Theory as a New Interdisciplinarity

Sticky issues like the misuse of the concept of humanism by Brockman and the problems inherent in representing the human both lead to the question of how to utilize

ideas from literary and cultural studies and the TC. In this section, a brief comment on cognitive and evolutionary based literary theory is in order to understand how some of these ideas square with post-structural critical theory. Evolutionary literary theory (also called adaptationist literary theory, Literary Darwinism, biopoetics, etc., see Chapter 5.) is only one aggregate of ideas in a broad interdisciplinary field where the life sciences intersect with the social science and humanities; another wider aggregate is cognitive literary studies. And yet, it is easy to ignore. In —Literary Studies and Cognitive Science: Toward a New Interdisciplinarity“ (1999), Mary Thomas Crane and Alan Richardson provide an early investigation into why the study of human cognition has suffered with literary thinkers. They note that while literary and cultural studies demonstrated an interest in interdisciplinarity,

it might seem initially surprising, then, that those [literary scholars] challenging disciplinary boundaries in literary and cultural studies have shown so little interest in cognitive science, the major interdisciplinary initiative marking the convergence of linguistics, computer science, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and anthropology. (1999, p. 123).

Moreover, not long after Crane and Richardson‘s above article, the literary journal Poetics Today published a special issue on cognitive literary theory in which Richardson and Francis F. Steen provide an introduction to illuminate the engagement of cognitive and literary studies. Responding to the earlier attempt to understand the resistance to the use of the cognitive by literary thinkers, Richardson and Steen write that what they seek to understand is something they are also calling —a new phase in the emergence of cognitive literary theory and criticism“ (2002, p. 2). The move here is from the standard objects of study within cognitive linguistics and rhetoric (i.e., figurative language) to —rethinking the history of language and culture from a cognitive standpoint“ (2002, p. 2). Richardson and Steen‘s introduction in Poetics Today admits that literary and cultural studies have demystified traditional concepts of what it means to be human or of what a soul is and have problematized many fundamental categories that often are used to marginalize and

oppress. But literary and cultural studies have made less headway in understanding how these cognitive processes work. For example, the authors of the introduction make a strong claim that literary and cultural studies thinkers have demonstrated less ability in understanding how rhetoric works because of a reluctance to engage "the natural as a category that has its own history, forming the conditions of possibility for the natural" (2002, p. 3). The key here is that the importance of —history,“ or historical focused theory, has become central. Its centrality may be why early phases of cognitive literary theory have sometimes neglected evolutionary biology. The reasons are obvious. The historical dimension of phylogenic change for the human species must be taken as a starting point that pushes back the notion of history into our —prehistoric“ past. Instead of relegating the preliterate phases of human history to —pre-history,“ this historicity becomes vital for understanding how an evolved organism developed an evolved brain, out of which emerged a working mind, out of which emerged all the varieties of human culture, such as the varying concepts of the natural. As with —history,“ the —natural“ should also be considered a category in need of continual problematization for those in cognitive and evolutionary literary theory. What should occur is the revaluation of the concept of the natural (for a recent attempt by a critical theorist to reimagine the natural within the context of political ecology, see Latour 2004a). Problematizing notions like history and the natural, common within a Foucauldian literary studies, reflects the importance of incorporating ideas from a grounding discipline like the philosophy of evolutionary biology in which we view human beings as embedded in an evolved history. Taken as an unstated given is the notion that human beings have evolved as a species (as opposed to having been placed here by special creation) over millennia and that this evolutionary phylogenic history is vital to understanding these issues. The challenge, then, becomes seeing how our evolutionary and literary concepts of —history“ parallel (or do not parallel) each other. We meet with an understanding that our evolutionary past can be envisioned (partly) as determining our present literariness because of the fact our minds evolved. The literary, then, is not simply the description of the imaginative, the poetic, the other sensibilities opposed to positive knowledge. The literary can, then, be extended to describe how our minds work on everyday levels.

Cognitive literary theory, then, must be distinguished between overtly —cognitive“ approaches from overtly —evolutionary.“ In an introduction to a recently published comment, The Work of Fiction: Cognition, Culture, Complexity (Richardson and Spolsky 2004), Richardson provides a map for this burgeoning field, suggesting cognitive-based approaches be viewed as oriented toward: rhetoric, poetics, narratology, aesthetics, materialism/historicism. He views evolutionary-based approaches as comprised of the more broad-ranging —biopoetics“ of Frederick Turner and Brett Cooke,29 as well as the more narrow adaptationist-focused approaches of Joseph Carroll and Richard Storey. His primary critique of the latter consists of recognition that their support for arguments usually rests on thin evidence (i.e., use of a single study for overly general conclusions). Richardson recognizes that the problems are also theoretical:

As an identifiable critical movement, however, evolutionary literary theory [that of Carroll and Story, as opposed to more sophisticated approaches by Ellen Dissanayake, Nancy Easterlin, and Lisa Zunshine] has become associated with reductionism, over-generalization, literalism, and cultural nostalgia (Richardson and Spolsky 2004, p. 14).

29 Early attempts can be found with the poet and scholar Frederick Turner, wherein he argued in books like Natural Classicism: Essays on Literature and Science (1985) and Beauty: The Value of Values (1992) for a broad use of both the natural and life sciences through the incorporation of physics and chemistry, as well as biology, complexity theory, anthropology, etc. Turner also joined Brett Cooke as the editors of an anthology, Biopoetics: Evolutionary Exploration in the Arts (1999)in their attempt to delineate a space for literary minded thinkers to engage the sciences. Cooke explains he wants "to explore the implications–and the extraordinary promise–that the concept of evolution holds for art" (1999, p. 3). Cooke even mentions E.O. Wilson and the darlings of evolutionary psychology (Cosmides, and Tooby) with the hopes that their ideas will improve how we come to understand art and literature. However, the tone in Biopoetics is celebratory, not inclined to anti-critical theory rhetoric, and open to the possibilities of how to use the life sciences to demonstrate the necessity of art (1999, p. 4). For example, Cooke provides a helpful picture of how such adaptation-oriented interest occurred. He charts the beginning to an earlier date than Wilson's groundbreaking text in 1975 (see Chapter 3), noting interest in solving the Darwinian problem of how some organisms demonstrate altruism within the context of survival-focused natural selection. He mentions a few big names in evolutionary biology (W.D. Hamilton, Robert Trivers, Richard Dawkins) related to the removal of group-selection as orthodoxy, with the concomitant focus on the gene. The narrative told hints at the underlying importance of the debates within the grounding discipline of evolutionary biology and acts as a reminder that terms and concepts taken from biology need to be acknowledged as, often, already problematized.

But his map also demonstrates where cognitive literary theory and evolutionary literary studies overlap. In fact, his recognition that Ellen Spolksy and F. Elizabeth Hart offer ways of supplementing cognitive materialism/historicism with ideas from poststructuralism supports this chapters uses of both thinkers (see below). Of primary interest to many literary and cultural studies thinkers is what to do with poststructuralism as a primary concept in literary and cultural studies (for an early example, see Easterlin and Riebling 1993; see also Eagleton 2003). Notions of getting beyond poststructuralism

have by now become routine. Where to go from here, however, and whether to absorb some aspects of poststructuralist thought or reject it wholesale are questions that not only remain open but have barely begun to be asked" (Richardson 1999, p. 157).

Where poststructuralism and cognitive literary theory help us in understanding how to conceptualize something like —the cognitive“ and how a cognitive/evolutionary literary studies can be based on a flexible epistemology that doesn‘t dichotomize the realist/relativist debate (for another interesting use of poststructuralism and cognitive literary theory that also incorporates a materialist criticism via Marx, see Hart 1998).

Hayles and Hart: the Importance of Continua

Initial work done in the field by cognitive and literary thinker N. Katherine Hayles (1991b; 1990) investigated how complexity theory illuminates difficulties within literary studies. Her work and the work of others has shown that poststructuralism becomes helpful in its insistence that binaries, while often privileging one over the other, are themselves often problematic. In their place, we can imagine not two opposing points but a range between them, continua that reflects the poststructural insight regarding the ultimate slipperiness of language. As an example of how easy it is to fall into dichotomous thinking, even in cultural studies, F. Elizabeth Hart follow Hayles to critique critical theorist Slavoj Šišek's view of

the TC and, in particular, his use of the binary: cognitive vs. literary. In —The Epistemology of Cognitive Literary Studies“ (2001), Hart demonstrates how the term —cognitive“ has been misappropriated as a pejorative for something opposed to the openness‘ of literary thought. As an example, she mentions Šišek's conflation of cognitive with realist epistemological modes of thought (Zizek 2002), demonstrating the need for proper and even-handed analysis of the term. Moreover, for this dissertation Hart‘s critique of Šišek's argument is relevant because he addresses the rise of the TC but does so within the grand drama of hegemonic struggle so familiar to cultural studies thinkers. Just as some TC thinkers caricature or simplify concepts within the humanities, humanities thinkers can do the same thing the other way.

We are witnessing today the struggle for intellectual hegemony (for who will occupy the place of 'public intellectual') between the advocates of post-modern deconstructionist cultural studies and the cognitivist popularizers of "hard" sciences, that is, the proponents of the so called Third Culture (Zizek 2002, p. 19).

Simple. But forced. Hart‘s critique demonstrates the problems in using Šišek's simplistic dichotomy. Hart focuses on Šišek's misuse of the term —cognitive“ as representing popularizers in the TC as wishing to ignore all the relativism and skepticism of a Post-Kantian world in favor of a blinkered naive realism (following Hart, I will show later, Chapter 5, with a reading of Stephen Jay Gould that the TC is a much more multivariant and multivalent place than a room packed full of naïve realists and old- fashioned positivists). Moreover, Šišek's placement of postmodern thought in opposition to the cognitivist position suggests a uniformity of anti-realist epistemology that, according to Hart, is not reflective of actual positions. Hart attempts to rectify this by unpacking the "epistemological nuances" (2001, p. 320) that apply to understanding an important third epistemological position within cognitive studies. To do so, Hart builds on the work of Hayles (1991a), who views these artificially opposed dichotomies along a continuum of gradations between naive realism and extreme skeptical postmodernism. What is obvious is that the placement of such opposed binaries calls for a fluid third position, a range really. The focus is no longer on the

extremes but on how certain approaches/conceptions/positions fall in between. Hart utilizes a concept of Hayles‘s called —constrained constructivism“ to demonstrate how empirical approaches to studying reality are viable even while also being "limited by the culturally determined and context-dependent nature of all representations, including scientific ones" (2001, p. 324). Hayles writes "constrained constructivism invites– indeed cries out for–cultural readings of science" (1991a). These readings, though, do not have to fall into the solipsistic subjectivity wrongly feared by one camp in the so called —science“ wars as the end result of postmodern critical theory. Instead, she presents a third position between dichotomies like the literal or metaphoric, or even determinacy and indeterminacy (1998). She inches forward in the overall project of defining a working TC and recognizes that the constraints placed on representation are similar to seeing how constraints work in nature. "Constraints beget structure, structure begets pattern, and pattern begets . . . complexity" (2001, p. 326). The complexity here is not merely metaphoric; it may be an actual property of cognition that literature and culture reflect. In fact, Hart uses Hayles‘s ideas of constrained constructivism as an epistemological model because it admits that reality exists but that perceptions of reality vary.30

Spolksy and Gaps

I would like to end by offering a specific example of how to understand a use of poststructuralism with TC ideas through Ellen Spolksy and her important work fusing concepts within poststructuralism and cognitive studies. In Gaps of Nature: Literary Interpretation and the Modular Mind (1993) she demonstrates how various approaches to understanding the function and structure of the mind lead to necessary incommensurability and flexibility, in essence, gaps that should be considered in a

30 She gives the example of how the individual responses to seeing a darting rabbit by a dog and its owner, while different in terms of stimulus response, still allow both individuals to respond to reality in a way that coalesces (e.g., one possible scenario: the dog runs after the rabbit, while the owner wonders if he‘ll catch it).

positive, creative light for how cognition evolved. For her, narrative isn‘t simply about statements of truth but about statements that make sense in specific contexts or, to use a biological metaphor, statement‘s that are fit. She sees the difficulty arising in the simplicity of dichotomous thought: thinking there is only one kind of truth statement, that which is true or false, when in fact statements can be judged according to their fitness to situations. Lest we think Spolsky minimizes the importance of evolutionary theory because of her use of ideas from literary studies, in "Darwin and Derrida: Cognitive Literary Theory as a Species of Poststructuralism" (2002) she begins with a quick nod to the philosopher of science Daniel Dennett and his adaptationist-focused book Darwin‘s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995) for giving her an epiphany: "that Darwin's theory of evolution is significantly homologous to the poststructural critique of representation" (2002, p. 43). Such a statement requires explanation, and she provides one by commenting on the notion in biology "that evolved mechanisms might be reused for new purposes" (2002, p. 44). Spolksy doesn't use the terms preadaptation or exaptations or spandrels (see Chapter 5) for these sorts of traits, but she helpfully makes the connection that such revamped traits could explain how the human mind evolved to view the world in such messy poststructural multivalency (and the poetic irony of thanking Dennett should be noted because terms like —exaptation“ and —spandrels“ by Richard Lewontin, Gould, and Elizabeth Vrba were born out of the critique of adaptationism in the ”70s, a critique that Dennett‘s book attempts to go a long way in rebuking). Spolsky states her thesis clearly:

I will argue, then, that the assumptions that emerge from the study of evolved human brains in their successive contexts, far from being inconsistent with poststructuralist thought, actually extend and enrich it (2002, p. 47).

In a helpful and concise overview of the impact of structuralist-based language studies (from Saussure to Derrida), Spolsky examines how the study of Saussure's notion that words and meanings are arbitrary led us from a better understanding of language as self

referential to language as somehow forcing us to the border of a chaotic pit of epistemological instability (2002, p. 48-50). What Spolsky reveals is that the extreme form of linguistic skepticism was a blip, if not a caricature in the overall program of critiquing the limits of representation. She returns us to a manageable world and suggests there's an evolutionary explanation for why language functions the way deconstructionists say it does. Because our minds and bodies developed via a ratcheting effect of evolutionary exchange between mutations and natural selection and changing environments, it is not surprising that the language of human beings is flexible and responsive (2002, p. 52). This flexibility is often viewed as instability, but out of such disequilibrium comes a variety of interesting elements literary thinkers spend careers investigating. Spolsky ultimately presents her claim concerning the insertion of Darwin as a necessary canon for literary thinkers, right up there next to Freud and Marx. She states flatly that

nothing could be more adaptationist, more Darwinian than deconstruction and poststructuralism, since both understand structuration . . . as an activity that happens within and in response to a specific environment (2002, p. 56).

In this way, we see that she does not fear the combination of a poststructural evolutionary theory. Spolsky wisely admits upfront this tendency toward structuration is not one in which equilibrium occurs. There are disruptions and revisions. What Spolksy presents are notions of "troping, reinterpretation, rerepresentation" (2002, p. 57) as the primary mechanisms that show the links between evolutionary theory and poststructural thought (for more information on Spolksy‘s overall project, see Spolsky 1993). They are necessary for an understanding how our language mechanisms, and cognition, evolved. However, Spolsky doesn't stop with the study of language theory. She extends her scope to the other primary influence of poststructural thought, Michel Foucault's project of charting the archeological and genealogical systems of human discursive thought and how power propagates through them. She rightly notes that with Foucault we see that representation isn't simply moveable through slippery uses, it is —manipulable“ (2002, p.

52). Foucault's form of "suspicious reading" is important (beyond those of Freud or Heidegger) because "whatever is, he argues, might be otherwise" (2002, p. 56). This insertion of the emancipatory political element explains much of the spirit of contemporary literary and cultural studies where the study of a work or object has been replaced by the study of texts and bodies and agencies. Moreover, the many approaches of inserting discourse into the reexamination of traditional scholarship has reinvigorated what might have been viewed as passé. Like the instability of language, the notion of being linguistically suspicious may be an expected outcome of evolved human beings functioning in human societies. But, even though Power/Knowledge may be evident at all levels, there are forms of resistance. Again, there is flexibility here and Spolsky sees the connection of how to blend the difficult and often paradoxical ideas of poststructural critical theory with TC ideas from the life sciences. I end this section with the repetition that concepts within poststructuralism can be squared with evolutionary theory. The pioneering intellectual histories that Hart and Spolsky belong to (as do Jackson, Richardson and Steen, and Hayles) stand as examples of cognitive and evolutionary literary studies thinkers properly engaging TC ideas. I have traced these competing histories as examples of problematized approaches via Hart and Spolsky and to add to their critique. Not only can concepts from poststructuralism be understood within an evolutionary framework, but I wish to extend Hart and Spolsky by arguing that a key function of the TC is to further this project of problematization. Concepts like —the human,“ —cognition,“ —the natural,“ etc., will be continually challenged, especially when they are validated by methods from the natural sciences.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this chapter has attempted to answer the question: how can the humanities help in our understanding of particular TC ideas. For example, one important question: does Brockman give enough credit to the concept of the human in his use? This chapter has argued that he has not. His prescience in articulating a need to categorize a TC should be noted, but his caricature and disparagement of literary thinking doesn‘t reflect awareness that key concepts (like the human) can be elucidated from literary

approaches to knowledge building like poststructuralism. Moreover, in any utilization of the concept of the human, this coupling of the sciences and the humanities must certainly be taken as a starting point. To conceive of the TC without doing so is suspect. Furthermore, the incursion into domains of humanistic study by life sciences oriented thinkers can be elucidated by the readings I‘ve provided. Foucault‘s examination of the concept of —man“ demonstrates that neo-humanism is very much still a literary concept. And cognitive literary theorists‘ demonstration of how poststructural ideas can work in tandem with ideas from the life sciences also points to the need for a more thoroughly realized concept of the TC. Finally, what must occur in the future is for traditional literary thinkers to engage such concepts instead of ignoring them or taking them at face value. In this way, we can create the sort of helpful dialog that will help us form a TC reflective of a more symbiotic working relationship between the sciences and the humanities.

CHAPTER 3

CONSILIENCE: THE THIRD CULTURE AND THE ENGAGEMENT OF THE SCIENCES AND THE HUMANITIES

Every college student should be able to answer the following question: what is the relation between science and the humanities, and how is it important for human welfare. E.O. Wilson, Consilience.

Introduction

A decade ago, entomologist and evolutionary theorist, E.O. Wilson published a stunning comment on how to unify knowledge between the sciences and the humanities. Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge (1998) reasserted the centuries old debate over the proper relationship between science and the humanities and continued a project of unification that he‘d begun decades before. By the time of Consilience, Wilson was a two time Pulitzer Prize winner and a highly acclaimed scientist and social theorist. He was in a position to finally offer a challenging disquisition of how this inclusion might occur. His argument is that the reductive unification of knowledge might be used to centralize biology as a locus discipline, with aspects of the social sciences and humanities adopting methods developed in the natural sciences. This chapter argues that Wilson presents two primary modes for consilience (analysis and synthesis) but that he gives short shrift to the latter. Through a critique of Wilson‘s version of consilience by Stephen Jay Gould, this chapter argues that Wilson‘s themes of unification regarding the relationship of science

and literature is problematic (like Brockman on humanism and the Third Culture31 in Chapter 2). Science and its methods are foregrounded, while those of a literary bent are marginalized. Wilson has argued for a comprehensive reworking of institutional knowledge along a new vector that values biology as an umbrella discipline encompassing the social sciences, as well as the arts and humanities. What he sees as a grand mission of the academy is the consilience (coined by philosopher of science, William Whewell, as a term to mean the jumping together of knowledge) between sciences and humanities so that the broad sphere of human culture (and, by default, its academic realms in the humanities and social sciences) will be defined and encompassed with the reductive/synthetic methodologies and assumptions from the empirico-rational natural sciences. In such a move, Wilson takes a stand with —science“ and asks everyone else to follow. While Wilson‘s hope for consilience is grand and worthwhile, he obliquely marginalizes what has often wrongly been viewed as opposed to modern science (originally the varied Renaissance humanisms of the sixteenth century and now usually considered the humanities). This supposed battle between —science“ and —literature“ is not new and can be traced with some confidence back to the tensions over literary styles of writing and thinking between proponents of ancient wisdom (Greeks and Romans) and those upstarts who wanted to get beyond the Renaissance humanists‘ love of broad, all encompassing knowledge with direct observation and experiment. The incidents around Swift‘s —battle of the books“ are seen as beginning the tussle, which has resurfaced in a number of different guises that pits a supposed monolithic science against an irrational literary enemy. For example, the —warfare“ of science and religion at the end of the 19th century and then C.P. Snow‘s comments about two cultures in the middle of the twentieth are both seen as overblown examples. And most recently the supposed —science wars“ are seen as more caricatures than actual reflections of two truly opposing sides (for a helpful and concise summation see Cartwright and Baker 2005; for an argument that these episodes are overblown see Gould 2003).

31 Henceforth, TC (in this chapter).

If Wilson‘s project to present a consilient answer inspired by natural science oversimplifies things, how then do we resolve this potential problem of understanding how the sciences and the humanities are to interact? In a rebuttal of Wilson‘s project and all those who would argue one domain should have dominance over another, the late paleontologist and evolutionary historian and theorist, Stephen Jay Gould offered one final word (among many) that demonstrates how to solve the problem. He follows Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (1999), an attempt to argue that science and religion occupy two separate domains that do not overlap (N.O.M.A., or non- overlapping magisteria), with The Hedgehog, Fox, and the Magister‘s Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities (2003) to address the other supposed broader conflict between science and the humanities. In so doing, he presents two important domains for heuristic purposes (science and the humanities), but argues that in fact, no remaining conflict has occurred between them during the major episodes (battle of the books, Draper/White conflict theses, two cultures debate, science wars) and that both domains are artificial and, instead, should be thought of as continua. Moreover, Gould argues that each domain can inform the other. His metaphors help to understand his purpose. What he suggests is that the hedgehog is quite good at doing one thing well (love of learning that should lead to wisdom) but that the fox does a number of things well (utilizes the elements of different modes and methodologies of learning) (2003, p. 259). Gould, himself, can be viewed as a thinker who blends both approaches. Gould spent a lifetime demonstrating just how to do this, with a stunning degree of success in both realms. Moreover, his crowning literary achievement (his second to last book, and this one written for a professional audience), The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002), demonstrates in its form and function how a TC thinker can have both feet in the sciences and humanities in a way that doesn‘t seem suspect.32 What Gould accomplishes in arguing for a Darwinian hierarchical evolutionary theory–in essence a revision of the Modern Synthesis along three lines that extends the agency, efficacy, and scope of natural selection for a hierarchical approach to biological evolution–is not only such a revision but a demonstration of how to hybridize the

32 Having completed the roughly fourteen hundred dense pages front to back, I can attest to the fact his text is a synergistic blend of literary criticism, evolutionary theory and history, and scientific technical exposition in the best of TC thought.

hedgehog and the fox so that both broad domains of the sciences and the humanities are viewed with proper respect. What is at stake when conceptualizing the proper engagement of the sciences to the humanities is how this leads to the conceptualization of difficult concepts that call for literary readings, like what it means to be a human being. A very light sketch of Wilson‘s intellectual history via a few readings of key texts will demonstrate how his ideas of consilience provide fodder for a simplistic view of the TC.

Wilson: Sociobiology, Gene/Culture Coevolution, Biophilia, Consilience

Sociobiology. Wilson has been at unification for awhile. His groundbreaking book Sociobiology: the New Synthesis (1975) imagines considering the human species33

as though we were zoologists from another planet completing a catalog of social species on Earth. In this macroscopic view the humanities and social sciences shrink to specialized branches of biology; history, biography, and fiction are the protocols of human ethology; and anthropology and sociology together constitute the sociobiology of a single primate species“ (1975, p. 271).

With Consilience Wilson later offers a prediction that in some ways was tangential to the political and scientific uproar over the publication and ideas of Sociobiology (see Segerstråle 2000):

It may not be too much to say that sociology and the other social sciences, as well as the humanities, are the last branches of biology waiting to be included in the Modern Synthesis. One of the functions of sociobiology, then, is to reformulate the foundations of the social sciences in a way that draws these subjects into the Modern Synthesis. Whether the social sciences [and humanities] can be biologicized in this fashion remains to be seen (1975, p. 4)

33 Wilson actually uses the designation, —man,“ demonstrating he hasn‘t (at that time) yet made the turn toward more inclusive language but also, possibly, letting slip (through such textual cruxes) a deeper reflection of an overall lack of awareness toward the social impact of his overall project.

Right at the beginning of Sociobiology, Wilson provides a few key concepts that prefigure much of what comes later in his work. He not only provides a definition (see below) of sociobiology and his hopes for its integration within the knowledge structures of the natural sciences, he casts his vision wider and details how the social sciences and, even, the humanities are to be affected. Fitting, then, that he begins his groundbreaking book with the word, Camus, the famous French Algerian existentialist philosopher who offered us a remarkable vision of humanity, that of Sisyphus tirelessly pushing his rock up a hill, and who suggests we must, even through his turmoil, imagine him to be happy. However, Wilson begins with Camus to challenge the writer‘s notion "that the only serious philosophical question is suicide." Wilson does this to reframe how one might address ethical questions from a biological perspective. He suggests that such questions of self knowledge require one to consider physiology, such as how emotions develop in the first place. Mentioning their centers in the hypothalamus and the limbic system provides a quick descent through physiology into natural history where evolution becomes foregrounded. He asks, —What, are we then compelled to ask, made the hypothalamus and the limbic system? They evolved by natural selection." His next line provides a key into his thinking that will resurface again and again, acting as a refrain, through much of his career. "That simple biological statement must be pursued to explain ethics" (1975, p. 3). The link from Darwinism to the humanities couldn't be made more simply and attempts to answer Camus. Wilson's project of consilience, then, begins with such notions and in this context of sociobiology proves important because of evolutionary theory's centrality. Sociobiology, though, has a problem. Wilson echoes the Neo-Darwinist concept that evolution concerns the differential success of genes within populations–in essence, genes propagating in successive generations of organisms. This central concept caused some thinkers to try to explain how it is that some organisms (from insects to humans) sacrifice their own reproductive success and, even, survival. The problem of altruism is one that seems, at first, to challenge the Neo-Darwinian notion that evolution primarily concerns the passing on of one's genes. Following the work of men like Bill Hamilton

and Bob Trivers, Wilson repeats the idea that altruism makes sense when one is helping one's immediate kin.

The central theoretical problem of sociobiology: how can altruism, which by definition reduces personal fitness [surviving long enough to reproduce], possibly evolve by natural selection. The answer is kin selection (1975, p. 3).

If your sacrifice helps the fitness of your immediate kin (those with whom you share a percentage of genes), then the problem of how natural selection could still work is solved. Wilson echoes Camus that the struggle of Sisyphus should be enough (although he doesn't mention Camus's famous last line that we should imagine Sisyphus happy), but then suggests that our true motivations are reproductive and survival oriented and that any ambivalences (like those leading to the contemplation of suicide) we feel stem from the inhibition of these primary drives. Helpfully, Wilson admits his goal has been heuristic: to demonstrate the resolution of an ethical problem via concepts from within evolutionary theory. "I have raised a problem in ethical philosophy in order to characterize the essence of sociobiology," Wilson tells us so that he can introduce his new field of study, from animal societies to human societies. Obviously, making such a stretch requires him to move beyond the fields within his own discipline and into those within the social sciences and the humanities. He explains that the rise of evolutionary biology as the "Modern Synthesis" (of Darwin and Mendel, to reduce such a rich intellectual history to two such labels) has already begun to impede upon sociology and that soon "it may not be too much to say that sociology and the other social sciences, as well as the humanities, are the last branches of biology waiting to be included in the Modern Synthesis (1975, p. 4). Wilson has just introduced us to the first (on social evolution) of three sections in his book. It is an introduction how to consider sociobiology as a new field in the discipline of biology. The following chapters of the section deal with key concepts, such as the defining of what is meant by an individual, a group, a population, etc., on to central tenets, such as the reiteration that "the pervasive role of natural selection in shaping all classes of traits in organisms can be fairly called the central dogma of evolutionary

biology" (1975, p. 15). He then asks how adaptive traits can be tested, recognizing an issue in understanding what adaptation actually is. This first steps towards such a problematization can also be seen in Wilson's utilization of concepts like traits being "monadaptive" or "polyadaptive" (1975, p. 16) to demonstrate a wide range of effects. Wilson, though, doesn't stay too long on mere definitions, jumping quickly into chapters about such difficult stuff as the basics of population genetics (replete with enough mathematics to make a true humanist shudder). The final chapter of the section, though, "Group Selection and Altruism," is helpful because it explains the primary concepts by which we will come to understand sociobiology. It is directed to the explanation of such vital questions as to how organisms that sacrifice their own reproductive success (and even survival) can exist in a Darwinian world of descent with modification via natural selection. It is with this challenge, Wilson reminds us, that Darwin knew his theory might fail. Altruism, as Wilson explains, is simply sacrificing one's own fitness for the fitness of another (1975, p. 55). The answer was to extend the range of selection from the individual to the group. If one is helping a family member (somehow who shares one's genes, to a degree) to achieve fitness, one may sacrifice one's own fitness and not challenge the concept of natural selection. Kin selection was later detailed, as well as more refined forms of altruism called reciprocal altruism to explain these sorts of behaviors and selection pressures. By engaging in discussion of such behaviors, though, evolutionary theorists have entered the realm of ethical philosophy and religious morality. And Wilson knows this. He ends the first section with a dramatic statement of recognition:

In the opening chapter of this book, I suggested that a science of sociobiology, if coupled with neurophysiology, might transform the insights of ancient religions into a precise account of the evolutionary origin of ethics and hence explain the reasons we make certain moral choices . . . for the moment, perhaps it is enough to establish that a single strong thread does indeed run from the conduct of termite colonies and turkey brotherhoods to the social behavior of man (1975, p. 63).34

34 Fittingly, Wilson provides us with a literary metaphor ("a single strong thread") that he will utilize again in Consilience (the thread of Ariadne).

The following section of the book, "The Social Species," which ends with the infamous chapter on "man," begins with an explanation of how the different major animal groups vary regarding their sociability. Chapter 17 is titled "The Four Pinnacles of Evolution," reflecting Wilson's arrangement of 1) colonial invertebrates 2) social insects 3) non-human mammals and 4) humans (what he calls "man"). Wilson sees this list in order of decreased sociability, with humans being an exception. His calls this a paradox: that the older and less complex forms demonstrate greater degrees of sociability; in essence, there is a decline or downward trend with the move toward more recent and complex life forms. What is interesting with humans is understanding how we have reversed this trend. Wilson sees the use of intelligence, not as a tool to reduce the selfishness seen in other mammals, but to "consult the past and plan for the future" (1975, p. 180). This foresightedness allow us to form social contracts, which requires the mechanism of reciprocal altruism (you scratch my back; I'll scratch yours). Of course, some of the strongest bonds of this type can be found among families. What Wilson leaves us with, then, is not a caricatured picture of humans as aggressive, selfish, and dominating animals. His move is to try to understand why we are not when he would expect us to be.

Man has intensified these vertebrate traits [e.g., selfishness] while adding unique qualities of his own [e.g., multivalent language and sociability]. In so doing, he has achieved an extraordinary degree of cooperation with little or no sacrifice of personal survival or reproduction. Exactly how he alone has been able to cross the fourth pinnacle, reversing the downward trend of social evolution in general, is the culminating mystery of all biology" (1975, p. 182).

The last chapter, —Man: From Sociobiology to Sociology,“ has been the subject of intense scholarly debate (see for a comprehensive look at the history of sociobiology Segerstråle 2000). Wilson's decision to end his book with a chapter on "man" might seem problematic for any number of reasons, but Wilson's overall project of consilience is evident right up front and, this alone, seems enough to have ruffled a few feathers. He

begins the chapter with the imaginative thought experiment quoted above in which we consider —man“ as if we were zoologists from another planet.35 Wilson's main goal in this chapter isn't merely the depiction of humans as animals or humans as mired in their current social roles (see Kenan Malik‘s ideas below); he wishes to explain how human mental evolution happened, in that we have taken typical primate behaviors and expanded them. He argues that it is the task of sociobiology to answer these questions. He wants to know why human culture displays such plasticity and, yet, still be a result of a Darwinian natural history. With such a desire, we see why Wilson turns toward neurobiology as the guide which will help answer such questions. Furthermore, Wilson addresses a few key topics that return in his later work on consilience (e.g., language, ritual, religion, aesthetics, etc.), these higher emergent aspects of human culture typically addressed in the social sciences and humanities. And it is to this unity-building that we should look for a key that binds his intellectual history together. Wilson ends the infamous chapter with a segment titled "The Future" and suggests that by the end of the 21st century biology as a discipline "should be at its peek with the social sciences maturing rapidly" (1975, p. 299). How this will occur will be the rise of neurobiology and its mechanisms of probing the brain. "Only when the machinery can be torn down on paper at the level of the cell and put together again will the properties of emotion and ethical judgments become clear." His use of metaphors here reflects a fundamental concept of Wilson relating to consilience: his analysis/synthesis duad. There must be a tearing down and a building up. The question, I ask, is whether Wilson neglects the latter in favor of the former as a fully fleshed out concept. At this point in his history, the publication of Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Wilson wants to utilize his new social based investigation into animal society to engage in this enterprise. He tells us his new field will address "the history of the machinery and to identify the adaptive significance of each of its functions" (1975, p. 300). The groundwork of a Darwinian evolutionary psychology is being laid, one that will find fruition in the work of later thinkers.

35 The politically sensitive issue of considering "man" would require its own disquisition demonstrating how such a label, misused for centuries as a general term for humanity, obviously and unabashedly excludes females. Such gender specific terminology goes deep into the history of English language. However, the gender-neutral turn hadn't even coalesced in the humanities yet, much less the natural sciences, at the time of Wilson‘s publication.

Wilson, though, isn't simply after the unity of knowledge theme and its restructuring via consilience. He wants to present a picture of human nature fully informed by evolutionary theory. We see this emerge in the few remaining paragraphs of the book. His argument is simple. He wants the new discipline of sociobiology to act as a type of monitor of human behavior. He speculates that with the rise of human populations and the spreading of human genes via drift, in essence, the reduction of the power of natural selection because of the expanse of human culture, key human attributes (built up in our genes) such as altruism may be lost. How? He suggests that some attributes are "linked genetically to more obsolete, destructive ones." And what he is really after are "planned societies" that would somehow negate some of the negative aspects of our human nature. He speculates that if we fully curb aggression, somehow this will negate cooperation.

If the planned society–the creation of which seems inevitable in the coming century–were to deliberately steer its members past those stresses and conflicts that once gave the destructive phenotypes their Darwinian edge [e.g., aggression], the other phenotypes might dwindle with them [e.g., cooperation]. In this, ultimate genetic sense, social control would rob man of his humanity.

With such drama, he provides another paragraph that begins with, "It seems that our autocatalytic social evolution has locked us onto a particular course which the early hominids still within us may not welcome" (1975, p. 300). What we have here in very indirect language is a subtle yet powerful rejection of social engineering and, most likely, a rejection of one of the 20th century‘s most dominant forms: Marxism. Wilson ends with the suggestion that once we've delved deep enough into our neurobiology, "the result might be hard to accept" (1975, p. 301), suggesting that our human nature might run contrary to what is needed for an egalitarian society. He ends with a quote from Camus‘s, The Stranger, in which the narrator comments about being exiled in a world that no longer feels like home. Wilson fears that with the subjugation of the behaviors of our natural past, we might remove them genetically and, with them, other coupled behaviors that we appreciate. And, here's the key, in so doing we lose our humanity. For Wilson,

then, the human is framed through this insistence we maintain our —natures,“ even if undesirable. On Human Nature. Following the eruption of Wilson's 1975 publication, he returned with On Human Nature (1978), a book that seeks to show how sociobiology is the proper instrument "to close the famous gap between the two cultures." Wilson's final book in the trilogy that began with The Insect Societies (1974) is not a scientific text. And he admits that the book "is a speculative essay" (1978, p. x), as well as offers a sense of fair-play by admitting he might be wrong about his conclusions and, even, his grand project of examining the unity of knowledge via the natural sciences. It is with this sense of honesty and candor that Wilson unpacks many of the implications of his previous texts. The parallels are fascinating and worthy of comment, but for this dissertation, the key is understanding how he formulates: 1) his ground upon which to define human nature and 2) the precursor concepts of consilience. What Wilson poses in this book is the solution to three dilemmas facing human beings. In a move that plants him squarely within the naturalistic/materialistic camp, Wilson explains that any inquiry into understanding ourselves must address the sticky issue of our brains/minds. He admits that "we are biological and our souls cannot fly free" (1978, p. 1), a poetic line followed by a direct statement denying the need for a theistic god to account for biological life (yet still allowing it/him/her a place deep in the underbelly of physics where human rationality has yet to plumb). Following Darwin, Wilson feels that any important hypothesis about the "human condition" must begin here with an understanding of our place in natural history. For Wilson, this appeal to a naturalistic mechanism of explanation will remove the metaphysical baggage of the humanities and social sciences. He calls this the "new naturalism," new since Darwin, and that it has led and will continue to lead to a few fundamental dilemmas. The first removes any ultimate teleology from our worldview. "No species, ours included, possesses a purpose beyond the imperatives created by its genetic history" (1978, p. 2). It is with such a sentiment that Wilson wipes the slate clean of any ideology (from religious to philosophic) that would provide an ultimate ground or teleos. In its place, he suggests we have no place to go beyond what is natural to (i.e., given to us genetically via our evolved natural history). Wilson wisely recognizes this as a sort of lament. It has surfaced

in many guises since the Enlightenment Project began go crumble. Humanities thinkers have called it a crisis, a disenchantment, and many other terms to reflect a fundamental loss. Wilson does not go into this intellectual history. But, he does recognize the need for a restructuring of our concepts.

In order to search for a new morality based upon a more truthful definition of man, it is necessary to look inward, to dissect the machinery of the mind and to retrace its evolutionary history. But that effort, I predict will uncover a second dilemma (1978, p. 4).

This second dilemma extends from the first, which is the loss of ultimate purpose (as typically defined in our traditional religions and philosophies). The second is the formulation of a working ethics, which Wilson believes is quite doable because our evolutionary history has provided us with a working morality. The trick is knowing how to navigate between these primary emotions and drives (the stuff of our evolutionary morality); the choices we make will then define who we are as a species.

Which of the censors and motivators should be obeyed and which ones might better be curtailed or sublimated? These guides are the very core of our humanity . . . at some time the future we will have to decide how human we wish to remain- -because we must consciously choose among the alternate emotional guides we have inherited (1978, p. 6).

And for this to happen, according to Wilson, this proper creation of a working evolutionary-based ethics, the branches of knowledge must be grafted together; moreover, these decisions to be made about how to frame the human will be the conjunction not just between biology and the social sciences but between the humanities as well. Wilson recognizes that a challenge will be posed by those in the humanities. He sees that his thesis of unity is opposed by one of dichotomy and even uses the Nietzschean terms Apollonian and Dionysian to describe this possible divide. But Wilson is unwilling to subscribe to the idea that the Dionysian is somehow separate from

description by scientific means. His solution: a method of analysis/synthesis that (taken together) can not only drill down to describe atomistic properties but can build up to describe truly emergent properties. All well and good, but the question remains whether Wilson's dedication to synthesis is as promising as he claims (see below). We are not left with the lament, though; Wilson ends his book with a chapter entitled, "Hope," wherein he presents his hopes that a biology of ethics will understand the "learning rules" that will lead to a working human morality and the search for working values. This, of course, will be contentious with a humanities acting as a final anti-discipline for a philosophized and ethical biology (1978, p. 204). But, Wilson doesn't consider this conflict enough to rate it a third dilemma. He sees it as a necessary process of consilience whereby the inherent turf wars and internal jockeying between disciplines naturally occur. Echoing his fears at the end of Sociobiology, he ends his last chapter with a nod toward a possible third dilemma: he sees a possible "final spiritual dilemma" when "the human species can change its own nature" (1978, p. 208). This is the concept now known as transhumanism, a term Wilson doesn't use. The genetic turn in which we may be able to engineer ourselves in ways that extend our "natures" is what Wilson sees as a potential problem. He asks, what will our natures choose? To remain as we are, the inheritors of our evolved histories? Or to extend ourselves and possibly lose something in the process. The resolution of this dilemma is sidestepped, Wilson telling us it will be for future generations to address. He ends with a nod toward our shared literary history with an admission that our evolutionary epic requires mythic metaphors. He has used Sisyphus and Arujna and provides a comment from Aeschylus's Prometheus. Promethean Fire. This literary allusion is picked up in another of Wilson's books (1983), where he teams up with Charles J. Lumsden to detail for the scientific community just how genes and culture might work together to shape human behavior. Before it, though, they present Gene's, Mind and Culture (1981), a barely readable text for the non- specialist, even requiring a hefty amount of time for someone like John Maynard Smith to work through the mathematics to see if the proposed models work or not (Segerstråle

2000, p. 162). The authors provide Promethean Fire: Reflections on the Origin of Mind (1983) to rectify this problem.36 What Wilson has set before himself is an investigation into how the human mind has evolved into what it is today. No small feat. Of course, Wilson searches for this in our evolutionary past where the findings of paleo-anthropology help us chart the phylogenies of early hominids. Wilson knows that at some time in the past the intelligence faculties of Homo sapiens evolved. When? And what sort of process was this?

We believe that the secret of the mind's sudden emergence lies in the activation of a mechanism both obedient to physical laws and unique to the human species. Somehow the evolving species kindled a Promethean fire, a self-sustaining reaction that carried humanity beyond the previous limits of biology. This largely unknown evolutionary process we have called gene-culture coevolution: it is a complicated, fascinating interaction in which culture is generated and shaped by biological imperatives while biological traits are simultaneously altered by genetic evolution in response to cultural innovation (1983, p. 19).

What we have here is a clarification of Wilson's idea that genes hold culture on a leash (1978. p. 167). In this new formulation equal weight is given to the idea that the leash (culture) simultaneously pulls on the leash. How this works is through the influence of epigenetic rules (inherent behavioral biases that lead humans to make certain choices) on culture. Certain rules lead to certain cultural choices that help humans better survive and reproduce. Those choices then are vetted by a Darwinian like process that reinforces the epigenetic rules. "Hence, culture affects genetic evolution, just as the genes affect cultural evolution“ (Lumsden and Wilson 1983, p. 20). Of course, for Wilson, the key discipline for understanding such an interaction is sociobiology. But sociobiology, the discipline, and its mechanisms of gene-culture coevolution is only one corner of the foundation of Wilson's thought. Wilson hints at the direction his thinking will take when he mentions that at the moment when humanity may be able to

36 Since I will be critiquing aspects of this book from within the context of Wilson's overall intellectual project, I will address the authors as "Wilson."

understand the mind, this process may become crucial for our survival as a species (1983, p. 18). His move toward a conservationist stance can be seen early with this focus on the loss of ever increasing biodiversity. While this observation only makes a brief appearance in Promethean Fire, he does link it to a parallel theme that is also vital to our understanding of his notions of human nature defined via consilience: that the naturalism of modern society must replace the old-myths of religion with a secular religion. This is not a mere luxury of a freethinking intellectual class but a necessity, according to Wilson, that will reinvigorate our understanding of nature with a neo-divinity, a move he believes we must make in order to save our own biosphere and ourselves. Biophilia. From the publication of Biophilia : the Human Bond with Other Species (1984) to his most recent comment The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth (2006) Wilson has demonstrated a consistent march toward greater focus concerning themes of conservation. For my project, his use of academic disciplines like sociobiology and models and conceptual mechanisms like gene-culture coevolution and biophilia are helpful in situating ourselves relative to Wilson's humanistic thought (i.e., importance of determining a working human nature, the need for a conservationist ethic, the primacy of the analytic/synthetic model, etc.), but my ultimate aim is to understand how these elements are glued together through his notion of consilience. Still, it may be helpful to briefly address his notion of how biophilia leads him to posit the need for a replacement of the old religious architecture with one grounded in a fully naturalistic and materialistic worldview. What is this intriguing concept of Wilson's, biophilia? It is "the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes" (Wilson 1984, p. 1). For Wilson, there is a genetic aspect to this. In some way our "urge to affiliate with other life forms" (Wilson 1984, p. 85) comes to us from our evolutionary history and is alive and well today. Again, Wilson is quick to admit this is mere intuition and speculation on his part, but he has submitted the hypothesis to the rigor of a formal investigation by top thinkers (Kellert and Wilson 1993), yet the verdict is still out regarding its scientific merits. Much of his argument stems, not only from his very real naturalist's love of nature, but from what he believes to be cultural clues that reflect our innate biophlilia. "Perhaps, the most bizarre of the biophilic traits is awe and veneration of the serpent"

(1984, p. 85). For Wilson, the term "serpent" is a cultural reference for the biological organisms we generally label snakes. What he does is use the framework of Darwinian evolution to explain how "the agents of nature appear to have been translated into symbols of culture" (1984, p. 97). Its deductive simplicity is hard to miss. Our ancestors who feared deadly snakes tended to avoid them, while those who did not often got bit and died. Those who survived tended to pass on this aversion. Over time, the genetic predisposition was reinforced with culture via veneration, fear, and awe of the serpent as seen in many of our myths. Thus, culture's transformation of the snake into the serpent, a perfect example of gene/culture coevolution and the development of an epigenetic rule. This is simply one fundamental block in the structure Wilson is building of an edifice called our evolved human nature. He wants to elucidate the rules of mental development and behavior so that he can argue that even the naturalist's biophilial instinct was an adaptation, like snake avoidance. "The naturalist's trance was adaptive: the glimpse of one small animal hidden in the grass could make the difference between eating and going hungry in the evening" (1984, p. 101). Wilson even extends this argument to suggest that our inclination for elevated views over water reflects our original evolution in savanna like environments, that our aesthetic choices are still with us in our deep genetic makeup (1984, p. 109-12). But the landscape is only part of the picture. Wilson's real goal is to create a definition of human nature predicated on our relationship to other species. "We are human in good part because of the way we affiliate with other organisms" (1984, p. 139). And it is awakening this sense that Wilson believes will provides us with clues to save ourselves and our environment. What must occur for this neo-religious conservationist ethic? Consilience of the sciences and humanities. Consilience. Arguably his most important book for the humanities, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998) arrived at a time after Wilson's major intellectual projects like sociobiology and gene/culture coevolution had seen their peaks. The move toward the domination of conservationist thinking began earlier than Consilience but finds a parallel argument in support of biophilia in Wilson's attempt to explain, philosophically, what must happen for a working approach to biological conservation. In Consilience we see Wilson present an argument for the unification of knowledge wherein the great branches of learning are fastened together. The metaphor is important because

for Wilson the two great branches (the sciences and the humanities) must come together like two vines wrapping around each other. But, what is evident is that the sciences are viewed as stable, while the humanities are viewed as more pliable and, thus, more readily able to shift closer to the sciences. For Wilson, this means, that the humanities (and the social sciences) can only make this move by adopting the methodologies of the natural sciences. In particular, both the analytic and synthetic approach to knowledge building that has worked so well for physics, chemistry, and (not so quite well) biology. The problem, though, is that while Wilson argues the need for both an analytic/reductive and a synthetic/holistic duad, the former is given precedence, while the latter receives only lip service. My critique stems from an account given by Wilson's past colleague, Stephen Jay Gould, who in his last book argues for a different type of consilience than Wilson's (see below). What Wilson presents is actually an argument for the power of reductive thought and methodologies, not only for the science but for the humanities. A close look at his text is required, primarily, because it so well encapsulates Wilson's approach and acts as a guide for how Gould's thought more closely echoes humanistic thinking. In short, Wilson values analysis over synthesis, while Gould represents a more synergistic balance between the two (without offering how this might actually work). Wilson's book is organized much like On Human Nature, with broad concepts addressed in each chapter, with a progression from his general idea, to particulars found in the natural sciences, and ending with the ephemeral (and difficult stuff) of the humanities. Wilson uses a few working metaphors to describe this process of consilience. He begins his introductory chapter, "The Ionian Enchantment," with this charming metaphor of the unity of knowledge, hearkening back to the Greeks (Thales, for one) and their well-inspired but often misguided searches for unity within nature (1998, p. 3). For Wilson, this dream, this spell of enchantment is the most precious form of enthrallment for a modern, secular thinker. "I found it a wonderful feeling not just to taste the unification of metaphysics, but also to be released from the confinement of fundamentalist religion." Wilson's theme of replacing traditional religious belief with modern evolutionary theory (and all that goes with it) can be seen here as a sort of impetus for his entire project. In this way, Wilson is very much a secular thinker. Where he differs from other colleagues is in his blatant admission that his worldview can be

conceptualized as religious. He explicitly states he has "no desire to purge religious feeling" (1998, p. 4), his time as a young, evangelical Christian in the South strong enough to make a lasting impact. Wilson sees science very much an extension of the psychological need for explanations (such as Biblical elements about origins or our place in the universe). In the grandest tradition of inspired system building, Wilson eschews the actual construction of systems of thought for the inspiration of a single objective: the unification of knowledge. It is this quest that he is after. In fact, Wilson sees his project as a defining aspect of what it means to be human.

If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not (1998, p. 5).

Chapter 2, "The Great Branches of Learning," is a companion piece to the initial chapter on the Ionian Enchantment. Here, Wilson extends his picture of humanity's quest–via first through our religious stories, then through science–of explaining the natural world. "The greatest enterprise of the mind has always been and always will be the attempted linkages of the sciences and the humanities" (1998, p. 6). But, Wilson admits that what he is doing is not science, but something else. "The belief in the possibility of consilience beyond science and across the great branches of learning is not yet science. It is a metaphysical worldview, and a minority one at that.“ Wilson realizes he will be opposed in his worldview, accused of such things as "conflation, simplism, ontological reductionism, scientism" to which he says "I plead guilty, guilty, guilty" (1998, p. 7). Without the slightest hint at irony, Wilson then briefly addresses the role philosophy might play in such an endeavor but suggests that "philosophy, the contemplation of the unknown, is a shrinking dominion" (1998, p. 8). What is ironic is that his assessment of philosophy is quite minimal but that the endeavor itself, while certainly affected by the dominance of positive science, is no less an important part of many vital investigations (to name one: the still pressing need for a philosophy of mind and consciousness). Having thus sidestepped the question of the role of philosophy

within science, he does not even attempt to address the role of philosophy within culture. One particular sticking point for anyone trained as a scholar in the humanities would be Foucault's argument that the Enlightenment is actually an attitude wherein one continually critiques one's own culture (Foucault 1984d). In this role, Foucault has found a place for philosophy to continue its vigilance, regardless of how well positive science does in explaining the natural world. What is needed, especially for human culture, is a continued posture of self-critical analysis. Wilson, though, skips the messy stuff of cultural critique, but has no problems explaining that the humanities will soon be encompassed by the natural sciences. A telling paragraph, following directly after his admission that Philosophy doesn't have much left to do, is worth stating nearly in full:

I believe the enterprises of culture will eventually fall out into science . . . and the humanities, particularly the creative arts . . . The social sciences will continue to split within each of its disciplines . . . with one part folding into or becoming continuous with biology, the other fusing with the humanities . . . In the process the humanities, ranging from philosophy to history to moral reasoning, comparative religion, and the interpretation of the arts, will draw closer to the science and partly fuse with them.

It is important to note that Wilson here allows some wiggle room for the humanities. His language clearly is not arguing that the humanities will be fully and totally subsumed within biology. Still, his language is one in which the humanities will move in the direction of the sciences (not the other way around). After providing such wiggle room, he proceeds with "science offers the boldest metaphysics of the age," (Wilson 1998, p. 10) honestly and succinctly encapsulating his agenda in a few short, direct words. I have found this chapter to be highly illuminating as a lynchpin holding together this chapter‘s views of the internal structure of Wilson's thought. In fact, his claim that "every college student should be able to answer the following question: what is the relation between science and the humanities, and how is it important for human welfare" (1998, p. 11) acts as a spring-board for this chapter. Moreover, in large part this chapter

not only seeks to answer Wilson but seeks to find within his challenge a way for the humanities to justify its methods in light of a rising TC. It is to the notion of consilience that we must press ourselves. Surely, no one would deny that consilience in its most benign (non-imperialistic) forms is an admirable thing. How, then does Wilson truly define consilience, and what (if any) are there any working alternatives (see below for Gould‘s response)? The problem for Wilson, which he openly admits, is that his picture of the humanities (especially literary studies) is undermined by a caricature. He provides a reading of postmodernism that sounds merely like the echoing of simplicities from the —science wars.“ There is a real sense that Wilson believes that those he labels postmodernists or poststructuralists really think in such anarchistic ways, but Wilson undermines his own project by not allowing more room for description. Chapter 3, "The Enlightenment," begins with a charming intellectual history that jumps through the 18th century like a mad dash to the end. Wilson can actually be praised for such a condensed, well-packaged picture of why the Enlightenment project failed (even if one who is even vaguely familiar with any of the many conversations regarding this crisis sees his depiction as highly simplistic). But the real motive may be to setup a fall-guy: postmodernism. Wilson wants to state by fiat that the Ionian Enchantment that began with the Greeks, diminished, then after briefly flowering in the 18th century, "astonishingly–it failed" (1998, p. 13). It did so for a reason, according to Wilson, who pins the blame on the back of intellectuals losing "faith in the leadership of science" (1998, p. 40) and thus leading to the inevitable split of the two professional cultures. Again, such a simplistic picture should make one wary, especially since this terrain has been surveyed many times. What is evident is that Wilson is leading up to something: his rejection of postmodernism, the bugbear by which some thinkers are said to have responded to the critique of science begun by Kuhn and the later science studies thinkers. Wilson provides us a useful statement on what he imagines to be the core of postmodernism:

Postmodernism is the ultimate polar antithesis of the Enlightenment. The difference between the two extremes can be expressed roughly as follows:

Enlightenment thinkers believe we can know everything, and radical postmodernists believe we can know nothing (1998, p. 42).

A nod to Wilson must be made in that he demonstrates a recognition there are "radical" postmodernists, implying there are also moderates. Yet, his real enemy is the broad philosophical movement in sociology often called social construction, wherein the battle is viewed as an epistemological struggle to define reality. But Wilson does not provide an overview of the field within sociology until later in the book. Instead, he jumps to the curious crossover of French linguistic theory/philosophy to American literary studies with the thinking of Jacques Derrida and deconstruction. This is followed by the other usual suspect, Michel Foucault. But, as with Derrida we only get passing glances at these thinkers. In a spirit of fair-play, it must be noted that Wilson ends his chapter with a gentlemanly admission: "Nevertheless, here is a salute to postmodernists. As today's celebrants of corybantic Romanticism, they enrich culture. They say to the rest of us: Maybe, just maybe, you are wrong" (1998, p. 46). But ultimately, Wilson sees the entire endeavor of such skepticisms as leaning more toward mere sophistic obscurantism reinforced by the academy than as a true Dionysian antipody to an Apollonian science. In the next chapter, "The Natural Sciences," Wilson provides his antidote for the skepticism of postmodernism and the perceived failure of the Enlightenment project: Science (with a capital S). Wilson provides a working definition: "the organized, systematic enterprise that gathers knowledge about the world and condenses that knowledge into testable laws and principles" (1998, p. 57). He then provides a list of attributes: repeatability, economy, mensuration, heuristics, and finally consilience. This standard definition provides a base upon which he props up a singular concept within the study of science: Reductionism. "The cutting edge of science is reductionism, the breaking apart of nature into its constituent parts." But Wilson is quick to tell us the reductive endeavor is only half the struggle. "But dissection and analysis are not all that scientists do. Also crucial are synthesis and integration" (1998, p. 58). I cannot agree more with Wilson, and this chapter seeks to understand whether he backs up his claim. Does he, indeed, present synthesis and integration as more than a lofty goal? Does he give it equal time and emphasis as he does the analytic/reductive elements of his thought?

The rest of the book is his elucidation on an extension of the Ionian Enchantment metaphor, this time focused with the metaphor of Ariadne's thread. Chapter 5 is an elucidation of this, while the remaining chapters work through such difficult stuff as the mind, genes and culture, human nature, the social sciences, eventually ending with arts and ethics. What Wilson does is describe the interrogation of these subjects as an epic endeavor, similar to Theseus's journey into the labyrinth. A few elements to this metaphor are worth briefly describing. The labyrinth represents "the uncharted material world." Theseus is humanity in our search to understand the natural world. The thread is consilience, the combined knowledge of both the arts and sciences. And the Minotaur is the danger of irrationality. Wilson's particularly interesting take on this is that he places the hard sciences like physics at the entrance to the labyrinth, while the "social sciences, humanities, art, and religion" follow an increasing difficult pathway toward the center (Wilson 1998, p. 72). The thread, though, is a powerful metaphor for Wilson that represents how to conceptualize causal explanations leading from the hard sciences to the humanities and back again. How? Via the well laid bath of analysis/reduction toward the center and the less understood path of synthesis/holism back outward. It is this less understood path that gets lip service but no real exegesis. The problem, though, may be in the very real limitations of science (and or human cognition) to tackle such endeavors. Wilson provides a wonderfully helpful and honest example from cytology to demonstrate the problems with moving upward toward synthesis regarding how a cell is constructed. He provides us two rubrics for the opposing symbiotic processes. "Consilience by reduction" vs. "consilience by synthesis" (1998, p. 73). The idea with synthesis is reconstruction: in essence imitating nature in a science laboratory. Wilson does offer that first steps have been made toward synthesis. He suggests that certain types of predictions "qualify as consilience by synthesis" (1998, p. 76). But, he admits, that in his own discipline of entomology science cannot yet make the bold move from physics and chemistry to predictions concerning the exact nature of certain molecular structures of functions in ants. I imagine Wilson might be able to update a book that is a decade old within his own discipline, as well as others. But, his cogent admission that consilience by synthesis is the most daunting of tasks parallels the very real lacuna in his book and reflects the ultimate problem with his project for

humanities thinkers. Wilson uses the metaphor of an "unexplored terrain" to represent the area between the science and the humanities that must be mapped. As if in contradiction to the extreme skepticisms about Derrida and Foucault briefly mentioned at the beginning of his book, Wilson writes, "The misunderstandings arise from ignorance of the terrain, not from fundamental differences in mentality" (1998, p. 138). What he means by mentality is unclear because he has made it very clear that aspects of literary studies in the academy seem like nothing more the sophistic, rhetorical obscurantism. His conciliatory gesture at this point is, therefore, more likely explainable because he shifts emphasis in his book in the end toward the center of the labyrinth and the more complex and messy (irrational?) areas of the social sciences and humanities. Wilson ultimately wants to give equal weight to both genes and culture, having spent a good portion of his intellectual thought attempting to explain how they work through coevolution and, even, going out of his way in Promethean Fire to explain that, yes, genes do hold culture on a leash but that culture sure can tug on the leash. Again, this instinct to attempt an even assessment between science (genes) and the humanities (culture) is admirable and evident in much of Wilson's work. But, Wilson betrays his hope for détente and then consilience when he writes, "It's time to call a truce and form an alliance." The metaphor has shifted from unexplored terrain to a battle ground (in this chapter, between positive science and the social sciences). He writes that "the social sciences are intrinsically compatible with the natural sciences" (1998, p. 208). The two disciplines must be made consistent–which means, the social sciences must move toward the methodologies of the natural sciences. This is an admission by Wilson that the social should be collapsed into the natural. And, it is a primary fault with his thinking. Wilson doesn't allow for ontologies of —things“ such as concepts. Granted, admitting that a shift occurred away from ontological-oriented philosophy during the epistemological turn of Descartes to the later linguistic turn of the analytical philosophers and the semioticians does not mean one is barred from thinking in terms of how we conceptualize concepts (regardless of whether such concept actually exists). For example, a key category that is under theorized by some TC thinkers like John Brockman (see Chapter 2) or Wilson is —the social.“ Granted, this sort of thing may be over theorized by social scientists or those of us with a critical theory background, but there is a reason for

this. The social is very —real,“ it —exists,“ and needs to be explained. The problem though is the attempt to use materialistic concepts for something that is more akin to a virtual world than a physical one. As an example, I will forgo relying on the usual suspects who attempt to describe particular aspects of the social world (Derrida‘s logocentricsm or transcendental signified; Foucault‘s episteme or Power/knowledge construct, etc.) and mention a writer of culture and science, the neurobiology and psychology trained researcher and thinker, Kenan Malik, who helpfully provides insights into this issue in Man, Beast, and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us about Human Nature (2002). What Malik explores is how science (in particular, evolutionary biology and cognitive science) has constructed concepts of human nature, in essence, structuring the categories in three ways so that we may view ourselves as a 1) humanistic, Enlightenment figure of —Man“ imbued with reason, 2) then later as a dehumanized animal, bereft of not only a soul but of rationality, 3) and finally as a zombie, a machine- like metaphor for a humanity without agency. This structure is finely realized, but where Malik is most helpful is in his navigation through the epistemological puddles of the —science wars“ and his focus on the importance of the social for defining any aspect of the human. He steers clear of both positivist and constructivist positions to argue they miss the point. He suggests that any investigation into understanding human beings must account for their subjectivity; thus, the methods required are different from those that have worked so well in the sciences.

Human beings are not simply objects that can be prodded and poked, measured and theorized about. We are also the subjects that do the prodding, poking, measuring, and theorizing. In other words, humans, uniquely, are both the subjects that create the science and objects of that science (, 92002).

Malik echoes Foucault here (see Chapter 2) with the recognition that the subject/object duality of conceptualizing the human is key. Malik‘s main thesis, though, goes beyond this to chart how science displaced —man“ from the center of the universe and as made in the image of god to become merely a rational (but natural) agent, who eventually lost that

rationality via a variety of antihumanisms, and who was ultimately (after the final ghost in the machine was excised) made into a machine: consciousness itself was viewed as an illusion and all agency a myth. 37 Malik sees this as unfortunate because of the simple misapplication of materialistic/mechanistic methods and categories to humans, who are social animals with minds that require their own ontological categories (outside of the purely biological). He sees the negation of subjectivity as the ultimate misstep. The social, then, is a category that must be fully articulated for an understanding of the human as social, thinking agents. And this misreading of how to conceptualize the social is why Wilson misreads how to assess the role of the arts and the humanities. For Wilson, the arts are important because they provide interpretation. This sounds fine, at first, because interpretation (or providing readings of texts) seems wide enough to allow for the variety we come to expect within the field of, say, literary studies. But, for Wilson, interpretation actually means "the intuition and metaphorical power of the arts" (1998, p. 234). Again, this is not much of a problem. If you're a Jungian, you'll feel right at home with such an idea that the arts reflect the archetypes within our collective unconscious. Freudians will also have no problems, nor would Marxists. But Wilson doesn't realize he, himself, is providing a type of reading wherein (for him) art reflects the intuition and metaphor of our evolutionary history. He sees art rising "from the artesian wells of human nature." What we get is the naive (but seductive) suggestion that "works of enduring value are those truest to these origins [human nature]" (1998, p. 237), as if art does just this one thing. Wilson has fallen into the trap of reifying art as a thing with a function. Granted, the problem isn't necessarily with conceptualizing art as functioning, it may be in the conceptualizing of how it functions. Art may do what Wilson suggests, and more. It's in his lack of foresight that art and literature and the material of culture may have myriad functions that undermine his attempt at clarity. What Wilson has done is taken a small step from the highbrow approach to art and literature, which suggests they are touchstones or reflections of the Beautiful or artifacts of national culture, and said that

37 Please note the difference between Malik‘s fully articulated schema of man, beast, zombie and the simplistic use in the Wedge Strategy (Ch 1), which only enters the conversation with a few paragraphs meant to describe three hundred years of Western Thought.

great art reflects our evolutionary past. It's in this attempt to define great art that we enter a highly contested field. And, at least an admission of this is necessary.38 Furthermore, Wilson addresses a major area of contention even among evolutionary literary theorists: do the arts (and religion, for that matter) have an adaptive value, are they no longer adaptive even though they were once adaptations,39 or are they mere ephemera, epiphenomena that emerge from the blending of cultural and biological elements of thinking animals like ourselves? Wilson attempts an interrogation via the language of gene/culture coevolution when he asks, —were the genetic guides mere byproducts–epiphenomena–of that evolution, or were they adaptations that directly improved survival and reproduction“ (1998, p. 249; for a counter approach, see Steven Pinker‘s —Toward a Consilient Study of Literature“ in which he argues that most of the arts are probably not adaptations but that the tendency to fictionalize our world might be 2007). Wilson certainly takes an adaptationist‘s approach by speculating that in our natural history, innovation was most likely something selected for by natural selection. From this, Wilson argues, —universals or near-universals emerged in the evolution of culture.“ Wilson takes a Jungian approach and describes these universals as archetypes deeply rooted in emotions sculpted by our evolutionary past and surfacing in our culture and art. The most rooted in the past, the more affective. Here Wilson is stepping toward a traditionalist‘s dichotomous view of art and literature and culture. Some things in culture are good, others are not so good. What Wilson doesn‘t explore is that maybe one universal is a tendency to represent the fuzzy, complex, messy aspects of human experience in art and culture, from the high to the low. Yet Wilson comes close to seeing this when he asks the question, what is the function of arts? For Wilson they help us cope with our new emerging intelligence. —The dominating influence that spawned the arts was the need to impose order on the confusion caused by intelligence . . . the arts filled the gap“ (1998, p. 250). Wilson is only a step away from understanding the wisdom in much of the postmodern and

38 I wonder if Wilson would allow for a reading of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as —great“ art, if the necessary elements of human nature and epigenetic coevolution were evident. A possible challenge: Star Wars. 39 The distinction here is important between adaptive and adaptation. This is a highly problematized topic within the philosophy of evolutionary biology. For example, see (Sober 1993, p. 84) for definitions. —A trait is now adaptive if it currently confers some advantage. A trait is an adaptation now if it currently exists because a certain selection process took place in the past.“ For a seminal article attacking what is called the adaptationist programme, see (Gould and Lewontin 1979).

poststructural approaches he denigrates because of the political implications of the —science wars“ and an epistemological fear that extreme relativism and skepticism is being served up. This chapter has attempted to suggest that much of what we value in contemporary literary studies, especially in terms of how we view the human and the engagement of the sciences in the humanities, stems from what Wilson calls gaps.40 He uses the language of science and the mind to describe how algorithms that helped us survive our evolutionary past were not fully equipped to handle the emergence of aspects of human intelligence that the arts filled in. What Wilson wants to focus on is how this gap-filling process reveals our deep, primal human nature through the arts. There is no real problem there, except he doesn‘t see that what may be part of our human nature is a love and tendency for a variety of categories not so tidily contained in his conception, many of them explored in the troubling and difficult stuff of critical theory and popular culture. One major tell that Wilson has missed the importance of his own insight that gaps are vital in understanding the arts is the denigration of popular culture (by omission). This is a highly provocative area that begs questioning by evolutionary minded thinker towards the arts and would require its own project. However, what is at stake here is how to conceptualize consilience and whether Wilson gives equal conceptual weight to both analysis and synthesis in his conception. I have been attempting to show that, in spirit, he claims a balance between the two while his seminal book speaks differently. Thus, the need for further problematization of the concept is vital.

Gould: A Different Definition of Consilience

Instead of presenting a range of reviews of Wilson's most intriguing book, I will offer one critique in the form of a monograph, Stephen Jay Gould's, The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities (2003).41 Gould, as a colleague of Wilson's at Harvard, and a benchtop scientist himself is

40 And, incidentally, Spolsky calls gaps, as well (see Chapter 2). 41 My reasons for choosing this particular book stem from a variety of reasons. My plan to use Gould contra Literary Darwinism in Chapter 6 is important because of Wilson's influence on Joseph Carroll. What both

in a curious position to champion methods from the humanities. In fact, Gould has feet in both worlds. Not only a scientist, he is a natural historian. Where Gould proves his worth for a literary studies look at the relationship between science and the humanities is in his insistence that synergy is preferable over unification. Moreover, there are others working in the same vein. I will mention only one. For example, in a recent comment attempting to both draw the humanities within the orbit of the human sciences and to reciprocally draw the human sciences within the circle of philosophical humanities, M.I.T. cultural historian, Bruce Mazlish engages in attempting to get beyond both pre-postmodern and postmodern thought. However, he does not seek to privilege one segment over the other (1998, p. 6-7). The question that underlies this attempt seeks to know just what the human sciences are. These are the sciences of humanity–the sciences of human nature, from psychology and sociology to political economy and literary theory. However, such a definition requires some further comment. Mazlish sees the human sciences taking homo sapiens as its fundamental object of study. The author asks "What is the subject of the human sciences? The simple answer is, the human species, in its manifold activities" (Mazlish 1998, p. 67). Paralleling Malik, he admits, though, there are curious aspects (e.g., human consciousness and culture) to studying homo sapiens that make the endeavor different from studying objects within the natural sciences. Yet, even before he addresses the highly complex fields of human culture, Mazlish notes that simply outlining scientifically what we mean by —human“ is difficult because of our evolutionary history from early hominids to modern humans. Without acknowledging his influences directly, the author intimates a direct line of thought with the anti-essentialism of much postmodern thought: —man,“ or the human, is difficult to imagine. The problem, as he sees it, is how to categorize human cultural evolution with scientific methods?42

Carroll and Wilson do is opt for simplicity of thought that caricatures a love of complexity as obscurantism and, thus, a key aspect of literary thought. 42 I find such an attempt intriguing by a cultural historian working at MIT because the author attempts to explain the differences between what he sees as positive knowledge versus an older hermeneutic knowledge. He provides a brief overview, demonstrating how this move had its beginning in mystical theological readings of the Bible, was picked up by Vico, eventually made into a general method by Schleiermacher and then solidified within a secular, modern approach to interpretation with Dilthey. The major concepts he wields stem from the historical differences between what the Germans called naturwissenschaften and geistwissenschaften, a helpful way of seeing how nature and human moralit/s, p. pirit were viewed as separate (Mazlish 1998, p. 83-92). Of course, there was resistance to the move made

Gould, though, would care to present an even more balanced approach. As a way to represent this, he provides a guiding metaphor: that of the hedgehog and the fox (and the hybrid of both). Using Archilochus's famous example, he tells us the hedgehog is very good at one thing, while the fox is good at many things. What he attempts to do is locate the former as the search for the attainment of a single, overarching goal (2003, p. 5), while the latter is the ability to maintain necessary flexibility. In essence, how do we attain wisdom and knowledge without the destruction of the many particulars of human experience? A parallel metaphor Gould works with demonstrates this as well. E pluribus unum (one from many) reflects Gould's insistence that consilience must be conceptualized along lines that value a variety of knowledge and methods, over Wilson's dream of unification. In this way, we see how Gould is inspired by the idea of liberal democracy so that he may write, "I offer the same basic prescription for peace, and mutual growth in strength, of the sciences and humanities" (2003, p. 6). What is that? The recognition that the sciences and humanities work within differing domains but that, together, they can attain the goal of —wisdom.“ Regardless of whether Gould's project is mere détente in a world of increasing tension between the two domains, his more specific argument against Wilson regarding consilience is helpful in seeing how the humanities might respond to Wilson's notion of unification of the great branches of learning. Before addressing the specifics of his opposing view of consilience, it may be wise to ask how Gould views the relationship between science and the humanities. What he does in his very idiosyncratic book is argue that something curious happened during the "scientific revolution," that time when thinkers like Bacon and Descartes broke from the largely still humanistic ways of thinking. Gould suggests that by looking at how the new philosophers viewed their predecessors and themselves, we might understand why the tensions have erupted (with science on one end in supposed opposition to theology and literature, or the humanities on the other) (2003, p. 15-16). Gould is helpful because he admits that during this time of change, the "struggle at the birth pangs of modern by Dilthey. Mazlish mentions only two (Bultman and Gadamer), but his brief and helpful representation of the history of hermeneutical thought reflects the background for how geist was subsumed within natur, and how the rise of something like a TC is expected with the dominance of natural science (for more information, see Cartwright and Baker 2005). The author sees the crucial importance of why even the natural sciences are bound by a perimeter of interpretation: "There can be no science without interpretation" (Mazlish 1998, p. 96). Yet hermeneutics is on the run, as was theology, philosophy, the classic, etc., and now literary studies in general.

science," there was a valid conflict between new and old ways of thought; however, Gould sees this as largely antiquated in a world where science has proven so powerful, yet with its own limitations. What Gould calls for is simply the combination of all that is best in both domains. He uses the metaphor of "quilting a diverse collection of separate patches into a beautiful and integrated coat of many colors, a garment called wisdom" (2003, p. 19) over metaphors of subjugation or imperialism. For Gould, the idea of integrating as many insights and methods from the humanities along side those from science would be prudent. There are many reasons for this. Gould sees himself as a lover of literature, and even his book reflects this, with historical excursions into Renaissance texts, wherein he provides exegesis supporting his theme. Furthermore, something fundamental in his thought drives his insistence. Gould argues that dichotomous thinking does a great injustice to this issue. His guiding metaphors of the hedgehog and fox demonstrate this. He does not want us to think of science and humanities as opposed. He wants a hybrid. For Gould, continua as a mental category is much more helpful (2003, p. 82). He says our very natural tendency to break up phenomena into two fundamentally opposed categories may have something to do with our natural history. His reliance on an evolutionary epistemology here is a nod to why we tend to prefer to use dualities to describe such things. However, for Gould, this tendency represents "baggage" from a time when it might have been helpful to think in such simplistic terms as "fight or flight, sleep or wake, mate or wait" (2003, p. 83). Gould even cites Lévi-Strauss and his approach to human nature and culture via controlling dualities as somehow inherent in our fundamental cognitive structures. What Gould argues is that phenomena that began with real conflict like that of the new science and the old humanistic ways of thought may remain like revenants when the actual conflict has actually dissipated. For example, he details four main episodes he reads as less about real conflicts and more about our tendency to dichotomize and caricature: 1) Ancients vs. Moderns 2) "Warfare" between science and religion 3) Two Cultures debate and 4) The "science wars." Regardless of how accurate his readings are of these events, what Gould has done is laid the groundwork to explain how other notions he has like N.O.M.A. can be utilized when thinking about science and the humanities (as opposed to simply religion) (2003).

But it should be noted that Gould admits a real conflict did occur. Regarding this fact, Stephen Toulmin demonstrates in his engaging monograph, Cosmopolis: the Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), how the standard story of —Science“ has been rewritten to include the non-rational messiness of things like the religious wars of the Scientific Revolution. In so doing, his insight goes a long way in describing how modernity was shaped by a true conflict of competing metaphysics. Toulmin notes that the dichotomy of the sciences and the humanities reaches back as far as Descartes when he encouraged people to give up contextual humanistic endeavors (like ethnography, history, or poetry) for more abstract, decontextualized fields like geometry (x). What Toulmin is after (and Gould avoids) is the holy grail of post Enlightenment thought: a solution to the riddle of modernity that has beleaguered many great social thinkers. Toulmin sees modernity has having two distinct origins. 1) First, a literary/humanistic phase reaching back to Shakespeare and Montaigne. 2) A century later, a scientific and philosophical phase beginning around 1630 that caused many to turn their backs on the original phase (23). He spends most of his book detailing how the earlier phase was stamped out for a variety of socio-historical needs, like the quest for certainty and stability in the decades that followed the dogma and persecution of the religious wars. Toulmin focuses on the pivotal time around 1630, when the earlier century‘s religious war culminated in the Thirty Year‘s War. He argues that in this time of Galileo and Descartes, when modern science and philosophy were moving toward a radical social shift, an older concept of modernity was being marginalized because of its tolerance and skepticism. What was at stake socially was the very fabric of the modern nation and how science would be done. Toulmin sees a definite shift occur at this time in the sort of questions asked and the research undertaken between the earlier Renaissance phase and the later scientific. In the earlier, theoretical questions were balanced against concrete questions; while after 1600 a trend toward abstract universalizing questions arises. Toulmin sees a shift between one that balances the local and time-bound with the universal and timeless, and a later one that sees the universal as the exclusive content of philosophy (24).

Renaissance humanism, therefore, is represented by Toulmin as fundamentally different than its successor. But both are modern. Toulmin sees the earlier phase defined by —open-mindedness and skeptical tolerance,“ as something that looked to —human affairs in a clear-eyed, non-judgmental light.“ Its thinkers distrusted theory when it concerned human affairs. Moreover, while their critique was not hostile to religion, it discouraged intellectual dogmatism, offering a focus on human modesty as an antidote to the rising religious tensions of the 16th century (25). Key here, for Toulmin, is a type of skepticism that has been wrongly discredited. Toulmin sees a difference between Descartes‘ version of skepticism, in which one denies an assertion, and the Renaissance humanist‘s version. Descartes‘ system of doubt attempted to combat claims of certainty, while the previous worldview sought neither to deny nor to assert claims. Toulmin reads them as following the classical skepticism of Pyrrho and Sextus and thinking that many philosophical questions reach beyond the domain of human experience. In this way they follow the traditions of Socrates on to Wittgenstein and demonstrate "how philosophical theories overreach the limits of human rationality" (29). What is lost with the coming of Descartes and the need for stability after the culminations of the religious wars is a hopeful skepticism and tolerance. What is gained is a place for near certainty. Toulmin provides a few catch phrases that summarize the new spirit. "Formal logic was in, rhetoric was out." "General principles were in, particular cases were out." "Abstract axioms were in, concrete diversity was out." "The permanent was in, the transitory was out." (31-34). This, of course, leads to the Scientific Revolution and the triumph of 1687 and Newton‘s Principia. What we see is that the move toward rational, decontextualized knowledge over previous human-focused knowledge is a type of anti-humanism that long precedes the dominant twentieth century forms. Taken together, though, Toulmin‘s two modes help structure many of the fundamental issues of today‘s TC thinkers. Why Gould admits a conflict did occur but then demonstrates how times have changed is because he believes the initial conflict was short lived. Moreover, his ultimate aim is to demonstrate that science cannot completely explain what it means to be human. Thus, the only way to achieve such —wisdom“ is by using as much insight from as many

avenues as possible. What he sees is that the humanities support his more ecumenical approach. He sees the importance of thinking from the humanities in

1) acknowledging and analyzing the social influences and cognitive biases within all creative work, including empirical studies; 2) emphasizing the importance of stylistic and rhetorical concerns in the presentation and acceptance of any good argument; and 3) developing certain modes of knowing that science needs (2003, p. 138).

All of this is leading up to his final chapter, "The False Path of Reductionism and the Consilience of Equal Regard," wherein he details the difference between his and Wilson's visions. Gould argues that he and Wilson, primarily, are simply presenting different metaphors and conceptions of the relationship between science and the humanities. For Wilson, Ariadne's thread. For Gould, the hedgehog and the fox. But, these metaphors represent a broad difference in these thinkers' hopes. Gould questions why the dream of unification is so enticing for some thinkers. "I have often wondered why the dream of unification (in our horrendously messy, yet so wondrously multifarious world) holds such power over the scholarly mind" (2003, p. 195). And Gould states plainly his own desire and assumptions: that he wants the great branches of learning to operate on friendly terms, working together when possible, but each maintaining its own autonomy. This, of course, assumes that such a relationship can exist and that the opposing imperialistic view is less preferable. Of course, Gould even provides a metaphor for this. The example of the Ugly Duckling (the humanities) which can be viewed as a misfit but can also be viewed as simply a different kind of thing (a beautiful swan). Gould prefers the latter (2003, p. 200). He argues that Wilson's approach views the humanities as an ugly duckling that needs to be made right through its incorporation into the natural sciences. Gould challenges Wilson over two key concepts: reductionism and consilience. Reductionism, according to Gould, works well within its own domain of the natural sciences but fails outside because it doesn't address emergence or contingency. Gould does not address the debates within the philosophy of science over the efficacy of reductionism (Callebaut 1993). Instead, he

offers the simple but powerful idea implicit in the concept of emergence: that the combination of parts do more than simply make a whole; the description of this whole resists definition via the simple description of its parts. Gould also addresses one of his favorite concepts, contingency, to argue that complex things like history are highly contingent and thus a problem for charting causal processes or definitions (2003, p. 202). This leads Gould to argue that natural science can only offer us an anthropology of morals not (as the humanities might) a morality of morals. What Gould is after is the problem of the naturalistic fallacy, the problem of arguing that "what is" in nature "ought to be." Of course, no right minded thinker actually fully follows this. For example, it is natural for human beings to tend to lose the ability to see well as they age, so we create and wear glasses to rectify this. It is morally accepted to do so. What Gould suggests is that this morality cannot be justified or explained through the sciences. The other domains of human knowledge must be addressed, those of the humanities. He doesn't explain how they do this. Simply, that they can (2003, p. 243). From here, Gould offers his antidote to what he calls Wilson's focus on a consilience of reductive unification with his own, a consilience of equal regard.

Conclusion

I have attempted a reading of Wilson‘s intellectual history to demonstrate that his presentation of consilience is one wherein a second-class humanities must adopt aspects of the sciences, while Gould offers a challenge to this. What is up for grabs, among many things, is how we are to conceptualize this relationship and what it, ultimately, may say about what it means to be human. For Wilson, there is much constraint by our evolved pasts, while Gould allows for much more freedom. The major distinction is that Wilson understands and argues for a combined effort between analysis and synthesis, but that the latter does not actually get the same description as the former. For Gould, he sidesteps the construction and suggests a metaphor of continua, that thinking in terms of science vs. the humanities or analysis vs. synthesis may be part of the problem. It is here that Gould‘s thought goes a long way. The first step in the proper problematization of a concept such as the relationship between the sciences and the humanities may be to see how false

100

dichotomies are being applied. Gould utilizes this convention from literary studies and helps us see a way to orient ourselves toward notions like the TC.

101

CHAPTER 4

SPANDRELS AND THE INSTITUTION OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY: A CULTURAL STUDIES APPROACH TO GOULD AND THE THIRD CULTURE

Introduction

This chapter peers through the lenses of literary and cultural studies, utilizing an approach that goes beyond standard issues in identity and representation to view artifacts of the life sciences as cultural objects. In particular, I examine aspects of Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin‘s metaphor of spandrels within the context of knowledge legitimation. I take as axiomatic the proposition that the reasonableness or experimental verifiability of knowledge will not suffice to legitimate itself in all contexts. Precisely because Gould and Lewontin have scientific and extra-scientific agendas, they offer an excellent test case for examining the role institutions of knowledge play in legitimating knowledge. Gould openly describes his project as one of —breaching of barricades“ (Selzer 1993, p. 333), and I see him as representing the best of both sides of the academy: a Third Culture43 scientist and historian unafraid to walk between the halls of the natural and human sciences and the humanities. This paper, then, uses Gould as a model through which we might map the difficulties facing, and possibilities of success for, attempts to transcend or blend the "two cultures" identified by C.P. Snow (1969). I begin this chapter with a brief description of Steven Best and Douglas Kellner‘s definition of contemporary culture and its focus on a reconstructive postmodern turn. This critical grounding allows me to review Lewontin‘s ideas of how science and ideology work in parallel, which I bolster with insights from Mary Douglas that institutions are defined within particular social contexts. I then examine these concepts through the particular metaphor of spandrels in Gould and Lewontin‘s provocative paper, —The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: a Critique of the Adaptationist Programme“ (1979, 581-98). I dedicate a portion of this paper solely to

43 Henceforth, TC (in this chapter).

102

Gould because he is a natural scientist who writes articles and popular books that shape social consciousness outside the academy.44 He is also a cultural figure, beloved by humanists but a gadfly to many in the sciences (even though he spent much of his time as a naturalist awed by the complexities of the world). I close with philosopher of science Daniel Dennett‘s critique of Gould and leave open the final word on Gould as a disciplinary barrier crosser.

Postmodern Turn

Much of my thinking in this analysis is informed by Best and Kellner‘s argument in the Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium (2001) that in defining our contemporary moment we should avoid a common concept in postmodern studies (social rupture) but should, instead, imagine a reconstructive postmodernity as we move into the new millennia.45 I believe one way of doing this is to show how TC thinkers like Gould and Lewontin can operate much as would any cultural critic (such as a theorist, a novelist, poet, filmmaker, etc.) operating within well-defined ideological and institutional constraints. My first step is to follow Best and Kellner‘s attempt to get beyond the polemics of the —science wars.“ One might ask: to get beyond them and go where?

44 My choice of Gould as a focus might seem counter intuitive based on my grounding in Best and Kellner‘s thoughts of how technology is reshaping contemporary culture. Gould, of course, was a paleontologist who happened to write a monthly column called —Reflections in Natural History.“ A solid case could be made that Gould is more inline with a neo-romantic view of the world, where nature is both subject and object of study, than with the blending of arts and sciences espoused by Best and Kellner. However, Gould‘s books range in scope from snails and pandas to the history of evolution and its major events (like the Cambrian explosion), its practitioners, their methods, as well as into other subjects like baseball, IQ testing, urban life, and the importance of religion. For examples of a few of his popular books, see (1989; 1980b; 1981; 1997d). While Gould was not a postmodern theorist and probably not current with the thought of critical theory, he represents how a thinker can embrace both the methods of science and the methods of the humanities. Best and Kellner‘s project is ultimately one of co-construction and reconstruction. A look at Gould should help in this endeavor. 45 They agree that the dialectics of the present is certainly a time of conflict but that imagining it as a zone between the modern and the postmodern would allow us to look for continuities as well as discontinuities with the past. They admit that —society, culture, and identity are all undergoing a tremendous rethinking“ (2001, p. 9-10); for them, though, this rethinking appears to be a way beyond much of the malaise attributed to postmodern contemporary culture. (For a more general definition of postmodernism, see Chapter 1 in this dissertation.)

103

Ideally, the current science wars would be replaced with science dialogues, an end to academic balkanization and bickering, and transdisciplinary research models. The new paradigm would construct a genuine ”Third Culture‘ that dissolves rigid boundaries between the technosciences and the humanities“ (2001, p. 118).

Not only are the epistemological debates in the —science wars“ an impediment to science dialogues; they maintain the old culture war‘s dichotomy of the arts vs. sciences that is, as Gould as argued, mostly a false dichotomy (Chapter 3). Best and Kellner posit a TC for the third millennium. They believe that to truly bridge the gap between Snow‘s two artificial camps of the arts and sciences the —inclusion of both the natural and the social sciences“ is vital (2001, p. 16). It is vital because our contemporary culture is being shaped by massive technological change anyway. A TC is emerging, one in which technology is redefining the borders between art and science. It‘s happening; we might as well get used to it and learn how to address it. Furthermore, their definition of postmodernity would preserve much of the Enlightenment project, while jettisoning enough to make even the wiliest of postmodern theorists happy.

While ”postmodern theory‘ often is derided as irrationalist, antiscience, anti- Enlightenment, and antimodernity, a reconstructive postmodern turn preserves the best of the Enlightenment, modern science, democratic values, and modern culture and institutions, while disregarding the problematic elements (2001, p. 117).

Just what these problematic elements are is still up for debate. However, we might imagine them to be categorized under a rubric of traditional romantic resistance to the blending of the arts and sciences. Therefore, in a biotech age, Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein may become relevant but more so for what not to do than what may happen. Technology is not to be conceptualized as a boogeyman, even if it is used by the power- hungry in a technocapitalist society. For Best and Kellner, the reconstructive turn in contemporary thought utilizes aspects of the Enlightenment project by not shying away

104

from the coming computer, information, and biotech age. Instead, they describe how citizens can build upon the new emerging technologies and social transformations to develop policies and procedures to combat abuse.46

Science as a Social Institution: Ideology, Spandrels, and the Adaptationist Programme

In order to address Best and Kellner‘s reconstructive project, a few questions to ask might be: how is science a social institution? If this is too broad, we might move to another: how does science as an institution legitimate knowledge? Maybe this also is too broad or too tired. To clarify such epistemological questions we might need to begin with something more specific: what is Gould and Lewontin‘s intellectual framework and how does it work within the institution of evolutionary biology?47 To begin, we look at Richard Lewontin, geneticist and Alexander Agassiz chair in zoology at Harvard. Biology as Ideology: the Doctrine of DNA (1992) attempts to answer (as a biologist would) some of the questions I‘ve posed above. His definition of how ideology works within institutions does not rely on the narrow idea of an institution as a

46 I imagine resistance from both sides of the academy–from biologists who question a cultural and literary studies thinker commenting on knowledge legitimacy in evolutionary theory, as well as from humanists who might imagine that contemporary science is less concerned with —humanity“ and more concerned with —homo sapiens.“ This artificial institutional gap between two spheres of knowledge (one that appeals to defining humanity as a social construct, and one that seeks to reduce and analyze physical objects via as —real“) fails to realize the synergy and connectedness both spheres have with each other. 47 Terry Eagleton provides a summary and history of varying definitions of ideology and suggests that ideology is a matter of discourse instead of language. Put simply: ideology concerns itself less with the formal rules of linguistics and more with who is saying what and to what effect. For this chapter, I will follow Eagleton by defining ideology as —a function of the relation of an utterance to its social context“ (1991, p. 9). Eagleton admits that the most common construction sees ideology related to the legitimation of power. However, he sees this as problematic because not all ideologies are dominant; thus, not all are —powerful.“ He wants a broader definition, one that sees any kind of intersection between belief systems and political power as a way toward a working definition. Following Althusser, he uses this broader approach to view an ideology as a guiding idea for both a person and an institution. As Eagleton writes, —what persuades men and women to mistake each other from time to time for gods and vermin is ideology“ (1991, p. xiii). This colorful insight may help explain what informs the bloodless battles often seen in the academy, where people who consider themselves of like mind often demonstrate such ongoing contention.

105

particular social convention.48 Lewontin uses the language of the layman, writing in broad strokes:

Science is a social institution about which there is a great deal of misunderstanding, even among those who are part of it. We think that science is an institution, a set of methods, a set of people, a great body of knowledge that we call scientific is somehow apart from the forces that rule our everyday lives and that govern the structure of our society. We think science is objective. (1992, p. 3).

Here Lewontin presents the unavoidable in a post-Kuhnian world: that science is affected by the social as much as any other social institution. Lewontin is not only admitting the cat is out of the bag, he is announcing that the feline has got away and is growling on the rooftop. Such pronouncements are salutary, coming from his end of the academy where objectivity and knowledge as a window-pane on the world is often the norm. With such once radical ideas, Lewontin demonstrates his understanding that what is at stake is how knowledge is legitimated, not just knowledge itself (for more info, see Lewontin and Levins in Callebaut 1993). Furthermore, Lewontin briefly details a more expansive definition of ideology and institutions, suggesting that for knowledge truly to be legitimated an institution must possess a few attributes. He describes them in terms similar to those that might be used for a religion or any foundational worldview. They must

derive from sources outside of ordinary human struggle . . . must not be seen to be the creation of political, economic, or social forces . . . must have a validity and a transcendent truth that goes beyond any possibility of human compromise and error . . . its explanations and pronouncements must seem to be true in an absolute sense and to derive somehow from an absolute source . . . and finally, the institution must have a certain mystical and veiled quality“ (1992, p. 7).

48 Within the discipline of sociology, sociologists provide a wide array of definitions from large sectors of society (like the institution of religion or the academy) to conceptualizing institutions as conventions informed by laws and traditions (Dobbin 2004).

106

He presents this definition in order to argue that the institution of science has replaced —religion as the chief legitimating force in modern society (1992, p. 8). However, he argues that science is no safe haven of objectivity, devoid of competing ideologies. His ideas not only reveal how he sees the institution of science working within the academy but reveals a particular ideology (which I will clarify in the context of the —Spandrels“ article) operating within the bounds of evolutionary biology. In fact, Lewontin makes no attempt to hide this; nor does he attempt to broaden his investigation to other disciplines. Lewontin‘s general ideas about how to define a social institution find a precursor in Mary Douglas‘ How Institutions Think (1986). Lewontin may not have been aware of her work or the fact she writes about how institutions are legitimized social groupings. Had he cited her, I would have argued his book was highly informed by hers. The connection, though, is obvious (if unintended). In defining her primary term, she writes: —institution will be used in the sense of a legitimized social grouping“ and, more importantly, —the legitimating authority may be personal . . . or it may be diffused, for example, based on common assent of some general founding principle“(1986, p. 46). The key here is to note that the legitimating factor may be something beyond the personal, may be an abstract principle upon which to ground the institution. Douglas explains that this principle needs to cohere with nature. —Here it is assumed that most established institutions, if challenged, are able to rest their claims to legitimacy on their fit with the nature of the universe“ (1986, p. 46). Hers is an encompassing definition that defines institutions as enabled by their grounding atop founding principles. However, Douglas does admit that —minimally, an institution is only a convention“ (1986, p. 46) but that even mere conventions must be justified through being grounded in some greater principle. Thus, for a convention to become a legitimated and legitimating social convention, it needs cognitive elements outside of itself.49 However, this concept of a grounding belief system may strike many old-fashioned positivists as problematic,

49 The language of ideology might have been helpful for Douglas, but she does not enter such a contested and bothered field of inquiry. Instead, she describes the cognitive element in a similar way to Lewontin‘s idea of institutions based on —transcendent truth.“ Douglas writes: —It needs a naturalizing principle to confer the spark of legitimacy . . . thus, the institutions survive the stage of being fragile conventions. They are founded in nature, and therefore, in reason. Being naturalized, they are part of the order of the universe“ (1986, p. 42). The appeal is to some abstraction outside the institution that binds it to the natural world in such a way that makes it true.

107

especially if we use it to define the operation of science as an institution. They might ask why truth needs to be believed. One accepts truth (and its institutions); one does not need to believe in it. Lewontin‘s colleague, Stephen Jay Gould was at the center of examining such elements before his death in 2002 from complications resulting from mesothelioma (for an appreciation letter written at the time of his death see Ruse 2002). In fact, in Gould‘s last book before he died, he candidly mentions that scientists do not want to consider science as an institution:

But the vast majority of us [scientists] will never–and I mean never– even dream about reading technical academic literature from other fields, particularly literature that claims to present deep, critical, and insightful analysis of science as an institution, to reveal the psychology of scientists as ordinary folks with ordinary drives, or to depict the history of science as a socially embedded institution (2003, p. 101).

With this telling admission, Gould demonstrates his ability to admit how knowledge, ideology, and institutions work together as would both thinkers from both cultures. This honest admission, though, began early in his career. He writes in his first collection of natural history essays, Ever Since Darwin, —Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information. It is a creative human activity, its geniuses acting more as artists than as information processors“ (1977, p. 201). Such notions should be no surprise because Gould‘s monthly musings about natural history engaged in a variety of discussions in a variety of fields with little fear of boundary disputes. Not only has he admitted that scientists don‘t like to think of science as an institution, crippled with so much human baggage, but he is known for suggesting that science and the humanities are compatible, that even though we stand on the shoulders of giants and have given up many of our old narratives, we still can find a place for the ineffable stuff of the humanities in a modern world of science. Gould has explored the relationship of the science and the humanities in his last book (detailed in Chapter 5), but he began this project earlier with his idea called

108

N.O.M.A., non-overlapping magisteria. It allows for two independent areas of knowledge legitimation, one for science and one for (in this case) religion. Gould is beloved by liberal theologians and secular humanists because he provides a space for those ineffable realms that positivists think inconsequential. He dedicates a book to the subject of N.O.M.A. and announces that important distinctions can be found, but that these do not disturb the balance of the two domains:

I do not see how science and religion could be unified, or even synthesized, under any common scheme of explanation of analysis; but I also do not understand why the two enterprises should experience any conflict (1999, p. 4).50

Furthermore, in one of his final words on the subject, Gould writes:

Science tries to record and explain the factual character of the natural world, whereas religion struggles with spiritual and ethical questions about the meaning and proper conduct of our lives (2003, p. 87).

Thus, Gould speaks to a variety of disciplines interested in epistemology, metaphysics, theology, art, etc., by allowing for fundamental differences while maintaining a type of consilience, even as he falls into the trap of simplifying science and the humanities via the common duad of fact vs. value. His theory of N.O.M.A. suggests there‘s not only a scientific world of inquiry but a valid place for the great abstractions like god, art, value,

50 Gould published those words one year after his colleague E. O. Wilson wrote his ambitious book about consilience between the major branches of human learning. Gould may have been responding to ideas such as —either ethical precepts, such as justice and human rights, are independent of human experience or else they are human inventions . . . the choice between the assumptions makes all the difference in the way we view ourselves as a species . . . the true answer will eventually be reached by the accumulation of objective evidence. Moral reasoning, I believe, is at every level intrinsically consilient with the natural sciences“ (Wilson 1998, p. 265). As this dissertation has argued Gould would probably read —consilient with the natural sciences“ meaning the magisterium of religion is subsumed within the larger magisterium of science. (1978, p. 172) —I believe that religious practices can be mapped onto the two dimensions of advantage and evolutionary change . . . if the principles of evolutionary theory do indeed contain theology‘s Rosetta stone, the translation cannot be expected to encompass in detail all religious phenomena. By traditional methods of reduction and analysis science can explain religion but cannot diminish the importance of its substance.“ See also, (Wilson 1978; Lumsden and Wilson 1983). Gould often claims such thinking is too reductive for a proper picture of the magisterium of religion, even if it seems to leave a small space for religion to retain its mystery.

109

faith, etc., in the mysterious realm beyond the ceiling of our rational abilities and thought.51 Gould‘s belief that science and the humanities offer different but compatible types of knowledge might explain the conflicting reception of their —Spandrels“ paper. Gould offers an explanation by detailing what he believes to be two major positions in evolutionary biology at the time:

The debate among biologists working in the Darwinian tradition–an identification that Both Dick Lewontin and I accept with pride–focuses on two issues: —hardline“ versus nuanced versions (Selzer 1993, p. 311).

These positions concern versions of how to interpret the role of evolution‘s main Darwinian agent of change, natural selection, and how prevalent this agent is in the evolutionary process. Thus, we see that Gould and Lewontin position themselves contra to what they believe is an orthodox position, the —hardline“ position, made up of Neo- Darwinians who value (they claim) an adaptationist-focused description of evolutionary change.52 From a literary and cultural studies perspective —Spandrels“ is interesting because it presents the metaphor of the spandrel into the debate about evolutionary biology. Regardless of the scientific application (or lack thereof), spandrels (as a concept) is here to stay. What is a spandrel? It is a term Gould and Lewontin borrowed from architecture to describe —the tapering triangular spaces formed by the intersection of two rounded

51 For this analysis, N.O.M.A. helps elucidate why Gould and Lewontin‘s —Spandrels“ has proven of interest: not for its science but for a simple concept (spandrels as non-adaptive by products) that has entered the vocabulary of the academy by appealing to both scientists and humanists. The criticism: that Gould and Lewontin simply provide readers with a curious metaphor instead of a helpful analogy. The justification: that the metaphor works in describing the tensions and debates biologists have over adaptation in evolutionary theory. 52 In the introduction of the anthology devoted to the rhetoric of —Spandrels,“ Jack Selzer clarifies the central issue: —Of particular controversy is the perennial question of just how much adaptation and natural selection explain about the diversity of nature. According to one school of thought within the field [the —hardline“] . . . natural selection is the driving force behind adaptation, evolution, anatomy, and behavior. Natural selection explains nearly everything about evolution and nature‘s diversity . . . Gould and Lewontin, by contrast occupy a different position“ (1993, p. 15). Selzer explains that Gould and Lewontin push for other factors such as random processes and constraints on natural selection. Opponents of Gould and Lewontin often suggest that the orthodox position is misrepresented and that it does contain within its ever-changing borders these other supposedly absent factors.

110

arches at right angles“ (1979, p. 147). In his later examination of the paper‘s effects, Gould tells the story of how he walked into the chapel of San Marco in Venice and looked up at the religious decorations and thought that the architects didn‘t build the spaces to house the designs, that those spaces were filled later with Biblical imagery and only then did the designs seem to be the cause of the structure. We can imagine that upon entering such a building, we might misapprehend this insight and think the building was constructed for the purpose of displaying the visual designs. Gould and Lewontin claim that the decorated areas above and to the left and right of an arch are by-products of architectural constraints. They state their idea clearly: —Spandrels do not exist to house evangelists“ (1979, p. 150). Gould and Lewontin suggest that the adaptationist programme imagines such biological designs (traits as adaptations) as the necessary results instead of by-products of the process of evolution. Such a strong form of adaptationism (as represented by them), then, is their main target. What is this adaptationist programme, according to Gould and Lewontin?

An adaptationist programme has dominated evolutionary thought in England and the United States during the past 40 years. It is based in the power of natural selection as an optimizing agent (1979, p. 147).

Here they present their version of the orthodox position in order to place themselves in opposition to it. They appeal to authority at the end of the —Spandrels“ abstract by suggesting they support Darwin‘s approach, what they call pluralism (see Chapter 5 for more detail on Gould‘s use). This is a term they use for their own ideas of evolutionary change. Pluralism suggests that more than one major mechanism (besides natural selection) is at work in the natural world to cause evolutionary change. The problem is, though, that Neo-Darwinists often describe themselves as pluralists and would probably never claim that natural selection alone is the sole source of change. As many biologists (including Gould) point out, Darwin himself did not believe natural selection alone was the only mechanism of evolutionary change (for Gould‘s use of Darwin as a pluralist, see 1997a). Moreover, any student of Darwin who has read the Origin cannot miss:

111

—Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification“ (Appleman 2001). So, then what is all the fuss about? Gould and Lewontin must have had specific problems with the adaptationist programme. They accuse their opponents of reducing an organism to atomized traits and not accounting for (what they call) an organism‘s bauplan (body plan or blue print). Gould and Lewontin openly align themselves with a line of thinking that values holism over atomism. They value an organistic over a mechanistic approach to evolutionary knowledge. A long history of contention over reductionism and determinism, analysis vs. synthesis, etc., informs their article. Without going into this detailed and convoluted past, we can see that Gould and Lewontin present their ideas up front by demonstrating what they are not. And what are they not? They claim: rigid adaptationists with a penchant for atomizing traits. This may sound like a simple academic tussle with little cultural impact outside its walls. However, Gould and Lewontin may have had more specific targets in mind. One development in evolutionary biology, sociobiology, may have been an oblique target of —Spandrels.“ Sociobiology jetted onto the academic and cultural scene in 1975 with the publication of E. O. Wilson‘s groundbreaking text, Sociobiology: the New Synthesis (see Chapter 2). It is no coincidence that at the time all three men were colleagues at Harvard. Because Lewontin could not attend, Gould presented —Spandrels“ in 1979 at a Royal Society of London Symposium organized by John Maynard Smith, who would later, off- handedly, pen a hostile attack in the New York Review of Books (see Chapter 5). The stage was set for a show-down (see —Introduction“ in Selzer 1993). What was so provocative about sociobiology? In Wilson‘s book he presents the variety of biological life as objects of ethological study. (Nothing highly problematic there.) His last chapter, though, focuses on —man“ as an animal with a specific nature and behavior ready for study. Advocates of sociobiology claim its opponents reacted because of political reasons motivated by a fear that such a move threatens one of the pillars of Western thinking: that humanity is special (Pinker 2002). Yet, such pillars have been under attack in varying degrees since the early Renaissance. Why the uproar over Wilson‘s last chapter? Such thinking (some claim) leads to a type of genetic determinism that ties individual behavioral traits to individual genes. Moreover, Gould and Lewontin

112

may have been reacting against a general tone instead of the specifics of the theory. For example, they may have been reacting to what some see as Wilson‘s deft hegemonic attempt to tilt the scales toward a biologic-centered view of the world. Genetic determinism may have been the hot issue within evolutionary biology. But, within other institutions, Wilson‘s theory suggested a return to a rigid and patriarchal way of thought. Wilson may have had no idea what his provocative book was about to do from a political perspective, but the debate between Wilson and his opponents began in earnest at this point (for a variety of approaches see Gould 2003; Segerstråle 2000; Pinker 2002). As support that —Spandrels“ is an ideological attack on sociobiology, it is enough for me to mention that Gould sees sociobiology —as an application of hardline adaptationism to the interpretation of behavior–in other words, as an orthodoxy“ (Selzer 1993, p. 315). Gould is not equivocal about stating his misgivings with Wilson‘s idea: —I considered the basic argument of sociobiology as flawed, and I was bothered by the political implications of its genetic determinism“ (Selzer 1993, p. 319). Leaving aside the debate over whether sociobiology is deterministic or not (and what that means), we see that Gould overtly states his political intentions. He sees within sociobiology an ideological aspect that has wide ranging effects. In terms of these effects he claims his ultimate goal is between two basic approaches to understanding biological organisms:

Sociobiology is only a miniature or microcosm of the larger issue–one of the grandest themes in all biology, with a pedigree of argument far antedating evolutionary theory itself: the conflict between functional (adaptationist) and formalist approaches to the interpretation of morphology, physiology, and behavior.

And in explaining his and Lewontin‘s intentions with —Spandrels,“ Gould closes the claim with: —We had our eye on these higher stakes“ (Selzer 1993, p. 316). What were these stakes, clarifying the difference in something as fundmanetal (but discipline specific) between biological functionalism vs. formalism. Could his largest project be a humanistic one? Could he be as interested in metaphysics as he is in the scientific method and the natural world?

113

For this brief analysis, a closer look at his first collection of essays reveals what may have been backing —Spandrels.“ The essays in Ever Since Darwin were published between 1973-74, a few years preceding the publication of —Spandrels.“ The —Prologue“ makes it clear that Gould thinks sociobiology operates within a (genetically) —determinist mode“ (1977, p.16). The following essays cover a wide range of subjects, but they form a complete portrait of a man willing to address many of the implications of evolutionary thinking for a wide variety of audiences. For example, he makes the epistemological claim suggesting scientific truth is influenced by —social and political beliefs“ (1977, p. 44). He ventures into theology by admitting many evolutionary ideas are impeded by society‘s unwillingness —to accept continuity between ourselves and nature“ (1977, p. 50). He feels confident in commenting on human society and combating social determinism (1977, p. 237). He even dedicates an entire section to sociobiology where he confronts Wilson. He reminds us that he wants to stop —short of any deterministic speculation that attributes specific behaviors to the possession of specific altruistic or opportunist genes“ (1977, p. 266). He ends the book by predicting —the triumph of Darwinian pluralism“ (1977, p. 270), the very bedrock of —Spandrels“ and its argument.53 Therefore, we should ask: what are the higher stakes? Gould and Lewontin could be playing for how we view human beings and their roles within society. For example, Lewontin appears in line with Gould when he establishes sociobiology as a scientific ideology enforcing a social status quo:

The most modern form of naturalistic human nature ideology is called sociobiology. It emerged onto the public scene about 15 years ago and has since become the ruling justifying theory for the permanence of society as we know it . . . sociobiology is the latest and most mystified attempt to convince people that human life is pretty much what is has to be and perhaps even ought to be (1992, p. 89).

Gould and Lewontin, of course, oppose such approaches. Their ultimate primary fault with such thinking may be the idea that human beings are bound to their present

53 The question of whether his prediction has come true or not (or will come true) is still up for debate.

114

conditions and that they cannot be emancipated. Any theory (they believe) that supports human beings as (genetically or socially) determined or unable to alter their conditions must be suspect.54 A question we might ask is whether Gould and Lewontin should be considered —buccaneers“ or —defenders of truth.“ I take my metaphors from Ullica Segerstråle‘s seminal work on the debate surrounding sociobiology: Defenders of the Truth: the Sociobiology Debate. She sees —Spandrels“ as operating within a —two-step or Trojan- horse approach to breaking down the resistance to a new scientific idea and creating legitimacy“ (2000, p. 120). Segerståle suggests that Gould and Lewontin used the rhetorically adept (but florid) —Spandrels“ to gain journal space. They wanted to draw attention to their real argument and broader goal: supporting anti-adaptationism. She claims that with the use of metaphors and overt rhetoric in —Spandrels“ Gould fully understood that what he was doing was couching his scientific ideas within an —extrascientific shell“ (2000, p. 120). Furthermore, she sees that these slick techniques demonstrate the sophisticated methods scholars in evolutionary biology might use to be heard. Segerstråle asks:

So, were Gould and Lewontin some kind of buccaneers, deliberately breaking the rules in order to break into the biological discussion at the time? Or were they defenders of the ”real‘ truth, fighting the ”counterreformation‘ of sociobiology by any means?“ (2000, p. 120).

I am satisfied that Segerstråle recognizes that the contested issue was one of ideological concern and that Gould and Lewontin‘s article may be considered a Trojan horse. One might suggest that Trojan horses are necessary in war. The Greeks would have lost had not Odysseus and his crew been so wily. Gould and Lewontin most likely believed they were playing for bigger stakes than the recognition of a simple academic paper; the use of

54 Resolving Gould and Lewontin‘s proximate and ultimate aims is not required for my analysis. It is clear they argue as many do in the humanities that they work openly within an ideological framework, whether it be Marxian, Freudian, Derridean, Foucauldian, etc. Our badges are sometimes worn with pride and sometimes with an unavoidable self-consciousness.

115

a metaphor like spandrels was necessary and helpful (and possibly appropriate) in furthering their metaphysical agendas. At the end of the anthology Understanding Scientific Prose, Gould addresses the scholars who‘ve analyzed his use of rhetoric in —Spandrels“ and writes

disciplinary boundaries are false and harmful, especially when we hide behind barricades of jargon and self-reference and shoot arrows of scorn at occasional intruders . . . the authors of this book have made a welcome contribution to the essential and fruitful breaching of barricades. I can give endless abstract and theoretical reasons for the value of such rupturing and commingling (Selzer 1993, p. 333).

Neither is Gould a postmodern cultural critic, nor does he use the nuanced language of Best and Kellner. However, he does see that —rupturing“ should be followed by —commingling.“ Here his words hint at a larger cultural project, that of co-constructive and reconstructive turns in contemporary thought. Moreover, Gould‘s and Lewontin‘s project may not be that far from Best and Kellner‘s and others like myself who would like to see a reconstructed postmodern turn in the arts and sciences via investigations of the TC that values both the sciences and the humanities. If this chapter has at least briefly mapped a broad picture of Gould and Lewontin‘s agenda in —Spandrels,“ its ideological bent as anti-adaptationist, its contention with sociobiology within the institution of the academy, and shown how it works in parallel with impulses within cultural studies, I should ask how their ideas might be used to misrepresent their opponent‘s positions and thereby fall into the trap of any ideological thinking. In examining —Spandrels,“ one scholar expands this idea to ask:

if we understand ideology (as many now do) as a cultural position that emerges only through struggle with opposing interests, we might ask the question about the politics of —Spandrels“ in a negative form: What kinds of practices and positions does the theory undermine or disallow? (Selzer 1993, p. 74).

116

On the surface, Gould and Lewontin claim to challenge what they call the adaptationist programme; however, as we have seen there are general and specific targets (general: functional vs. morphological methodologies in evolutionary biology; specific: sociobiology and its purported social issues). Gould and Lewontin‘s critics, though, say the real enemies are false definitions of determinism and reductionism. Sorting that out is an ongoing challenge.55

Daniel Dennett‘s Response

The philosopher of science and mind Daniel Dennett explores these (and other) issues in Darwin‘s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life. At the beginning of the book, he states his position: —Let me lay my cards on the table. If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone has ever had, I‘d give it to Darwin, ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else“ (1995, p. 21). Regardless of whether this is a form of hagiography and a type of secular Darwinian fundamentalism (as Gould has claimed, see Chapter 5) or not (Dennett 1997; Gould 1997a), Dennett obviously sees Darwin at the center of what some might call a meta-narrative (evolution via natural selection). Dennett does not use his book to argue anything along Lyotard‘s theory or admit his ideas may be totalizing; instead, he paints a portrait of current Neo-Darwinian thinking as stable yet developing. Moreover, he dedicates a few sections to suggesting that Gould‘s ideas have made little impact. If ever there was an articulate critic of Gould, it would be Dennett. Dennett explicitly states he would rather avoid the big question of why Gould would challenge the idea of Darwin‘s dangerous idea, —a universal solvent, capable of cutting right to the heart of everything in sight“ (1995, p. 521). But he can‘t. However, Dennett is gracious and does mention that much of Gould‘s writing aims at combating prejudice on all levels, —particularly against the abuse of scientific research . . . by those who would clothe their political ideologies in the potent mantel of scientific respectability“ (1995, p. 264). Furthermore, Dennett seems as if he is trying to answer the big question of why Gould would reject Darwin‘s idea, by writing: —Gould has never

55 And one that points to Gould‘s re-reading of Wilson‘s consilience (Chapter 2).

117

made a secret of his politics. He learned his Marxism from his father, he tells us, and until very recently he was very vocal and active in left-wing politics“ (1995, p. 309). Dennett writes this as an insider, one who is within the institution, has witnessed such political inclinations, and who spoke to Gould personally, (Dennett 1997). But Dennett can‘t resist offering his own specific hypothesis informing Gould‘s thinking: —I see his antipathy to Darwin‘s dangerous idea as fundamentally a desire to protect or restore the Mind-first, top-down vision of John Locke–at the very least to secure our place in the cosmos“ (1995, p. 309). Gould is saving a special place for humanity. While such insight may be on target, Dennett‘s writing suggests that Gould‘s ideas stand in opposition to this thing called Darwin‘s dangerous idea, 56 but Dennett spends most of his time dedicated to combat what he sees as a myth that surrounds Gould, especially here in America. Dennett claims the myth is that Darwinism is close to extinction and that Gould has successfully refuted Neo-Darwinism. Dennett, of course, thinks neither is true. The real issues at stake, as Dennett sees it, are the metaphysical implications of Darwinism. Dennett sees Gould trying to corral Darwinism within its proper realm: evolutionary biology. Concerning the spread of Darwinism into other realms, Dennett writes:

Opponents of the spread differ sharply over tactics. Just where should the protective dikes be built? Should we try to contain the idea within biology itself, with one post-Darwinian counterrevolution or another? Among those who favored this tactic is Stephen Jay Gould, who has offered several different revolutions of containment. Or should we place the barriers farther out (1995, p. 63)?

It is curious to note that Dennett represents Gould as wanting to keep —Darwinism“ strictly within biology, calling such a demarcation a dike or a barrier. Gould, himself, though claims his agenda is one of storming barricades, one of breaking down barriers between disciplines. What Gould would limit to evolutionary biology is a restrictive use

56 Clearly, Gould hasn‘t built his career around opposing Dennett‘s catchy phrase. Dennett may be representing Gould‘s position through the filter of his own ideas. Dennett, though, admits that Gould‘s appeal goes beyond the halls of science. Concerning Gould‘s copious body of work, he writes —most of this is simply wonderful: astonishingly erudite, the very model of a scientist who recognizes, as my high-school physics teacher once said, that science, done right, is one of the humanities“ (1995, p. 263). Such words do not damn through faint praise. Instead, they reveal Dennett‘s ultimate respect for Gould as a thinker and as a writer, even as he criticizes him.

118

of something as seminal yet complex as —Darwinism“ (i.e., notions like‘s Dennett‘s dangerous idea or of a non-pluralistic use of natural selection), and the fact Dennett dedicates so much space to Gould reflects a key element of elision in the conversation– one that Gould has gone a long way in articulating and revising (see Chapter 5).

Conclusion

Untangling such wild messes is problematic but fruitful. Still, questions remain: is Gould a narrow-minded Marxist ideologue afraid of defining human nature via the implications of current Darwinian thinking? Or is Gould offering new options how to bolster Darwin‘s primary mechanism with other agents of change? Can both of these questions be answered with an understanding that Gould desires two magisteria, one that frees human spirituality from the cold empirical hand of positivism and one that allows for the proper interrogation of the natural world? This chapter has attempted to detail how a particular metaphor from —Spandrels“ represents both a working concept for Gould and Lewontin, as well as show how Gould sees himself struggling with institutional barriers in evolutionary biology. The approach taken follows Best and Kellner toward a reconstructive view of contemporary culture in which literary studies comments on the thinking of a biologist. Evolution and the metaphor of a spandrel have proven that what this chapter seeks is not definitive answers as to the term‘s use or misuse within an academic publication. Instead, this chapter tries to imagine science as an institution people by men and women, often at odds with each other. A few of the specific issues (adaptationism, sociobiology) demonstrate that scientific inquiry is as much colored by the practice of ideological determination as any discussion in the humanities. This chapter‘s aim has been to explore how knowledge legitimation is often the ultimate goal of scholars in both the arts and sciences, and that our given institutions act as both normative and catalytic agents. Finally, this chapter used Gould as an example of how to make a reconstructive postmodern turn, one in which the sciences and humanities form synergistic systems of thought. This chapter works toward the humanist and scientist finding common ground, the first steps taken not toward a dystopian vision of post- human society but toward a working and generative TC.

119

CHAPTER 5

GOULD AS A THIRD CULTURE THINKER: REVISING —DARWINISM“

Introduction

This chapter centers on a hostile comment made by John Maynard Smith in the New York Review of Books about Stephen Jay Gould. It serves us well as an avenue into understanding how Gould‘s project (and what he represents) undermines the sort of narrow use of evolutionary biology and psychology by some Literary Darwinists, as well as how to properly orient ones self to the sciences and humanities via a balanced synergistic approach that does not value one at the expense of the other. The moment is helpful because it also presents a way to cross the supposed popular and professional divide of Gould‘s writing to demonstrate how he is a quintessential Third Culture57 thinker. It is within the medium of popular writing (op-ed pieces, book reviews, articles for popular magazines, essays, etc.,) that we see scientists airing their differences, writing with an openness (and looseness) usually reserved (we imagine) for lunchroom conversations instead of the printed word. What will become evident is that Gould represents a broad approach to solving questions within the life sciences that accepts (and even celebrates) many of the complexities that those of us in literary studies typically find intriguing. This chapter is organized in three parts. First, an introduction to Gould‘s thought; second, a look into Maynard Smith‘s comment and Gould‘s reply; third, a look into Gould‘s professional writing and how he presented his overall approach to evolutionary biology in The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002).58 This chapter highlights a single unorthodox thinker within evolutionary biology. What this chapter attempts to do in examining Gould is to offer an example of a broader approach for literary studies thinkers interested in ideas from the life sciences that runs counter to the adaptationist

57 Henceforth, TC (in this chapter). 58 Henceforth, TSET.

120

focused approach of Literary Darwinism (see Chapter 6). What may be more fruitful for our field is not the trenchant dismissal of critical theory or the militant dismissal of heterodoxies like Gould‘s but the investigation of the TC via a number of coalescing lines, in particular important questions like how is —the human“ being framed and what is the proper relationship between science and the humanities.

Gould Contra Literary Darwinism

I wish to begin with a few of Gould‘s ideas (i.e., his critique of —adaptationism,“ or strict Darwinian functionalism) to assert that a leading evolutionary theorist can be used in opposition to the impulse of Literary Darwinism. The stakes are high–how to conceive of the proper relationship between the science and humanities, how to view the human, etc. In Chapter 3, I detailed how Gould and E.O. Wilson (the grandfather of adaptationist literary theory) present ideas to conceptualize the relationship between science and literature (or, more broadly, science and the humanities); furthermore, in Chapter 6 I argue that Joseph Carroll is ultimately adopting a specific Wilsonian approach within the natural sciences (a consilience of reductive unification) and, with indelicate strokes, painting all of the humanities with it. Risking reducing the juxtaposition to too simplistic a structure, one can say for heuristic purposes that on one side we have Gould and complexity, on the other Carroll‘s version of Wilson and simplicity. The former wishes to celebrate the messy, quirky aspect of human intellectual life that values both the science and humanities with equal weight, while the latter wishes to use the reductive techniques of the natural sciences to unify human learning (with biology becoming the central discipline). Both are valid visions and approaches and both deserve comment. To locate the real difference, I need to explain the Gouldian critique of functionalism that adaptationist focused Literary Darwinists like Carroll have failed to address.59 TSET helps. Gould dedicates his last technical book to challenging the claim

59 What literary Darwinists like Joseph Carroll do not do, and they should do as literary thinkers, is examine the actual concepts of evolutionary theory and how its proponents have utilized them textually (e.g., what is —adaptationism,“ and how have Gould and Richard Lewontin historically defined the concept compared to, say, someone of the stature of an Ernst Mayer?).

121

that the history of biologic life can be extrapolated from processes located within populations (2002, p. 55). This challenge he sets for himself provides the uninitiated (in microcosm) a primary look at Gould‘s version of problems within evolutionary thought: the idea that what happens in populations of organisms (micro evolution) can be extrapolated outward to species and clades (macro). Gould challenges this population- oriented approach within the Modern Synthesis because, as a paleontologist, his geological leanings and interests in global processes place him in a position to look for the macro. He does this because he believes that the triumph of natural selection as the focus of evolutionary change (while valid in most contexts) is restrictive as a sufficient description of natural change. Gould sees this tension beginning with the initial battles of evolutionary thought after the publication of the Origin and continuing all the way up to the blending of Mendelian particulate inheritance with Darwinism into the acceptance of the Modern Synthesis. He sees it continuing to the present day in which a variety of less restraining approaches informs the broadest range of evolutionary thought, from micro biology to evo-devo to paleobiology. Gould‘s final book is an unapologetic exercise in a single point of view (Gould‘s own), done so that he can argue why a more inclusive approach is reflective of how complex biological systems should be conceptualized. Gould‘s narrative is helpful in understanding how such a prominent scientist and theorist could swim so long against the current and have so much success. Gould represents Darwin as working in a social context in which evolutionary change was already being accepted as fact. However, the mechanisms and details of this change were still up for grabs. In particular, Darwin had to contend with best selling but highly criticized ideas in the Vestiges (Chambers 1844) and with Lamarck. Whereas the Vestiges were viewed as popular tripe, Gould presents Darwin‘s struggle to differentiate himself from the progressive functionalism of Lamarck as vital to understanding that Darwin‘s externalism focused on the single level of the organism. Gould reads Lamarck as different from the stereotypical view of him merely as a vitalist who thought evolution occurred through the inheritance of characteristics. Gould reads Lamarck as championing an alternative functionalist/externalist description of evolutionary change but one that marches up a progressive ladder, with adaptation as

122

something tangential that must be explained as the results of a secondary force (opposed to the primary, teleological one) (2002, p. 186). But the mere examination of how Gould presents his version of classical Darwinian history is only a beginning. A major defect of Literary Darwinism (in particular, as a methodological tool for the interrogation of something as complex as the engagement of science and literature) is the neglect of even a casual admittance of major theoretical ideas that run counter to orthodox functionalism in evolutionary biology. In opposition to function, is often form, even though the two should be (as Gould admonishes) taken together. Following his initial description of classical Darwinism‘s victory, Gould provides multiple examples of how the significant debates in evolutionary theory centered around functionalist vs. formalist approaches.60 Gould‘s narrative stems from his early task to understand the importance afforded to Lyellian uniformitarian gradualism and how this turned into a contemporary orthodoxy. Gould‘s thesis should be on the minds of anyone championing evolutionary theory as a tool of literary criticism, if only to understand a major critique of an orthodox position. His thesis about the —hardening“ of the Modern Synthesis argues this —calcification“ occurred in two stages. He claims that the —first phase“ (2002, p. 504) occurred with an initial victory for natural selection with its reinvigoration by Mendelian particulate inheritance and the subsequent restriction of Lamarckism, orthogenesis, and saltationism as alternative mechanisms. Following in the wake of this marriage between Darwin and Mendel (which itself is a major historical episode replete with its own intricacies), Gould sees the first phase culminate with the rise of population genetics and the idea that small differential changes in populations can, via extrapolation based on smooth uniformitarian premises, lead to macro evolutionary change. Gould has set the stage for viewing the —second phase“ orthodoxy he calls Darwinian functionalism in the professional sphere and Darwinian fundamentalism in the popular (see below). It is in this phase that he sees the rise of a rigid focus on adaptationism over an earlier pluralism,

60 What something like Joseph Carroll‘s —Literary“ —Darwinism“ doesn‘t do is even give a nod to formalist/structuralist thought (not formalism in critical theory, i.e., not New Criticism; and not the structuralism of Levi Srauss) that had a huge hand in shaping how Darwin (and those who came after) conceptualized their own theories. Had Carroll called his approach literary Neo-Darwinism, he‘d be on safer ground. But, he constantly refers to —Darwinian“ psychology and —Darwinian“ literary studies, unwittingly signaling his adherence to Victorian era ideas.

123

culminating in the centennial of the publication of the Origin in 1959. Moreover, Gould‘s early career was marked by a famous essay he, along with Richard Lewontin, gave that detailed what they called the adaptationist program (1979, see Chapter 4 for more information), while not long after, Gould was already formulating his overall approach to revising Darwinism via a hierarchical approach and explaining it as an expansion of Darwinism (1982) However, the story that Gould tells about how classical Darwinism became strict Darwinism may simply be a difference of perspective. Where Gould sees hardening, others choose different descriptors. Ernst Mayr has addressed the issue of evolution after the synthesis and sees a —consensus“ where Gould sees a hardening. This may sound merely semantic, but Mayr‘s ideas demonstrate that Gould is actually an acceptable part of the process of defining —Darwinism,“ regardless of the claims backing his terminology. Yet Mayr also speaks of —pluralism“ and —hierarchal levels“ (1988, p. 531) in a way that prefigures Gould. What is disturbing to Mayr is the intimations by Gould and others that Darwinism is dead, when in fact (according to Mayr) many of the novel views have already been detailed by earlier thinkers (1988, p. 534-535). Ultimately, Mayr is helpful by categorizing much of this thinking as —healthy turmoil“ (1988, p. 539) It is what should be expected within a healthy science. From a literary studies perspective, it should be taken as an avenue of investigation into the complexities, not merely as a given to be sidestepped. The legacy of Gould‘s scientific ideas (punctuated equilibria, species selection, hierarchy, etc.) have yet to be determined, and others more steeped in evolutionary history and philosophy will be the judges. Regardless, where Gould becomes an object of study for literary studies is as a poignant example of a TC thinker who understood the need to value both the sciences and humanities as equal branches of learning. However, If Gould is wrong on all accounts regarding his major scientific ideas, the very fact of his academic success requires some comment. Moreover, Gould makes a number of claims suited to investigation by literary studies thinkers. For example, to support his hardening thesis, Gould reviewed the changes of editions of major works (by Simpson, Dobzhansky, and Mayr) of the Modern Synthesis to show that early editions were pluralistic while later ones (through omissions and interpolations) became hardened.

124

(2002, p. 522). The specifics of this interesting piece of literary sleuthing go beyond this dissertation. It is enough to note that Gould himself used the tools of literary and historical criticism to posit a thesis about a textual trend in evolutionary theory that supports a critical reading of current orthodoxy. The same tools could easily see how well his claim stands. This sort of subject matter that might appeal to those interested in utilizing ideas from the life sciences resonates as a challenge to literary studies thinkers to ask: what is Gould‘s legacy as a TC thinker?

Popular Sphere: the Comment and Response

A place to focus may be with a comment that usually gets echoed with sabers rattling by Gould‘s critics, whenever they get the chance. Maynard Smith begins his review, "Genes, Memes, and Minds," of Daniel Dennett‘s Darwin‘s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995) by noting that as a philosopher, Dennett has gotten Darwinism right and that his ideas concerning Darwinism as a universal acid means thinkers will have "to reject or modify much of our current intellectual baggage– for example, the ideas of Stephen Jay Gould, Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor, John Searle, E.O. Wilson, and Roger Penrose (1995, p. 46). Nothing may seem odd about this list. All of these individuals are highly decorated and respected science thinkers. However, later, Maynard Smith attacks Gould (listed first) in a way that doesn't reflect the august nature of his initial mention. Maynard Smith‘s attack ran as follows:

Dennett suggests that criticisms of the neo-Darwinist synthesis come, in the main, from those who are reluctant to believe that they are the product of an algorithmic process and who lust after skyhooks. First among these, he suggests, is Stephen Jay Gould. Gould occupies a rather curious position, particularly on his side of the Atlantic. Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by non- biologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should

125

not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists. All this would not matter, were it not that he is giving non-biologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory“ (1995, p. 46).

He then follows with a brief description of a few of Gould's professional ideas, only to casually dispense with them. He begins with his invitation to Gould's colleague at Harvard, Richard Lewontin, to give a paper at a symposium in London for the Royal Society (see Chapter 4). Gould went in Lewontin‘s stead and offered a joint paper critiquing what they called the adaptationist programme (1979), or Lewontin and Gould‘s belief in the tendency of Darwinian functionalists to see adaptation at work wherever they look. Maynard Smith says the "paper had a healthy effect," and seemed to both support the idea that strong adaptationism is a mistake while, simultaneously, admitting that looking for function in biology is the ultimate goal of the biologist (1995, p. 47). The issue of whether Gould really supported the heretical idea that evolutionary change occurs through saltations or immediate large scale macromutational jumps, Maynard Smith leaves to intimation. And regarding Gould's anti teleological ideas, at once denying progress occurs, while suggesting most of evolutionary history is based on contingencies beyond the ultimate scope of human predictability, Maynard Smith suggests this is what biologists have thought all along.61 The comment about Gould, then, piggybacks along with an almost casual dismissal of Gould‘s ideas and contributions in such a way that begs for examination. Stepping forward a year, we see Gould and one of the other most famous popularizers of evolutionary theory, Richard Dawkins, write mutual book reviews in the academic journal, Evolution. At stake for Dawkins is Gould's anti-teleology; for Gould, it

61 What I find astonishing in a scientist of Maynard Smith's caliber is his off-handed attempt to refute Gould's complex ideas in a book he praises in which Dennett's —embraces Dawkins's notion of a meme" (1995, p. 46). Maynard Smith admits his uneasiness with this speculative notion, admitting no current science exists to explain how ideas may propagate in a Darwinian fashion. What is plain here is the jolting effect of listing Gould's alleged theoretical deficiencies with one of the most speculative theories from the philosophy of biology that looks much more like something you'd see from critical theory. At this point in the review, Maynard Smith moves on to weightier matters, addressing the need for language development seen with thinkers like Pinker and Chomsky, the damage to Gould having been completed. Gould drops off the radar, as if his dismissal is final. (Interestingly, this article did receive a published response, one of the few by Noam Chomsky in the New York Review of Books to address his problems with using Darwinism to explain the development of language.)

126

is Dawkins's alleged misuse of metaphor (—climbing mount improbable“) for describing evolving organisms in a progressive race toward adaptive peaks. In term of politeness, all goes well in both reviews until Dawkins narrows in on a critique of Gould's thinking, whether we can think of evolution as progressive in some way (Dawkins's position) or whether we should think of it as truly a stochastic series of events fully defined by contingencies that deny the concept of progress (Gould's). Dawkins uses Gould's discussion of the Cambrian —explosion“ in Gould‘s book Wonderful Life: the Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (1989) to hint that Gould dances near the heresy of saltationism by describing evolution as having worked differently five hundred million years ago. Dawkins then mentions the Maynard Smith quote from the earlier review of Dennett's book to suggest that Gould has inadvertently misled the American reading public (1997, p. 1019). Gould though is not faultless. As Michael Ruse points out, Gould —had virtually nothing to say about the ideas of Dawkins“ (2000a, 12/26/2007) and thus displays a type of contempt considered damning with faint praise. Gould asserts himself with rhetorical vengeance in his official response to Maynard Smith and Dennett‘s original comments in Darwin‘s Dangerous Idea in two consecutive essays that generated responses by the likes of Steven Pinker (1997) and Dennett (1997). Gould‘s infamous labeling of his opponents as —Darwinian fundamentalists“ had been brewing for even longer (for Gould‘s original comment, see 1992; for the response, see Dennett and Smith 1993; for a good overview the original conflict between Gould and Helena Cronin, see Griffiths 1995).62 In, —Darwinian Fundamentalism,“ Gould is after a few specific things. He wants to present himself as a pluralist, while presenting his opponents as something less inclusive. He does so with an old trick: by appealing to Darwin, an authority figure, to argue that even Darwin understood that natural selection wasn't the only mechanism involved in evolutionary change. I imagine most of Gould‘s critics would agree. The problem, then, seems to be one of emphasis and focus and of what is most interesting about evolutionary theory. Right here at the beginning, we see the heart of Gould's differences with his critics. Gould claims that Darwin knew "that the complex and comprehensive phenomena of

62 An interesting research project would be to chart the contours of such a conflict between Gould and his critics beyond Sterelny‘s examination of Gould and Dawkins‘s professional differences (2001)

127

evolution could not be fully rendered by any single cause, even one so ubiquitous and powerful as his own brainchild [natural selection]" (1997a, p. 34). With Gould's focus on pluralism, he provides a tell that reveals the heart of his project and, most importantly, one that runs counter to much of how science is perceived to be practiced. Gould's ideas are synergistic in a way that runs counter to the sole use of analysis and reduction whereby systems are broken into their atomistic parts (as much as possible) in order to classify, define, and understand them. While certainly not opposed to such endeavors (Gould often stated he was a benchtop scientist who considered himself a tradesmen), much of Gould's theorizing tends to learn toward a synthetic approach often associated with Continental thinking and, importantly for this dissertation, humanistic thinking. Gould argues that something has happened within evolutionary theory; he conceptualizes this occurrence with the language of religious connotation. He claims to see the irony that current thinking is a type of Darwinian fundamentalism that shares "a conviction that natural selection regulates everything of any importance in evolution and that adaptation emerges as a universal result and ultimate test of selection‘s ubiquity" (1997a, p. 34). The question one thinks to ask right away is whether this movement exists as Gould says it does or whether his particular description is skewed (see 1988). Gould has responded in force by describing this disciplinary stance as dogmatic, exemplified by the echoing of the offhanded but damaging comment by Maynard Smith, because Gould feels that some thought and methodologies of certain approaches within biology have been neglected. For example, Gould's colleague, Niles Eldredge, who coined the term Ultra-Darwinism (1995) argues that in the past geneticists had kept paleontologists from the —high table“ because of prejudices against different methods and objects of study (the micro over the macro, to reduce such a complexity to a catch phrase). The professional barriers ran deep, and Gould as one of the most vocal outsiders of the Modern Synthesis is important because his depictions of evolutionary orthodoxy as religious and fanatical reflects as much about his own thinking as his opponents‘. Gould‘s consideration of himself a —pluralist,“ a term loaded with historical weight (used in conjunction with Darwin himself), should alert us to the overall message and ethos of Gould's theoretical corpus.

128

The question becomes one of emphasis. Gould wants to focus on a wide range of agents and levels of interaction. While he may not be the only pluralist, he represents a type of strong pluralist who wishes to throw his net as wide as possible. To remind us he is a —Darwinian“ he tells us that

Natural selection, an immensely powerful idea with radical philosophical implications, is surely a major cause of evolution, as validated in theory and demonstrated by countless experiments.

Then he offers a question that reflects the difference in his approach, "But is natural selection as ubiquitous and effectively exclusive as the ultras propose" (1997a, p. 34)? This sums up Gould‘s career of opposition: questioning orthodoxy over what he later calls the agency, efficacy, and scope of natural selection (see below). What is really happening within evolutionary theory is the ongoing return to questions about the importance of natural selection. And Gould wants to be at the head of this. This leads us closer to Gould's professional dispute that underlies the ideas that surfaced with the Maynard Smith moment. His primary goal has been to spend a career, in one way or another, critiquing what he calls in his technical writing —pure Darwinian functionalism“ (2002, p. 44) of the adaptationist programme. He sees this program, with its focus on how an "organism's form, function, and behavior" (1997a, p. 34) become the focus of how it achieved reproductive success, acting as a central —dogma“ for the orthodoxy. Gould, rightly or wrongly, foregrounds this sort of drama in religious terms to describe his own part in it: he sees himself as a wrongly stigmatized apostate. In order to dispel such an idea he states plainly in the popular sphere:

I (along with all other Darwinian pluralists) do not deny either the existence and central importance of adaptation, or the production of adaptation by natural selection. And, yes again, I know of no scientific mechanism other than natural selection with the proven power to build structures of such eminently workable design (1997a, p. 35).

129

Having stated that his apostasy is an injustice, he follows with a question. "But does all the rest of evolution . . . flow by simple extrapolation from selection's power to create the good design of organisms" (1997a, p. 35)? Again, the challenge is to the importance of natural selection. The statement and question sum Gould's position as an evolutionary theorist and provides a hint into his more technical ideas (see below). What Gould wants to argue is the importance of emphasizing non-selective- focused forces, both biological and historical. He sees evolution as constrained along developmental and historical pathways. Yet, a wide variety of biological organisms with numerous adaptive traits exist. Gould's focus is on the former because it allows him to also examine the constraints that may have influenced the biological. Thus, the disciplinary difference between, say, a geneticist and a paleontologist arises. The former looks at the chemical makeup of objects such as chromosomes, the latter at historical fossils buried in sediment. His focus away from the importance of adaptations and, instead, the importance of constraints stems from his need to explain an empirical issue within the fossil record: the empirical fact of long periods of stasis punctuated by rapid periods of evolutionary change ( for the problematization of the concept of constraints, see Sterelny and Griffiths 1999). For Gould, what is being recorded is not simply the life and death of individual organisms, but those of entire populations: species. By conceptualizing species as Darwinian —individuals,“ Gould argues you can see other nonselective agents important for understanding the evolutionary history of life (like his favorite historical example: the bolide impact at the end of the Cretaceous).63 In Gould‘s second article, "Evolution: the Pleasures of Pluralism," he focuses his energies on responding to Dennett's original argument in Darwin‘s Dangerous Idea,64 as well as extends his critique to evolutionary psychology (a move that evoked the ire of

63 Numerous examples can be found in his texts in which he discusses the implications that a celestial object probably had something considerable to do with the diminishment of the dinosaurs and the opening of a space for the eventual rise of mammals. 64 (See Chapter 4.) The problems crystallized in print for Gould with the publication of Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), what Gould calls "the ultra's philosophical manifesto of pure adaptationism." Gould attacks what he sees as a focus on biology as engineering: "the entire history of life becomes one grand solution to problems in design" (1997a, p. 36). The problem, as Gould points out with a quote from biologist David Allen Orr, is that not all engineering seems to be good engineering and so what interests biologist isn't simply detailing the perfections of adaptations. Again, messiness comes into play as a central actor. Or as Gould puts it in his typical literary fashion, "the record of life contains many more evolutionary things than are dreamt of in Dennett's philosophy" (1997a, p. 36).

130

Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, see below). Gould sees Dennett critiquing three particular concepts: punctuated equilibrium, spandrels, and contingency because, Gould claims, they "work as pluralistic correctives to both the poverty and limited explanatory power of the ultra-Darwinian research program" (1997b, p. 47). Again, what seems to be at issue is focus and interest. Gould seems to be after what he perceives to be a bigger problem: the championing of a strong use of natural selection merely as continuation of the original sociobiological project, which later morphed into evolutionary psychology. Gould writes,

Humans are animals and the mind evolved; therefore, all curious people must support the quest for an evolutionary psychology. But the movement that has commandeered this name adopts a fatally restrictive view of the meaning and range of evolutionary explanation (1997b, p. 50).

What, in particular, does Gould think is wrong with evolutionary psychology? He claims the concept of modularity, originally used in neuroscience to help explain the complexity of such an integrated mental organ like the brain, is used by evolutionary psychologists like David M. Buss, Cosmides, and Tooby to explain behavior in such a way that said behavior is natural, or inherent. Universality deployed to detail innate difference, e.g., that men and women have universal behavioral differences, is what triggers his political resistance. Moreover, adaptation is seen as a problem even though evolutionary psychologists have advanced its study by no longer claiming all behavior is adaptive. Their argument is that modern living has removed us from the arena in which we evolved and that our behaviors and environments no longer mesh. Gould applauds this but claims evolutionary psychologists draw the wrong conclusions. Instead of seeing behavior as non-adaptive, they say our behaviors were once adaptive but are no longer. "The task of evolutionary psychology then turns into a speculative search for reasons why a behavior that may harm us now must once have originated for adaptive purposes" (1997b, p. 51). The problem, for Gould, is that trying to understand what was once adaptive requires speculative inference and should not be considered the sort of science it is pretending to be. What Gould wants, he claims, is caution because of how easily such

131

"findings" travel into the social realm (e.g., extrapolating out from the idea that men are more promiscuous because they have less energy to lose in the reproductive process to broader claims about differences between men and women). This second article inspired an unpublished letter to the New York Review of Books by leading evolutionary psychologists Cosmides and Tooby (1997). The importance of the response for this dissertation lies not in the interesting and important technical details between Gould and evolutionary psychology but in the fact the article seems to go steps beyond the more subtle attack by Maynard Smith to encapsulate the sort of hostility and rancor leveled at Gould by some of his critics, while actually offering viable critiques of Gould (i.e., evolutionary psychologists utilize adaptationist scenarios because of their predictive utility instead of using drift or contingency).65

Professional Sphere: a Career of Opposition

These two articles and the earlier pieces in Evolution, taken together, act as spaces for literary studies thinkers to examine a few central arguments within evolutionary biology and how they extend outward to other disciplines without relying on the adaptationist focused tendencies of evolutionary literary studies approaches like Literary Darwinism (Chapter 6). What we notice is that evolutionary theorists like Wilson, Gould, and Dawkins operate in two primary worlds: the professional world of peer reviewed academic articles and the popular world of book reviews and op-ed pieces. The former can be illuminated by the latter with careful review. My use of these articles from the New York Review of Books has been utilitarian instead of polemic regarding the issues they address. I use them to demonstrate two things: 1) that the history and

65 What is evident is that Gould fell afoul of a few primary voices in evolutionary theory, and a thinker like Joseph Carroll (next chapter) seems to have taken his queues from them in order to bolster a reactionary position within the field of literary studies, a position itself constrained and determined by a very different history. Moreover, an interesting literary studies project might be to see how Carroll follows Maynard Smith and echoes Dennett‘s, then Cosmides and Tooby‘s critique with his impoverished one without using the necessary tools of literary studies to challenge them. For example, Cosmides and Tooby level a criticism of Gould that he misrepresents views of evolutionary spokesmen by quoting a line from Ernst Mayr‘s important text on the philosophy of biology: —Ernst Mayr says of Gould and his small group of allies . . .“ (1997) The problem though is that Mayr doesn‘t single out Gould or suggest he has his own small group of allies. Mayr is writing about —Almost all the critics of the synthesis,“ (1988, p. 535) not just Gould.

132

philosophy of evolutionary biology is a rich and fruitful place where the totalizing use of evolutionary psychology and a whitewashed —Darwinism“ isn‘t reflective of the actual thought across the broadest range of disciplines 2) that Gould sees himself as a key thinker in the ongoing process of revising Darwinism.66 Gould‘s hefty book, while —technical“ and reflective of the professional thought of his career, is also highly literary. It is in this blending (or hybridization) that Gould demonstrates that he has feet in both worlds, the literary and the scientific, and proves to be an interdisciplinarian of the first order. TSET is constructed so that Gould can detail his overall project: presenting a hierarchical model of revision for —strict“ Darwinism. He does this by charting his academic career, but also by presenting his theories in a complex schema that utilizes a variety of methods from literary criticism and art history to intellectual biographies and straight empiric descriptions.67 TSET is vital to understanding Gould‘s final thoughts, and I will move through some of these ideas as a way to demonstrate how he represents a proper balance between the sciences and humanities. In particular, Gould problematizes —Darwinism“ in a vital way, one that literary studies can appreciate as a necessary first step in any further use. At the beginning of TSET, Gould starts with a nod toward literary technique by explaining the use of —structure“ in his title. He jumps directly into the exegesis of

66 The question of whether Gould‘s legacy as a reviser will stand is beyond the scope of this dissertation. It should be noted that what is at stake for literary studies is the recognition that the field of evolutionary biology has its own interesting history. Moreover, Gould‘s ideas can be viewed through the lenses of the two worlds mentioned above. For this dissertation I chose a few book reviews, but his three hundred natural history essays written for —This View of Life“ in Natural History also provide a way into his core ideas (for a quantitative review of his three hundred essays, see Shermer 2002). In terms of supporting the overall thesis of Chapter 6, that the Literary Darwinism of Joseph Carroll utilizes a narrow form of evolutionary theory to more easily provide a critique of Evolutionary Psychology and the presentation of his own literary methodology, Gould‘s last and final —technical“ book, TSET, reflects the core ideas of an academic career of opposition and functions as a vital corrective for such misuses of ideas from the life sciences like Carroll‘s. 67 The reviews of the book typically point out the major problem someone might have with first encountering it: difficult style (see Barash 2002). Others allow leeway for Gould‘s stylistic choices but contest him on central ideas, like the relative frequency of species selection (Futuyma 2002; Sterelny 2003). Regardless, the book is a challenge for any literary studies thinker, simply as a text that reflects the mind of its author. In all fairness, after working through something like The Order of Things, Gould‘s book isn‘t so daunting. One realizes that the disparaging tone of those who fault him for his style may be because those readers are used to more straightforward texts, while those of us in literary studies familiar with French professional writing have cut our teeth with greater semantical and syntactical challenges, e.g., Derrida‘s Of Grammatology (1997). My own guess as to the reason for the difficulty of Gould‘s writing style is that in preparation for the book he spent much time reading, not only Darwin, but writers of earlier generations given to more convoluted writing styles (and was, thus, influenced by them).

133

historical texts by mentioning Hugh Falconer and his comment that Darwin created a foundation whose superstructure may one day be altered by its successors (2002, p. 2). Gould follows this metaphor with Darwin's response that he hopes the —framework“ will stand. Gould then demonstrates his synergistic approach to knowledge building with the application of a close literary reading. He suggests that Falconer and Darwin provide two different readings of how to view —classical Darwinism,“ or descent with modification via natural selection. Gould offers a heuristic device: Falconer's foundations vs. Darwin's framework. Falconer, we are told, sees the foundation as secure but with the possibility of major change in the future, while Darwin's language suggests he sees more of his framework remaining the same, albeit with some change. Gould uses this literary structure to foreground the architectural metaphor for a reason: he creates the image of foundations and frameworks as a tool to explain his own position. He sees himself closer to Falconer, wherein he argues that he retains the core (foundations) of Darwinian thinking yet sees revisions (to the framework) since the centennial of the publication of the Origin in 1959. Moreover, Gould sees his own scholarly and scientific career coalescing in a few ideas that expand this new superstructure. Moreover, the architectural metaphor doesn't end merely with comments about the structures of foundations and frameworks; he sees the development of evolutionary theory like a cathedral, with annexes and ornaments added over the years. This is the "structure of evolutionary theory" (2002, p. 5) that Gould details in his book. His primary question that informs the book is

shall we except Darwin's triumphalist stance and hold that the framework remains basically fixed . . . or shall we embrace Falconer's richer and more critical, but still fully positive concept of a structure that has change in radical ways" (2002, p. 5-6)?

Most of Gould‘s career has been, in the spirit of Falconer, an examination how the structure has changed. His last book is his final comment. But to detail this in a single text, Gould recognizes a problem inherent from the start with representation (see Chapter 2 with my comments on Foucault). Again, he

134

reflects his sensitivity to issues important to literary thinkers and philosophers when he writes that the "discourse" (2002, p. 6) of such an endeavor requires a working definition of "Darwinism" or "Darwinian theory." He recognizes the problem with such concepts as —things“ and suggests a middle road in which we imagine —things“ as having some sort of understandable essences, without attributing to them so much they become rigid concrete items. He admits this is an easy way out of the rich philosophical conversation (again, demonstrating sensitivity to humanistic and literary thinking) concerning Platonic essences. He does this, though, so that he can justifiably call himself a Darwinian. Still, more work must be done, and he must define what he means. What Gould is after is "shared content" (with the tradition of classical Darwinism) that details a "minimal list of the few defining attributes of the theory's central logic" (2002, p. 10). Ever the rebel, Gould admits that he is championing a type of outmoded essentialism, but this is presented in a way that seems pedagogical, as if to even begin such a discussion one must take for granted a working definition.68 So, theoretical and organic essences are taken as starting points for explanatory reasons that highlight the concept, again, of structure. (2002, p. 10-11).69 He provides this curious introductory material so that he can explain his approach to his one long argument. Gould has a penchant for triads and he uses them frequently. In particular, furthering his architectural metaphor, he provides a —tripod“ of support for his definition of Darwinism. The tripod reflects his construction of Darwinism with three principles or themes that Gould sees himself revising, yet still allowing them to retain their fundamental essences (or, to use the original metaphor, foundations). What we are not getting is a broad survey of evolutionary thought. What Gould offers is his own idiosyncratic "historical analysis" (2002, p. 12) of how evolutionary theory developed to a point where Gould sees himself revising and correcting strict Darwinism. To stay within the spirit of his own discipline, he switches the metaphor from architecture to biology, the tripod becoming a three branched coral. The three fundamental principles he

68 Gould admits the use of essence as a concept need not fall into the Platonic trap of hypostatizing ideas into things (forms and ideals), but instead the use returns us to a specific time in the history of evolutionary thought that highlights the differences in fundamental differing views of evolutionary history 69 Here, Gould is also, intertextually, referring to the broad disciplinary concept of structuralism, which in the history of biology is a Continental idea focusing on formalistic and internalist mechanisms and forces for a description of morphology, and which is opposed to the now (what Gould sees as) orthodox functionalist position

135

uses to define classical Darwinism fall in three categories: agency, efficacy, and scope. Agency reflects Darwin's focus of selection at the level of the organism. Efficacy focuses on how the originally conceived mechanism of natural selection as a weak and negative force (a culling that eliminates the unfit) could, under some circumstances, be seen as a strong, positive force (actually creating fitness). Scope reflects the concept of extrapolation, that microevolution can explain, given the fastness of geological time via uniformitarian principles, the varieties of macroevolution (2002, p. 12-15). The metaphor of the coral, instead of a tripod, becomes important for Gould because it reflects an organic thing that grows upwards. The three branched coral reflects the three principles or themes (agency, efficacy, scope), but each branch/theme has elements that must remain intact for them to be considered —Darwinian,“ while they each have aspects of revision as well. The metaphor of the coral works well because Gould argues that the primary branches each have been cut but not so deeply they are destroyed. For example, the ideas that natural selection work at the organismic level, that it has a creative role to play, or that extrapolation can explain the diversity of life are still valid ideas within evolutionary theory. The branches are intact and alive. Gould lets us know this to argue he is a true —Darwinian“70 and the theory's basic structure or branches have remained. But, he says there have been revisions. The metaphor is of weaning a branch so that the root doesn't die but a new branch grows from the old. Gould thinks there have been substantial cuts (revisions) and regrowths to each branch of the coral (Darwinism). Gould argues that the first major cut along the central branch of agency occurred in the last part of the twentieth century after a —hardening“ (or calcification) of Darwinian theory occurred, after which the organismic level of selection was widened to a hierarchal model that looked for selection along a continuum from "genes, cell lineages, organisms, demes, species, and clades" (2002, p. 21). The major revision along the second branch, efficacy, argues that the creative force of natural selection has been adumbrated with the structuralist/internalist focus on constraints channeling evolution. And finally scope is revised with a focus on how microevolution works in tandem with non-extrapolatory

70 Gould here demonstrates he does not operate within the context of current literary and cultural studies, where the need for such labels reveals a lack of awareness of the term‘s arbitrary nature. —Darwinism“ has shifted and continues to shift, even if a shared degree of consensus can be found concerning the term.

136

concepts like the importance of punctuated equilibrium on species sorting or the recognition that nonselective forces like the KT extinction event from a celestial object has a major impact on biologic evolution (2002, p. 18-21). Furthermore, Gould suggests his book should be conceptualized in three ways: 1) its structure 2) its justifications and 3) its particular insights. The structure, again a triad, is broken into a beginning portion that analyzes the agency, efficacy, and scope of Darwinian logic (Chapter 2). This section is placed at the beginning because Gould is, essentially, explaining how (in his opinion) classical Darwinism —hardened“ into strict Darwinism. The bulk of the book details this Gouldian history of how the above logic was first challenged by detractors in a negative way, then positively (chapters 3-12). The book details this positive critique, of which Gould sees himself as an example. In particular, in terms of agency, the move from a single level of focus to a hierarchical; in terms of efficacy, focusing as much on internal constrains as external; and in terms of scope moving beyond extrapolation to see other macroevolutionary elements involved in evolutionary change. But, his book does more than this, conceptually. Gould feels a need to justify his career of opposition. And so the book can be read in this way, as well (2002, p. 48-50). In a section labeled "Apologia Pro Vita Sua: A Time to Keep," Gould attempts to explain both the personal and professional reasons why such book be written. Gould spends much of his introduction attempting to explain, not only his position, but the rational for his content (both the technical and literary). This reflects his synergistic approach to knowledge building that blends the professional and popular. In effect, with this last and most monumental book he provides a blend of essays and treatises. His explanation is that they both provide valuable knowledge. Moreover, Gould feels he needs to explain why such a literary device (the essay) and its use of personal expression should be used in a (usually sterile) scientific treatise. Gould sees himself working in a long tradition within science, from Galileo to Darwin to R.A. Fisher, that utilizes the personal and idiosyncratic tools of literary thought (2002, p. 34). Furthermore, Gould admits his work is imbued with the historical, an area of knowledge building within the humanities vital to an understanding of current evolutionary thought. What is evident is that Gould has spent a career moving away from

137

the orthodoxy of the Modern Synthesis, originally as a die-hard panselectionist (2002, p. 40-41), and, in his writing, attempting to explain his discontent with his original position and why he began searching for broader explanations. What, exactly, has he done? The narrative he tells explains that as a young paleontologist he became interested in macroevolution because of the empirical fact that the fossil record appears to reflect long periods of stasis punctuated by rapid (in geological terms) periods of evolutionary change. For Gould, this focus on stasis seemed contrary to the understood use of Lyellian gradualism. Moreover, with the focus in systematics toward cladistics, Gould noticed that the well documented trends (those attributes of organisms similar enough to put them in particular clades) were not explained via their Darwinian adaptive aspects. It was through these academic interests that led Gould (and his colleague, Niles Eldredge) to formulate the pro-stasis approach of punctuated equilibrium and the rethinking of Darwin's level of selection from the individual as organism to the individual as a species. Gould represents himself as coming to his big ideas later, after they formulated themselves in differing areas. He sees disparate reasons that inform his combined anti- functionalist themes. For example, his concept of biological spandrels were gleaned from an experience of walking beneath a cathedral of San Marco and seeing the ecclesiastical designs in the pendentives (also called spandrels, a triangular space where two walls meet to hold up a dome) (Selzer 1993). Also, his creation, with Elizabeth Vrba, of a neologism for adaptations that were once used for selective purposes but have gained a new utility, exaptations, followed along similar lines of interest (Gould and Vrba 1982). Other reasons are highlighted as well, such as his interest in continental, structuralist morphology. And, finally, his growing suspicion of adaptationist-oriented thinking for social behavior (which includes human), sociobiology, in using speculative (according to him) ideas that link behavior with past adaptation. Add to these an interest in historical methods and their applications within social fields, and we understand why Gould sees himself in a privileged position to comment on what he considers to be a hardening of Darwinian theory (2002, p. 37-46). It is up to historians and philosophers of biology to determine if his effort was worthwhile. For literary studies, the effort enough is worthy of interest. In the end, we see that the concept of —Darwinism,“ itself, is highly complex and

138

highly problematized and that Gould is a stellar TC thinker with equal regard for the domains of the sciences and the humanities.

Conclusion

In conclusion, approaches to Gould (and concepts related to the life sciences) within literary studies will stumble if they fail to recognize how key ideas and categories within evolutionary biology have been problematized. In opposition to such failures, Gould‘s own ideas as a historian of biology act as antidote. These categories have already been problematized by philosophers and historians and should, in the least, be mentioned by literary studies thinkers using them to wield such mighty programs as, for example, the melding of literature and human nature. Moreover, TSET stands as a prime example of how Gould himself problematized the concept of Darwinism and argued that his career was one merely of revision instead of expulsion. What should be a careful look into the exciting space opened up by TC thinkers like Gould, Dawkins, and Wilson is at risk of becoming a reactionary polemic in the supposed —science wars“ if we follow the example of some Literary Darwinists.

139

CHAPTER 6

EVOLUTIONARY LITERARY STUDIES: THE FAILURE OF LITERARY DARWINISM

Introduction

At the heart of a project called Literary Darwinism is the issue of how to view the humanities relative to the sciences. Victorian studies thinker Joseph Carroll follows the lead of evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson in moving the social sciences and humanities under the umbrella discipline of biology (see Chapter 3). In Carroll‘s quest to promote a particular view of human nature supposedly in opposition to the implications of postmodern cultural theory (in particular, poststructuralism) and to subsume the humanities under the life sciences (e.g., evolutionary biology, cognitive science, evolutionary psychology), he has much abused Third Culture71 ideas. This chapter begins with a look at similar ideas from evolutionary literary theory in a current anthology called The Literary Animal: Evolution and Nature of Narrative (Gottschall and Wilson 2005) to demonstrate that even an anthology heavily influenced by evolutionary psychology is less problematic than what Carroll offers. This chapter then provides an overview of Carroll‘s ideas, as presented in Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature (2004) to demonstrate that Carroll‘s project paints the broader field of evolutionary literary theory with the tarnished strokes of a political agenda that caricatures poststructuralism in hopes of restoring an earlier conception of literature. This chapter draws the conclusion that the engagement of the TC by literary and cultural studies thinkers does not necessarily lead to the narrow misuses of scientific ideas by Literary Darwinists like Carroll. It demonstrates that what Carroll, in particular, does is grievous: he presents a set of theoretical ideas from evolutionary biology and psychology as if they directly apply to the humanities, and then with vitriol and spite, dismisses contemporary critical theory (not just its most speculative forms) in favor of his own reactionary methodology. It ends with Carroll‘s vicious misreading of

71 Henceforth, TC (in this chapter).

140

Stephen Jay Gould that reflects the overtly political nature of Carroll‘s agenda. Ultimately, this chapter functions within this dissertation to demonstrate the dangers of accepting key concepts from the life sciences without fully problematizing them.

Literary Animal

Jonathan Gottschall teams up with the evolutionary theorist David Sloan Wilson to provide the first anthology that reflects the narrow use of a particular type of Darwinian thinking for literary theory, The Literary Animal (Gottschall and Wilson 2005). With forwards by E.O. Wilson and Frederick Crews, the editors of The Literary Animal have brandished the big guns to introduce their new anthology. One year on the heels of Literary Darwinism, the new anthology seems to be a companion piece to the earlier book. While this is not, technically, the case, it does mostly follow Carroll by advocating a strict use of evolutionary psychology as a ground for the reevaluation of aesthetic and literary studies. The introduction is a concise, well-written account of how both editors met and began to work together. Gottschall, as a PhD student in an English department, had trouble finding a committee that would allow him to apply Darwinian ideas to the Iliad. He found a solution outside his department with biology and anthropology professor David Sloan Wilson who expresses his consternation that literary studies hasn't reflected the rise of interest in evolutionary theory by other humanities and social sciences disciplines. But what is the unique focus of the new anthology? The editors are clear in their intentions:

This book has multiple goals . . . we aim to forever establish evolution as part of the normal discourse in literary studies, while directing the attention of evolutionists to literature (and other art) as a fundamental product of human nature, as a source of insight, and even as a source of data that can be analyzed quantitatively (2005, p. xxv).

141

This important statement details that the program has two primary objectives. 1) They hope to insert evolutionary ideas into literary studies to affect the discourse of the humanities. 2) However, they admit that their goals are broader, and they hope to make evolutionists see the value of studying literature. What is at stake is the biologic function of art: either as an important adaptation that had definite selective power in our evolutionary history, or as something more like a byproduct (or co-opted trait of that past) that is now the end result of a long series of improvements. For the editors to succeed with their two goals, they need to answer a few primary questions. They state that the theme of their anthology seeks to know what literature is about, what it is for, and how literature can be approached using scientific methods (2005, p. xxv). The first two themes are certainly standard topics within literary studies. But the application of the scientific method to the stuff of literariness or aesthetics has proven to be difficult and reflects a key issue that distinguishes the domains of the sciences and the humanities and resists the sort of consilience that E.O. Wilson is after (Chapter 2). David Sloan Wilson attempts to explain what is often seen as a primary impediment to knowledge building between the sciences and the humanities: the epistemological squabble over how to interrogate reality. For D.S. Wilson "Evolutionary Social Constructivism" acts as road map to navigate between the antipodal epistemological poles of positivism/realism vs. social construction/relativism. It also reflects a curious aspect of the title of the book, in comparison with Carroll‘s. Literary —Darwinism“ vs. Literary —Animal“. This juxtaposition reveals that Darwinism has been replaced with Animal. The subject is organism, not a narrow method based on a misreading of a 19th century concept (Darwinism as descent with modification via natural selection) with the sciences. With his paper, D.S. Wilson offers a hope of meeting in the middle between evolutionary theory and social construction and, in so doing, offers a quasi-Lamarckian definition of social evolution that isn‘t consistent with the more rigid form of Darwinism used by Carroll. The literary —animal,“ then, problematizes —Darwinism“ via the term‘s noted absence when compared to the title of the earlier text. Moreover, D.S. Wilson frames his argument around the idea that the opponents of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology do not contest the fact of evolution; they question how central natural selection is to the evolutionary process and just what this

142

process can tell us about human affairs. He sees the opponents of an evolutionary based approach as within the constructivist's camp and seeks to find a middle ground, arguing that "the heart of social constructivism can be given an evolutionary formulation" (2005, p. 20). Conversely, he sees the broad field of evolutionary psychology benefiting from the incorporation of constructivist ideas D.S. Wilson acts as a corrective to Carroll in many ways, primarily in his helpful acknowledgement that the two camps of the supposed —science wars“ can find common ground. He analyzes the standard positions between realist and constructivist thought regarding evolutionary psychology and suggests there are three positions usually taken from an evolutionary perspective. E1 is the standard position of evolutionary psychology (as already mentioned above) that focuses, among other things, on adaptations evolved in our Pleistocene past to explain biological complexity and behavior. E2 represents that —there is more to evolution than genetic evolution“ (2005, p. 21); in particular, psychological or cultural processes are also evolutionary. E3 focuses on the critique of adaptationism in evolutionary theory, arguing —there is more to evolution than adaptation“ (2005, p. 22). D.S. Wilson then provides two basic positions for social constructivists. S1 views humans and societies as enormously flexible, but not totally, while S2 sees unconstrained flexibility in which anything goes and is possible for individuals or society.72 Wilson suggest that the position —most closely associated with sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, provides substantial support for S1“ (2005, p. 23). What D.S. Wilson is getting at is the idea that organisms evolve by responding to their environments. The plasticity provided them comes, in its most basic form in if/then rules. The environment poses a situation to which the organism must respond. D.S. Wilson hopes the recognition of the importance of environment to social constructivists should be evident; however, he doesn‘t detail how something like consciousness, the mind, or even the social can be defined out of these simple rules. Where D.S. Wilson helps is in the recognition that in terms of human culture, we can certainly do things in our environment. He cautions, though, that plans of action must be informed plans, which

72 Both S1 and S2 leave out the problem of —man and his doubles“ (that is, the relativism introduced by the realization that the knowledge we produce about ourselves can also be taken as an object for knowledge). This problem (as I have noted in Chapter 2) has been a central one in the humanities.

143

mean have an understanding of what sort of basic evolutionary architecture is responding to the environment. It is in this understanding that he sees a meeting in the middle. Evolutionary theory provides some basic places to begin: in particular, —flexibility.“ But D.S. Wilson doesn‘t stop there; he recognizes how important —narrative“ is for literary studies and that literary studies is dominated by constructivist assumptions. He sees narrative as a key non-genetic evolutionary process that stems from the position outlined as E2, where there is more to evolution than genetic evolution. D.S. Wilson sees himself helping social constructivists helping themselves by becoming more sophisticated in their understanding of evolutionary processes. In particular, he sees story creation functioning as gene propagation functions, but within the cultural sphere (but he does not problematize this claim or draw the very important distinction of just how stories are not genes). For D.S. Wilson narrative is made up of stories (transmittable information), be they emergent from inherent cognitive properties or even conceptualized as fully non- genetic processes).73 D.S. Wilson stumbles, though, in the midst of such a helpful framework in bridging the epistemological gap when he mentions another article in the anthology, Daniel Nettle's "What Happens in Hamlet? Exploring the Psychological Foundations of Drama," to suggest that the themes most important to a nonhuman primate would be those "most prominently featured in Shakespeare and indeed all literature" (2005, p. 29). Nettle‘s article is an interesting attempt at consilience of equal regard between cultural studies and evolutionary psychology (2005, p. 73). Nettle seeks to understand why drama is so popular and what, if any, an evolutionary understanding can do for us in elucidating this. In a section that informs his critical analysis of drama, he explains how our evolutionary past might help. He suggests that we and our primate cousins both live in highly dynamic social environments made up of groups and cliques. As Nettle sees it, nonhuman primates, grooming acts as a —social glue“ for the entire group, while for human primates conversation is key, which ultimately tends to reflect our fundamental

73 D.S. Wilson sees a broad range of applications for this concept. He lists twelve thinkers keying in on the importance of narrative, and (to sample just a few of the ideas) he mentions how the lack of an actual self requires an ongoing process of remaking and self-referential story telling that responds (evolves?) to the environment, how human beings are a highly symbolic species that allows virtual evolution to take place inside their heads, or even the provocative idea that the invention of writing has actually changed the way we use our minds, or D.S. Wilson‘s own idea that religions are bound together in corporate units via cultural mechanisms taking the form of narrative. (2005, p. 30-34)

144

interest in social knowledge (who is doing what to whom and why it matters). Nettle sees this once evolutionary functional element, conversation, as being intensified in drama and that the best drama (Shakespeare) tends to demonstrate this intensification via extremes for dramatic effect (like the well known fact that the Elizabethan stage, as opposed to the Classical Greek, is usually littered with bodies at the end of most tragedies). D.S. Wilson‘s sympathetic reading of Nettle, then, is understandable in the broadest sense: primates are interested in social dynamics and drama reflects this. But, discussion of —theme“ in literature, as stated by D.S. Wilson in his reading of Nettle, sounds as if a primate would be interested in understanding Hamlet‘s plight. D.S. Wilson betrays his misapplication of what sort of thing typically goes on in literary studies, which is (as Nettle points out) primarily interested in historicist and particularist (over universalist) textual analysis. What D.S Wilson doesn‘t mention is that Shakespeare is both less and more than a reflection of universal drama, if we read him through Foucault‘s or Derrida‘s or Marx‘s (or any number of critics) eyes. For example, Hamlet's most famous monologue begins with two questioning infinitives (I don't even need to quote) that have sounded to generations of critics like a precursor for all the ontological angst of modernity. To live or die and the inability to choose is what bothers Hamlet and ultimately inhibits him with Nietzschean nausea, and while certainly the ultimate possible question regarding one‘s potential status within a group, the famous ontological question seems exclusive to the human (unless other primates have such suicidal contemplations, and we just don‘t recognize them). The very ethos of the play is defined by this mental anguish, and in literary studies we often find ourselves struggling with these places of contention. An ape finding the skull of poor Yorick would present an interesting dramatic scene, but one that might not make any sense to the ape, as it did to Hamlet. D.S. Wilson echoes Nettle‘s general idea without admitting that literary studies, having gone through its own theoretical battles, might see a variety of particulars to be what is most interesting in a play such as Hamlet (even as it reflects the more common/universal notion of a son worrying about the murder of his father and what he is going to do about it, like accusing his mother). D.S. Wilson‘s statement that themes most interesting to non human primates can be found in Shakespeare equates to such a narrow reading of the bard's work that all texture and nuance and flavor is eradicated, much less themes of a universal character.

145

Furthermore, D.S. Wilson continues his misstep by not problematizing the concept of "literature." Even though he claimed to —test“ his idea and found evolutionary —themes“ such as the importance of social relationships in Japanese literature74, he doesn't acknowledge the move from literary to cultural studies that has blasted open the discipline and removed the literary object as the sole focus. Culture itself is now open to interpretation. The written word isn't the only form of textual analysis. —Literature“ isn't such a stable category to be bandied about so easily. A phrase like "all literature" is suspect, unless he is being literal with its use, wherein phonebooks must be included, as well as bathroom obscenities, technical white papers, wedding lists, etc. He is not, because to do so would be to remove the status of some literature as reflective of an actual human nature. Like Carroll, the —literature“ of which he speaks reflects an entrenched but now problematized highbrow approach that wants to separate it from other forms of writing. Of course, his premise that literature reflects human universals of our shared human nature, as it does for E.O. Wilson (Chapter 3),75 ultimately acts as support for a conclusion that lends support for traditional views of art at the expense of more popular forms. A single review by the noted popularizer of evolutionary psychology, Harvard linguist, Steven Pinker, writes in —Toward a Consilient Study of Literature“ (2007) that the type of evolutionary literary studies found in The Literary Animal has a long way to go. Pinker is known among literary studies thinkers for (among other things) his comment in How the Mind Works that music is a sort of —cheesecake“ of the mind (1997, p. 534; for a counter to Pinker, see Carroll 1998). He sees music as a highly rich sort of —dessert“ meant to tickle our cerebral pleasure centers but one that may have had little affect on our evolutionary pasts. What he is after is an approach to the function of art that problematizes it in terms of its adaptive value. Pinker provocatively proposes in his review —that many of the arts may have no adaptive function at all“ (2007, p. 171), but then wisely problematizes the concept of —fiction“ to suggest that our past ability to

74 Without explaining why Japanese literature should be used as a test case. 75 What he doesn't admit, though, is that part of this human nature may be a slippery, ill-defined love of particulars, indeterminacy, and context seen in all sorts of genius, mad ramblings from Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy to mashups on You Tube to, indeed, urban graffiti. Moreover, as Hart and Spolsky have demonstrated, this love of the difficult stuff may be a very part of our cognitive architecture (Chapter 2).

146

fictionalize our environment (in essence, create helpful scenarios just like we do when we create imaginary worlds, in essence, the creation of —stories“) may have had an adaptive value. Furthermore, he sees plenty of room for empirical investigation into this matter via research into artificial intelligence. Pinker is also helpful in breaking down the question —Why do we tell stories“ into an answer based on the Horatian notion of utile et dulce. Stories delight and instruct us. Figuring out which is most important is still up for grabs. Moreover, Pinker provides a list of goals that should be addressed for a better working evolutionary literary studies. One important goal, getting beyond the mere —rehabilitation of the relevance of a concept of human nature“ (2007, p. 175) is key, as well as getting used to the fact that the old dichotomy of high brow vs. low brow is no longer valid. As he puts it, evolutionary literary studies will have to go slumming if they want to make their work address many of the artistic forms present in contemporary culture. I couldn‘t agree more. Pinker has honed in on two very important critiques this dissertation lays at the narrow approach of evolutionary literary studies labeled Literary Darwinism: that key concepts like human nature should be problematized, if they are to be helpful, and that the move to oust the culture of postmodernity would, in its political move, abrogate much exciting and challenging material within popular culture: from computer games studies and virtual social worlds to comic book art and storytelling to film studies and genre studies. Moreover, Pinker‘s insights help to correct D.S. Wilson‘s reading of Nettle because it forces us to reconsider Nettle‘s material. Comments on universal drama cannot jettison what most people watch and read, nor can it assume that Hamlet sums up all that is important about those forms.

Literary Darwinism: The Political Agenda

Literary Darwinism is simply a label coined by Carroll for the nascent group of ideas surrounding adaptationist-oriented evolutionary literary theory. It describes a small group of thinkers who wish to use ideas from the life sciences, in particular, those primarily from evolutionary psychology to explain how the arts are the product of an evolved mind. Literature falls under this rubric, and the specific use of Darwinian

147

evolutionary theory as a method to interrogate literature falls under the rubrics of Literary Darwinism, adaptationist literary theory, Darwinian literary studies, evolutionary literary theory, etc. There are differences, of course, and I do not mean to minimize these by my omission of analysis. For this chapter, of primary concern is presenting a challenge to the approach of one vocal theorist as a less than stellar way to approach the TC. What Carroll is after is the insertion of his own particular literary methodology as a replacement for poststructuralism. What this amounts to is the search for an evolved human nature in literature. Carroll, as expected provides an article in The Literary Animal, "Human Nature and Literary Meaning: a Theoretical Model Illustrated with a Critique of Pride and Prejudice," republishing an important chapter from his earlier book Literary Darwinism that sums up his methodological approach to literary studies (for a more detailed analysis, see below). He combines an unproblematized use of —Darwinism“ with a simplified conceptualization of literary studies to argue that art is an adaptation and its content can be reviewed for how well it reflects this adaptive quality. However, his usual attack on poststructuralism is not as evident in this piece. (These came earlier in his own book and do not feature prominently in the anthology.) What Carroll attempts in his broad political desire to battle poststructuralism and to move literary studies closer to the discipline of psychology is the championing of a particular "emerging paradigm for human nature," namely the one from evolutionary psychology. He states his fundamental assumption plainly: "literature and the other arts do indeed have an adaptive function and that understanding this adaptive function is a prerequisite to understanding our specifically human nature" (Gottschall and Wilson 2005, p. 78). Carroll is candid and helpful as he details the inherent disciplinary issues within evolutionary psychology, but does not provide the same analysis of a larger critique within evolutionary biology itself. Instead, he demonstrates his simplistic ideas of what literary studies is as he a blankets his article with red flags like "literary representation is first and foremost the representation of human behavior within some surrounding world." Or

148

the primary locus of meaning for all literary works is the mind of the author. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the author provides whatever determinate meaning resides in a work.

And "authors are people talking to people about people" (Gottschall and Wilson 2005, p. 90). Volumes could be written (and have been) about how such thinking is naive. Representation from Kant to Nietzsche to Foucault has been problematized beyond bromides about a static human nature individualized in some surrounding world. What is evident from even cursory glances of these critiques is that —human nature“ itself is a concept wielded to reflect specific approaches to defining this nature. But, given that we do have —human“ qualities that define us (e.g., we operate in social worlds, we have a shared evolutionary past, etc.) and that it is in our interest to understand these as best as possible, why can't Carroll see how ersatz his version is? Maybe because he also views —literature“ and the —literary“ and —literariness“ as an uncomplicated concept. He would present a stable concept of human nature so that he might locate it in literature and then be able to present the literature as valuable. For Carroll, literary meaning is to be found in the mind of the author. Such an intentionalist concept has been demolished more than once. No one doubts a person writes a poem or a book and has it published. But to simply say that —the author“ provides the primary meaning is so fallacious to merit a jaw drop (see Barthes 2001). Moreover, Carroll's anemic concept denies the very important idea that readers in very specific social milieus encounter "works" and read accordingly. A simple review of scholarship of Conrad's Heart of Darkness (see Chinua Achebe‘s "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" for a contemporary reading Conrad and Kimbrough 1988) or Shakespeare's The Tempest (2000) demonstrates how different readings (different meanings) are generated based on basic social assumptions and moments in time. The author is only one locus of critical inquiry, and not a stable one. More specifically, Carroll‘s ideas are predicated on a framework created by the evolutionary psychologists he echoes and, thus, seems to have a backing of credibility that something is wrong in the —soft“ sciences and humanities. For example, he often

149

repeats the standard story by evolutionary psychologists of how the social sciences at the beginning of the century were dominated by anti-Darwinian culturalists (e.g. Durkheim and Boas) who believed that culture is an autonomous agent that produces the variety of characteristics we label human nature (Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby 1992; Pinker 2002). As the story goes, Darwinian thinkers in the social sciences who believed that natural selection acted to constrain what it means to be human were marginalized until E.O. Wilson‘s last chapter of Sociobiology (1975) about humans reinserted a particular reading of Darwin into the social picture (2004, p. ix). There is no doubt that at the time of Wilson's Sociobiology an ethological shift was occurring, affecting a wide range of disciplines. The Literary Darwinism later championed by thinkers like Carroll, however, makes two very fundamental mistakes in its deployment of Wilsonian ideas: 1) it creates a simplified and polished representation of evolutionary biology that does not reflect the true complexity of the philosophical debates within the sub-disciplines and 2) in its political move to oust what it views as its enemy, poststructural critical theory or —postmodern“ cultural theory, it caricatures and, again, simplifies what is a highly multivalent, protean, and difficult subject matter. This, of course, is done to present a stable human nature whereupon one might build a stable methodology for interrogating literature. Carroll has been at this for awhile. His earliest comment, Evolution and Literary Theory (1995), is a large unified monograph without the simplified conciseness of his later book of essays.76 In this respect his current comment in Literary Darwinism is an improvement, if mostly in brevity, yet lacking the depth of the earlier work. By focusing on a central concept within evolutionary psychology, that of the "adapted mind"–a mind fully evolved and intact at some point before our cultural revolution some 60-30k years ago and, more importantly, adapted to the ancient environment of our Pleistocene past and not our present one–he moves from the adapted mind to human culture and argues that human nature is both the source and the subject of literature. Thus, the base of Literary Darwinism is built upon evolutionary psychology: that if you understand how

76 In this initial book, Carroll lays out his political agenda in the first chapter, as well as an entire final section of the book. His treatment of his primary objects of contention, thinkers like Derrida and Foucault, is much more thorough than what comes later. But the gist is still the same: a critique of textualism and indeterminacy leading to extreme epistemological relativism.

150

the adapted mind works you better understand literature (2004, p. vii). What strikes me as peculiar is that a literary scholar doesn't see the problem with using such language as "adapted mind" (beyond the metaphoric) to represent all that goes into producing a mind, or even producing —literature.“ What Carroll doesn't want to foreground is that defining the adapted mind is not so easy.77 Moreover, in his most dogged pursuit for a literary methodology based on an evolutionary psychology and a stable human nature, Carroll wants to know what is most important in what he calls "representations of human experience" (2004, p. 19). Surprise: character, setting, and plot win the prize (all valuable elements, but without addressing the social milieu of the writer and reader, as well as the concept of intertextuality, incomplete in a description of a critical methodology).78 Carroll argues that traditional criticism has provided plenty of examples how to apply his representations to literary theory. According to him, only with the arrival of the most pernicious type of formalism (i.e., poststructuralism and its anti-epistemological destruction of the subject, like that of Foucault‘s death of man thesis detailed in Chapter 2) that we see the demise of these elements (in theory, of course, but not in art itself, except for Modernist experiments).

77 Just what the adapted mind means is still up for grabs, enough so that the metaphor of the —adapted“ mind may be misapplied. An alternative asks to conceive of "adapting minds." In Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature (Buller 2005), philosopher of science David K. Buller seizes an opportunity to respond to the particular tenets of Evolutionary Psychology as defined by those ideas circulating around foundational texts like The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby 1992) and Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind (Buss 1999). Buller‘s intentions are to provide a critique so that the broader field of evolutionary psychology (lower caps) is not hampered by the general premise and implications of the massive modularity thesis of Evolutionary Psychology (that our shared cognitive architecture is made up, possibly, of thousands of specific modules evolved to solve specific problems in our Pleistocene past, from roughly two million years ago up to the Neolithic agricultural revolution circa 10,000 B.C.E.). The implication Buller wants to contest is that we have moved toward near evolutionary fixation and have not evolved in the short interval (in geological terms) since we stopped living as hunter- gathers. Buller opposes this by offering the thesis that —human populations are characterized by evolved psychological variation, multiple minds, rather than a single ”mind‘ that is universal within human populations.“ Moreover, human minds are continually adapting in at least two senses: First, at the population level, human minds are continuously adapting to changing environments . . . And, second, at the individual level, a human mind continually adapts to changing environments over the course of an individual‘s lifetime (Buller 2005, p. 14). Note the critique of the concept of human nature in the statement about a universal human nature. Buller wants to complicate this to suggest that the notion is highly problematic and should be abandoned. Carroll, writing earlier, does not prefigure Buller in his own critique of Evolutionary Psychology. Instead, Carroll takes for granted that the notion of a human nature is stable enough to malign constructivist aspects of poststructuralism. 78 In the following chapter, I provide a reading of a novel that relies, mostly, on intertextual elements in which the text speaks to ideas within the life sciences but does so very much on the surface of the text with interpolations of expository science writing.

151

Simply arguing that traditional literary theory provides well-honed tools for the investigation into art and literature isn't enough. Carroll wants to validate such tools with proof from positive science, and in so doing, finally destroy poststructuralism.79 What Carroll offers with this project is a mask for his political agenda: the repudiation of thirty years of critical theory. One asks, why should anyone care? The reason is his misuse of TC ideas from the life sciences (an uncritical acceptance of simplistic and non-problematized ideas within evolutionary biology, such as how to define —Darwinism,“ —evolution,“ —adaptation,“ etc.) that takes E.O. Wilson‘s notions of consilience to the extreme. By claming to be the voice of adaptationist literary theory, he paints us all with his own particular brush. In particular, his rejection of postmodern cultural theory, prima facie, is troubling. Central to this issue is the notion of reality. Carroll is under the impression that poststructuralism somehow postulates a radical antirealism. Instead of understanding that much of this thought seeks to examine how aspects of reality are constructed, imagined, etc., Carroll (possibly disingenuously) states that the extreme form of such notions that an objective reality doesn‘t exist (surely believed by some but not most of contemporary thinkers) is absurd. Carroll provides these initial thoughts to delve into the complicated issues of constructivist thinking so that he can support the Wilsonian idea that genes hold culture on a leash (1978, p. 168) and, thus, act as a sort of epistemological ground for determining human nature. The constraints for literary Darwinists typically work from nature toward culture, not the other way around. Carroll ultimately argues that the trends loosely identified as

79 What Carroll hopes to do is separate his program from other ideas that utilize evolution, but do so outside the umbrella of adaptationist thinking. For example, he identifies a number of ideas based on cosmic evolution as faulty. At stake here is whether there is an unknown internal mechanism that drives the universe towards complexity. As a strict adaptationist, Carroll is falling into a narrow reading of Darwinism that denies a pluralistic approach to the mechanisms which might drive biological evolutionary change (see Chapter 5). For Carroll, he wants to limit the idea to evolution via natural selection. So, all talk of the universe evolving is nonsense (2004, p. xii). Also on the cutting block are two other culprits: 1) using evolution as an analogical model (his example is Dawkins‘s use of memes as an explanation for how ideas might propagate) 2) and using evolution as a basis for normative judgments (of course, the culprits here are the various forms of abuses by Social Darwinists) (2004, p. xii-xiv). Furthermore, after painting in broad strokes so as to distance himself from the obvious problems of prior thought, Carroll treads carefully as he criticizes an approach that, at first glance, might seem quite analogous to his own approach. Cognitive literary theorists like Lakoff and Johnson fail, according to Carroll, because they focus on rhetoric and linguistics and avoid the broader questions of human nature that define evolutionary psychology. Moreover, others cognitive literary theorists miss the mark by leaning toward an acceptance of post structural critical theory (2004, p. xv). For Carroll, these are unforgivable sins because they accept a messy complexity that Carroll is trying to ignore so he can easily insert his supplement.

152

poststructural critical theory will be forgotten in time and deemed useless aberrations because they run counter to contemporary findings in evolutionary psychology (2004, p. 22-25). Why such partisan moves by Carroll? Carroll believes that current literary theory has exhausted itself (again, no big insight here). Much has been said by critical theorists themselves about the problems in finding stable and consistent methods of investigating literary texts. For example, in the nineteen-fifties, Northrop Frye (1957) attempted to provide just such a stable program but failed. The challenge in understanding these difficulties extends farther back, of course. Literary studies has never maintained a properly stable metaphysical base upon which to ground a working methodology (e.g., from its beginnings, thinkers as disparate as Matthew Arnold and I.A. Richards to Cleanth Brooks sought such a ground and failed). This instability may be a defining aspect of what it means to do broad-scale literary studies (something that Carroll might not admit or appreciate). But Carroll isn't interested in explaining why the varieties of criticisms failed to provide a sound base of critical tools upon which to answer, once and for all, questions like what is —literariness“ (or, more specifically, grand metaphysical questions like what does it mean to be human). He wants to attack the methods that survived. To do so, he caricatures something he calls the "rhetoric of postmodernism" by attacking two fundamental approaches: 1) the deconstructive method of the philosopher Jacques Derrida and 2) the discourse theory of the social historian Michel Foucault (2004, p. xi). Carroll sees a few basic principles informing what he calls the "dominant critical theory." "The central doctrines of poststructuralism are textualism and indeterminacy,“ he notes (with simplistic accuracy) but then provides definitions of these two concepts that sound tidy enough but leave one wondering if there's more to them than simply stating that textualism concerns seeing the world as a text and that indeterminacy leaves one in an epistemological pickle (2004, p. 15). It's as if this is all poststructuralism does. Carroll decries the fact that poststructuralism denies "truth" or denies any sort of normative agent, reducing everything to mere rhetoric and discourse (2004, p. 16). What is fascinating is how a literary thinker, trained in a variety of methods designed to unlock the nuances and complexities of narrative and language, could read Derrida or Foucault

153

(or even Nietzsche) and think any of them spent lifetimes of study simply attempting such circular endeavors as denying truth. Nietzsche‘s genealogy of morals was also informed by his project of general irrationality and the ubiquity of the will to power. Derrida‘s grammatology and Foucault‘s archaeology and genealogy also resist such reduction. What becomes evident is that Carroll is taking a political position that undermines a fruitful investigation by literary studies thinkers into TC ideas from the life sciences, like evolutionary theory. He sees poststructuralists representing a trend in Western thought that, since the demise of colonial power, has combated the dominance of many entrenched social structures. His professional complaint is that literary academic orthodoxy embraces such social and philosophical relativisms because they allows its practitioners to deny positive truth and, thus, to create an environment of useless, self-perpetuating theory. As an example, he dips into the water of both Derridean and Foucauldian thinking with a supposed epistemological paradox. To embrace the —untruth“ of poststructural theories you are, in fact, claiming something is true. What Carroll somehow misses is that such a linguistic and cognitive conundrum is what fuels a portion of philosophic thought about the limits of linguistic logic and (for Wittgenstein on to Derrida) Western metaphysics, in general, and (for Foucault) representation itself. Regarding Foucault, Carroll mines a few quotes from Foucault's archaeology period about writing and discourse to allege how preposterous it is (2004, p. 16-17).80 Carroll's jeremiad rings hollow because he doesn‘t admit, as a good scholar should, that the battle between rhetoricians and logicians, between the sophists and the Socratics, between nominalist and realists, etc., has played out before. He makes these political moves to offer his version of evolutionary epistemology. The problem, though, is that some thinkers (like myself) who are interested in the application of ideas from the life sciences to the humanities do not want facile and reactionary approaches like Carroll's.81 The problem for Carroll, though, isn‘t merely epistemological; it is institutional. Carroll lays blame on what he considers an institutional ossification within literary

80 A more thorough examination can be found in (Carroll 1995), but even there he does not demonstrate he understands Foucault‘s death of man thesis. 81 What may be the case is that an evolutionary epistemology functions because of (but not solely from) those very indeterminate and textual principles detailed by Hart and Spolsky in Chapter 2.

154

studies that resists change. The primary reasons, according to Carroll, are evident. The narrative he tells sees critical theory coalescing into three primary components roughly thirty years ago (the deconstructive linguistic method, Marxist social theory, and Freudian psychoanalysis). Carroll does admit, with disdain, that the most abstract of the approaches, deconstruction, is presupposed by a fundamental insight that goes back to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: that there are "conditions of possibility of critical thought, the categories without which thinking could not take place" (2004, p. 29-30). Carroll's complaint is that these categories need to be validated with the scientific method (if possible), and he sees literary theorists as content to wallow in a post-Kantian acceptance of constructivist theory.82 What he desires is something akin to a counter-revolution to reorient literary studies back toward its traditional object of study before a time when such a concept was challenged. In particular, Carroll offers an evolutionary-oriented perspective that sees a literary work reflecting an author writing about characters in specific environments. Taking from cognitive science and evolutionary psychology the idea of cognitive domains, he argues that there are basic structures of the evolved human mind that literature reflects. He begins with the concept of inclusive fitness, all that goes into making one fit including the success of one‘s genetic relatives; then unpacks the primary aspects of fitness: somatic and reproductive behavioral systems (i.e., survival and mating, but also technology and cognition, among others). Then, by correlating how human emotions and motivations relate to these wide innate systems, he believes he gains a way into texts. Good literature reflects this overall evolutionary process. Bad literature doesn‘t. Carroll‘s central theoretical argument is that since art reflects human experience, understanding our evolutionary past is fundamental because art reflects our evolved

82 He repeats a standard criticism natural and life science thinkers have with humanists using the word theory, as if there is an essentialist definition. Granted, theory within the natural and life sciences has a more rigid use. To become a theory within these quantifiable sciences is quite the opposite of the word‘s everyday use by laymen: a supposition. Carroll, though, seems more perturbed with the idea of how theory is used in critical theory: thinking about how thinking is done. And, this, according to Carroll, is the stuff of frippy-headed nonsense. As support for his self-righteous indignation, he offers the Sokal Affair as proof that all postmodern critical theory is suspect (2004, p. 30-31). What should be evident to even a dimwitted reader is that not all literary "theory" is of this nature. Real scholarship does occur from Greenblatt‘s New Historicist‘s rereading of Shakespeare to Said‘s insights about Orientalism to Harraway‘s stance toward primatology–not just creative speculative theory.

155

minds within figurative and dramatic elements. He is not simply writing about literary naturalism here. What is being represented is —human nature.“ What he wants to avoid is the focus on the speculative, subjective aspects of human nature and thought he sees prevalent in post-structuralism‘s critical focus on tricky stuff like indeterminacy. At this point Carroll has painted himself into a corner. Avoid the speculative? The cultural linguistic turn that began with Saussure and Pierce and erupts with Derrida and others argues from the starting point of the fundamental —arbitrariness“ of language and its requisite application for understanding literature, and even culture. We are now aware of these issues, even as an evolutionary epistemology demonstrates how language helped us survive our evolutionary past. Speculation is the very thing thinkers like Wittgenstein and the logical positivists wanted to avoid. But, it may be a necessary part of cognition via linguistic structures. Carroll, it seems, wants to ignore all of this. Moreover, literary theorists who see the validity of the linguistic turn and who are interested in how to engage the life sciences might view Carroll as a —traditionalist,“ even when he thinks he is a maverick. In terms of methodology, Carroll does not offer uses of evolutionary theory in a way that moves beyond poststructuralism. He wants to reverse the clock to a time before the critical turn in literary studies. But, he disregards key ideas within literary studies that, according to thinkers like Hart and Spolsky, may be cognitively vital in understanding how our minds really work (Chapter 2). This backward leaning attitude is one of the primary elements that undermines his work and may reflect the true reason Carroll's version of Literary Darwinism hasn't resonated outside a small, but growing group of thinkers. It's not that literary theorists interested in the life sciences and TC aren't out there. It's not that we are wallowing in the soporific self-reflexivity of postmodern hypperreality. It's that his approach is seen lacking because it doesn't address the complexity of literary objects in human culture. Adding evolutionary thought as a ground for understanding the human (or human nature) is fine. But, forcing a particular narrow reading of —Darwinism“ (see Gould‘s revision of the term in Chapter 5) to presuppose that such a move explains how someone should read a text is too huge a leap to make. Carroll would disagree. In fact, he argues that understanding evolutionary theory not only explains how our minds work but how good literature works. If it fits his mold

156

of what literature should be: good, if not: bad. In particular, if it reflects how organisms (human beings) function in their environments (settings) to reveal the deep motivations of their evolved human natures (literary meaning), then it is good art. And since so much of literary studies considers acceptable what he deems bad (popular culture, for example), what we get from reading Carroll is shame. He writes, "Many of us in the humanities have long lived with a half-suppressed uneasiness of the hodge-podge, hit and miss character of our inquiries" (2004, p. 34). As a corrective he offers his example of right thinking, again E.O. Wilson. Carroll echoes Wilson through most of his work and suggests there are usually three responses to the sort of thing Wilson proposes: 1) Traditional literary theorists will reject the use of the natural and life sciences as a metric for something like a literary object. 2) Postmodernists will not only see the humanities as distinct but will argue that the sciences, themselves, fall under the critical methods of critical theory. Carroll offers a third response (as if this is the only other viable option), that of his own. He betrays his leanings toward the outmoded use of the term sociobiology (which has been replaced by the new and improved version, evolutionary psychology) when he offers 3) "sociobiologically oriented criticism" (2004, p. 35). How, though, does Carroll propose to follow E.O. Wilson? He gamely suggests that we not only need to incorporate findings from the empirical sciences but that even literary theorists need to utilize empirical experiments. He admits this is difficult, and that even literary Darwinists have been troubled to find applications (2004, p. 36-37).83 Such experimental literary theory is obviously now occurring, but for Carroll to suggest that it needs to be the basis for a new paradigm in critical theory rejects the linguistic to critical

83 However, one attempt tries to remedy this difficulty. Jonathan Gottschall's article "Quantitative Literary Study: A Modern Manifesto and Testing the Hypothesis of Feminist Fairy Tale Studies" applies statistical analysis to European fairy tales and demonstrates the problems associated with the application of social science methods to the literature. All is well, if you are interested in such approaches, but he does so not only to champion a quantitative approach. He sets up a straw-man by combating an alleged feminist agenda which he never details. By not doing so, he caricatures one aspect of postmodern thought by simply suggesting that feminists assert that gender is constructed. What we don't get, though, are any true specific claims made by any specific feminists. A dash of canonical feminist thinkers like Cixous or de Beauvoir would have been helpful, at least to see the basic framework he is attempting to address. Or maybe Sontag, Dworkin, Paglia? The failing is seen clearly from this backdrop. Had he not made these claims countering —feminism,“ his quantitative results would have been interesting but less provocative. What is really at stake here for Gottschall, Carroll, and others is the theoretical move toward valuing the research of normative human universals over human particulars. In this way, they run counter to much of current literary thinking. What is interesting for them is the creation of a schema upon which to hang the fabric of an unproblematized human nature. But, again, the problem isn't attempting such a project; it's how it is implemented.

157

turn that gave us such new domains of literary analysis like social milieu and intertextuality. Carroll is not interested in this. Instead, he champions the rhetoric of science and technology to understand how the mind works and in so doing diminishes the role of the humanities. The combined corpus of his ideas intimate that if you ran a proper experiment with enough test subjects and control groups, canonical works like Austen's will prove to be the most psychologically stimulating and will render more viable responses among subjects. The problem is that in today's contemporary world more people (at least in the U.S., circa 2008) respond to episodes of Lost or an hour playing World of War Craft than reading antiquated novels of British manners. The problem, though, is deeper than his deprecation (by omission) of popular culture. —Empirical“ methodology is always predicated on some precepts. These methods have worked with stunning success in their proper domains (applied science in the form of modern technology is proof), but their misapplication demonstrates the problem with bridging the gap between literature and science that has its own long history. Carroll doesn‘t seem to care about the —battle of the books,“ or the Romantic critique of Enlightenment epistemology, or the problems inherent with understanding the two cultures debate. The —science wars,“ though, may be on his mind, and having bivouacked with certain allies in the life sciences he is tossing missiles for no reason at phantom enemies in the humanities. Literature and science are not at odds. They deal with similar subject matter but in differing domains (Chapter 2). To find a true TC both domains need to be represented equally and with proper regard.

Literary Darwinism: Methodology

What, exactly, in poststructuralism‘s stead does he offer as a way to analyze literary texts? —Human Nature and Literary Meaning: A Theoretical Model Illustrated with a Critique of Pride and Prejudice“ ends the second part of Literary Darwinism and provides us with a detailed diagram of Carroll‘s approach. Carroll is helpful in distancing himself from a naïve interpretation of how adaptationist literary studies should function. The job is not simply to look to evolutionary psychology for human universals and see how they appear in literary texts. Carroll wants a purposeful —Darwinian“ approach. One

158

never gets a clear idea of how he distinguished between evolutionary psychology and Darwinian psychology or between adaptationist literary theory or Darwinian literary theory. These are all conflated even though each term should be stringently analyzed (i.e., evolutionary, adaptationist, Darwinian, etc.) (Sterelny and Griffiths 1999; Buss 1999; Hull 2001; Sober 1993). All of this is overlooked because Carroll doesn‘t want to problematize the concepts that support his notion of human nature and how to analyze literary texts. To help clarify his methodology, Carroll provides a stunningly clear diagram of his critical approach (2004. p. 201). It is blessedly devoid of the anti-poststructuralist political agenda, and regardless of its simplistic use of certain concepts (like Darwinian and adaptation and evolution) it reflects how a literary studies thinker (stepping over problems in evolutionary theory) has begun with evolutionary psychology, critiqued it, and in the spirit of Frye and Abrams given us a —Darwinian“ literary methodology. Carroll‘s header reads —Inclusive Fitness,“ a concept which means fitness related to an individual and his or her immediate kin (those with whom one is genetically related). A subheader reads —Organization of Life Effort“ under which is the major area of the diagram. The Organization of Life Effort is divided into 1) Somatic and 2) Reproductive efforts and their respective behavioral systems: Survival, Technology, Mating, Parenting, Kin, Social, and Cognition. These major systems likewise each provide short lists of adaptive goals (e.g., under Cognition, the area most relevant for literary studies, we read: Tell stories, Paint pictures, Form beliefs, Acquire knowledge). Finally, following directional arrows beginning with the top header and moving downward through the systems, we arrive at the very bottom of the diagram with a list of emotions that are meant to suggest that all the behavioral systems relate to all the emotions. Just before Carroll ends the paper with the investigation of Austen‘s novel, Pride and Prejudice,84 he provides a final word about the importance of the author in literature. Carroll‘s focus on the —mind“ of the author is actually part of his overall disparagement of two things 1) postmodern critical culture, typically in the form of poststructuralism

84 His reading of Austen‘s novel demonstrates how its characters can be viewed within the system he‘s charted. Characterization is seen through a focus on the social world and how the minds of these characters react within Carroll‘s diagram of human nature and its focus on somatic and reproductive activity (—to acquire resources and to mate successful,“ p 207).

159

and 2) any challenge to his overall approach (i.e., those posed by evolutionary theorists like Gould). It is no surprise, then, that the last essay in Literary Darwinism is a hostile comment in the popular vein on Stephen Jay Gould that heightens criticism leveled at Gould by other non-scientists (Wright, Dennett, etc.).

Carroll Contra Gould

Seeing that what is at stake for evolutionary literary theory and its most egregious form of Carrollian Literary Darwinism is the political agenda to oust poststructuralism from literary studies, I want to mention that the high-brow approach to the sciences and humanities that denigrates not only critical theory but popular culture is another of Carroll‘s serious faults. Carroll is toadying up to orthodox positions within evolutionary biology by not only ignoring their internal debates but by demeaning those deemed heretics (within science). A glaring revelation into his agenda can be seen in an attack on Gould. In what amounts to a smear campaign, Carroll echoes Maynard Smith‘s intellectual ad hominem (see Chapter 5) to represent Gould as an opportunist obscuritan. As if taking his talking points from debates within the science wars, Carroll adumbrates his caricature of postmodern thinking with a caricature of a critic of pan-adaptationist thinking and comes off with dirt on his hands. Carroll actually begins his attack piece, —Modern Darwinism and the Pseudo- Revolutions of Stephen Jay Gould,“ by fully quoting Maynard Smith‘s uncritical appraisal. This intertextual insult acts as a signal that what follows may also be uncritical (for a more critical expansion on Maynard Smith‘s accusation, see Cosmides and Tooby response to Gould, 1997). He undermines his critique of Gould‘s thought by intimating that the origination of labeling pan-adaptationists as "ultra-Darwinians" is a chimera "of Gould's own imaginings" (2004, p. 234), the intimation being that the concept is Gould‘s, or even that he coined it. In fact, Gould borrowed the term from his colleague Niles Eldredge, who details the concept in Reinventing Darwin: the Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory (1995). We are meant to believe Gould is making up something not vital for evolutionary biology. But also there is the overt connotation that Gould has, himself, created this chimera, when in fact his colleague should be given

160

credit (or the punishment) for the neologism. A minor textual point? Or a major tell revealing Carroll's own agenda? The irony is that Carroll accuses Gould of setting up strawmen, but Carroll himself has done so right at the beginning of his paper by echoing Maynard Smith and by not recognizing Eldredge. I wouldn't focus too much on this but the paper drips irresponsible generalizations, some of which I detail below. Moreover, I state flatly that Carroll's approach is suspect and can be demonstrated by a crafty misuse of a quote by Richard Dawkins to malign Gould. At the end of Carroll's article, he finishes by mentioning a quote by Dawkins where Dawkins suggests "Gould seems to be saying things that are more radical than they really are" (2004, p. 84). This windmill-tilting thesis is fair, by Dawkins, and reflects the context of Dawkins's thought in the quote. But Carroll follows with another from Dawkins that suggests Dawkins thinks Gould is a fake intellectual bent on obscurantism (2004, p. 85). Granted, this comes directly after the portion of Dawkins's text concerning Gould–but it does come after. And, the context has shifted from a critique of Gould to a critique of religion. Dawkins begins the paragraph that Carroll misuses to explain why some people think he (Dawkins) is a zealot. Dawkins explains in the second sentence of this paragraph that it is partly because of his religious antipathy but also because he dislikes anything that gets in the way of truth in science. Dawkins may be referring to Gould, but he doesn't do so by name. Instead, he mentions he doesn't like anyone who is a fake, or not concerned with the truth, or who is working from ulterior motives, or who tries to be profound. Dawkins may be to blame here because his earlier critique of Gould suggested he was a type of pretender. But all Gould is accused of is setting "up windmills to tilt at which aren‘t serious targets at all" (2004, p. 84). The sort of obscurantism Dawkins is critiquing later, and to which he is hostile, comes from religion. Gould is not the direct object of his critique, yet Carroll uses Dawkins comment on religious thought against Gould, as if he were in the same camp with mystics and zealots. In Carroll's defense, he may just be following Dawkins's lead, whose comments could easily confuse a reader. But as a literary theorist, Carroll should be more discerning how a text functions. Was Dawkins fully leveling the assertion that Gould's thought amounts to intellectual fakery as would he at, say, a modern day alchemist or Young Earth Creationist? I doubt it. In fact, in a series of reviews on Gould‘s work, Dawkins is

161

quite collegial. In A Devils Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love, Dawkins writes in the introduction to the reviews Gould‘s work, —the book reviews that follow, spaced many years apart, show what I hope will be read as an equal collegiality“ (2003, p. 187). No where in the introduction or the reviews is the sort of accusation Carroll reads from Dawkins. What Carroll may be echoing is the idea that Gould was a modern Don Quixote, tilting (jousting) at windmills. Dawkins has accused Gould of this, in essence, creating phantom enemies to attack. But Dawkins ends with a joint letter he and Gould were to write together but never finished because of Gould‘s death that suggests camaraderie despite their professional differences. Dawkins finishes the section with anything but the sort of opprobrium Carroll lays at Gould‘s feet. —The Structure of Evolutionary Theory is such a massively powerful last word, it will keep us all busy replying to it for years. What a brilliant way for a scholar to go. I will miss him“ (Dawkins 2003, p. 222). Moreover, the unavoidable fact is that Dawkins does not mention Gould by name in the comment in Brockman‘s book and seems to have shifted to a critique of religious thought. Yet, Carroll, as a literary theorist, does not mention this and instead uses the quote to malign Gould.85 Furthermore, the mere appearance of joining ranks with the big boys isn‘t Carroll‘s only fault. While he may throw in his lot with Dawkins, Dennett, E.O. Wilson (as if a literary theorist should have to choose —sides“!), it appears to this literary studies thinker, who also highly appreciates the thinking of the above theorists, that Carroll has probably read very little of Gould (either the popular essays or his technical papers and

85 In Dawkins‘ other books, he also doesn‘t accuse Gould of outright dishonesty, even though Gould is mentioned regarding a variety of disputes. In The Selfish Gene (1978), Dawkins accuses Gould of wrongly labeling him an atomist/genetic determinist. In The Extended Phenotype (1999), we see another professional disagreement. By the time of The Blind Watchmaker (1996a), Gould gets seven actual items in the index, as well as an extended look at punctuated equilibrium. The index of River out of Eden (1995) doesn‘t mention Gould, while Climbing Mount Improbable (1996b)has another look at punkeek. In Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), Dawkins argues that Gould is guilty of misusing metaphors similar to writing bad poetry. However, Dawkins does mention an anecdote that echoes the earlier attack by Maynard Smith (1995) (he also directly quotes the attack soon after, p. 207). He writes that during questioning he can spot people who have been reading Gould because they challenge Dawkins over the idea of gradualism (p. 198). Moreover, Dawkins does accuse Gould of using rhetoric (p. 202). But, Dawkins leaves us with the idea that Gould is simply bad at poetic science. An interesting project would be to analyze Dawkins‘s articles and presentations and speeches to see if he has gone on record stating Gould was intellectually dishonest, as does Carroll.

162

books) and, instead, read his critics.86 What I do think he did was take his cue from Maynard Smith, follow Dennett‘s critique, and then spiced things up with a few other articles by John Alcock (2000), Robert Wright (1990), and Cosmidy and Tooby (1997). All of it adds up to two horrendous claims made by a marginal literary studies thinker against one of the most decorated and visible evolutionary theorists in the past few decades. I had no inclination towards defending Gould (or even reading him) until Carroll maligned him and made me wonder how a literary studies thinker could have such an uncritical view of someone who knows so much more about evolutionary theory. Carroll not only levels Maynard Smith‘s offhanded comment that Gould is confused, Carroll claims, as detailed above, the Gould is dishonest. After re-reading Carroll‘s attempt at demeaning Gould, with a bit of Gouldian theory under my belt, I noticed right away (in the first paragraph) a major simplification that equals pure negligence. Carroll claims that his critique of Gould was written just before the publication of TSET (2002) and that since the book supposedly —recapitulates the ideas and stratagems he [Gould] had developed over the past three decades: anti- adaptationism, ”pluralism,‘ ”punctuated equilibrium,‘ and ”spandrels‘“ (and since Carroll addresses these topics in his paper), he doesn‘t need to address the book. This runs counter to the spirit of literary scholarship. (It also doesn‘t follow Dawkins in seeing the book as a generator of responses.) Gould‘s book, TSET, is very much a recapitulation of his earlier ideas but it does not simply deal with anti-adaptationism, pluralism, punctuated equilibrium, and spandrels. The language Carroll uses betrays him. In particular, pluralism is a term Gould uses in the popular writing of his two New York Review of Books articles (1997a; 1997b) reviewed in Chapter 5. I specifically looked for the term in TSET. He rarely mentions it. Moreover, the book is primarily a critique of strict Darwinian functionalism, as Gould sees it, with its most dominant chapter on punctuated equilibrium. While

86 I must admit the challenge I faced when trying to respond to Carroll‘s depiction of Gould. I hadn‘t read much of Gould either, but I had read E.O. Wilson, Dawkins, and Dennett in my investigation into the Darwin wars. In fact, E.O. Wilson‘s Consilience (1998) inspired me to take my first steps to understanding how evolutionary theory and literary studies might commingle. Carroll seems to echo some of them rather closely. When I began to investigate Gould I had no idea it would lead to me reading his massive (roughly) 1.4k page book. If I were a betting man, I would wager Carroll hasn‘t read it, especially considering the lack of depth of analysis and downright error regarding Gould‘s ideas in —Modern Darwinism and the Pseudo-Revolutions of Stephen Jay Gould.“

163

Carroll may have dismissed the spandrels concept, an entire book has been written dedicated to the subject (Selzer 1993); moreover, concerning the problematization of the concept of adaptation, Gould spends more time describing exaptations than he does spandrels. Finally, Carroll ends his telling first paragraph with the delicious statement, —No good critical purpose would be served by appending a critique to his [Gould‘s] last book,“ sending me on my journey to explain just how Carroll‘s approach is delinquent in so many ways. The mischaracterization and misrepresentation continue. Carroll suggests that Gould supported the idea of Goldschmidt‘s heretical idea of macromutational saltations, —hopeful monsters“ (2004, p. 229). What Carroll is pointing to are some provocative ideas Gould played with in an early essay (1980a), but later backed off from. Dennett gave himself the task of uncovering just how close Gould really came to true saltationism. He claims that Gould struck a nerve when he personally told Dennett to check his publications to see if he, in fact, had endorsed a strong form of saltationism. Dennett concludes —nothing revolutionary“ (1995, p. 289) could be found, even though Gould hinted that non-Darwinian processes might be involved in development. Carroll continues his misreading of Gould by conflating punctuated equilibrium with Goldschmidt‘s saltation and macromutations by not seeing that Gould is really simply challenging uniformitarian inspired gradualistic extrapolation. A —saltation“ that takes 10,000 years occurs in a geological moment of deep time. I have not read all of Gould‘s writings, but I can‘t imagine he would have ever argued that, as Carroll writes, he ever supported the idea of a saltation as —the production of a new species within a single generation“ (2004, p. 235). Carroll spends so much time on this misleading idea he fails to see that Gould‘s major ideas about evolutionary principles address levels of hierarchy functioning differently between genes, cell lineages, organisms, demes, species, and clades. Regardless of whether Gould toyed with a limited form of saltation (changes occurring differently rather than merely quicker), Carroll need read TSET to realize where Gould stood at the end of his career. Moreover, Carroll seems to misunderstand Gould (a trend that apparently is the modus operandi of most proponents within the Darwin wars, see Brown 1999) when he disregards Gould‘s ideas about the importance of

164

Kimura‘s Neutral Theory by stating that evolutionists have incorporated neutral theory and don‘t see it challenging natural selection. Carroll doesn‘t get that Gould isn‘t ultimately challenging natural selection. Gould sees himself revising its agency, efficacy, and scope. In essence, he problematizes the concept. Gould simply has a different focus, and he sees trends in evolutionary biology following. Regardless, Carroll doesn‘t see this. Instead, he ultimately claims Gould is merely a rhetorician disguising his Marxist ideology.87 And to add insult to injury, he claims Gould is similar to postmodernists like Derrida and Foucault because of his suppose sophistry (2004, p. 239-240).

Conclusion

Adaptationist literary studies like Literary Darwinism, how do we read it? Joseph Carroll and others like him offer a particular flavor that does not satisfy, primarily because it doesn‘t address the myriad complexities involved in understanding human social systems and thought. Moreover, its bitterness smarts because of the obvious overt political agenda aimed at a caricatured version of something he calls the rhetoric of postmodernism, or poststructuralism. These latter concepts are difficult themselves and deserve more than passing descriptions that, for example, reduce them to merely indeterminacy and intertextuality. This chapter has attempted to reveal Carroll‘s misuse of ideas from the life sciences and how not to approach the TC. In particular, Carroll maligns his own domain of studies, the humanities. Carroll does this to find a ground upon which to detail a stable human nature. This is the vital aim of his overall methodology, one that requires that a work of art reflect our shared human natures. Moreover, Carroll demands that such a work of art will be written by an author about a human being in a particular setting. Carroll has presented his political agenda, his uncritical acceptance of ideas from evolutionary biology, his revision of evolutionary psychology to ultimately make these large claims about art and human nature. Neither

87 An interesting project for literary studies would be to see if the claim by Gould‘s critics that his science was simply a masque for his Marxism can actually be found in both the text and subtext of his three hundred Natural History essays. I am guessing that, unlike someone like Althusser or Jameson, Gould comes no where near to being a Marxist theorist. What is more likely is that his broad, leftist views have a Marxist/socialist leaning but, other than subtext, little of Marxist of Neo-Marxist language or ideas will be found beyond the most broad (i.e., seeing punctuationism as a analogy for revolutionary change).

165

does he leave space for other important literary elements such as the social world and intertextuality, nor allow for popular forms of artistic expression to carry the same weight as traditional ones. Finally, we have seen that what may have been a valuable investigation into the TC has resulted in an obvious political border war, as exemplified in his polemic against Gould.

166

CHAPTER 7

A CONSILIENT SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES: IAN MCEWAN‘S ENDURING LOVE

Introduction

Ian McEwan‘s sixth novel, Enduring Love (1998)88 is a fitting place for a literary and cultural studies thinker to investigate a Third Culture89 text. This chapter seeks to do just that. In particular, it reads the novel as creating for the reader insights about the relationship between the sciences and the humanities. When McEwan makes characters speak particular positions for us, it‘s so that we can learn what is necessary for humanist and scientific rationalities to collaborate: e.g., a suspicion of received narratives, a belief in human universals, a commitment to reproduction (conceived as both biological and social) and to —love“ (conceived here as interdisciplinary heterosexual romance). This chapter is organized in two parts, the first considers an essay of McEwan‘s that argues for a shared ground between the two great branches of learning. The second part is a direct reading of the novel. It demonstrates that the sort of social themes typically investigated within novels actually point to a deeper foundational structure in EL: that of the engagement of the sciences and the humanities. In particular, this chapter explores this structure by reading the characters as representatives of C.P. Snow‘s two cultures. Joe, the rationalist and scientist, represents science, while his wife Clarissa and his stalker, Jed Parry, represent the humanities. This chapter offers a critical appraisal of such an intriguing TC novel by responding to Jonathan Greenberg's "Why Can't Biologists Read Poetry? Ian McEwan's EL." Greenberg‘s examination begins with the idea that the use of Darwinism within the humanities is often viewed as spurious. He bolsters the claim that biologists can't read poetry very well with its opposite: that poets can't read science as well. What he is after is an extension of C.P. Snow's (1969) claims that two fundamental cultures exist in the

88 Henceforth, EL. Moreover, all subsequent references to the novel will only contain page numbers. 89 Henceforth, Third Culture (in this chapter).

167

academy: the literary culture of the humanities and the reductive culture of the sciences. Greenberg, though, uses this dichotomy to suggest that McEwan's novel doesn't simply rely on exploring how scientists and poets differ in their thinking. He attempts to provide "a cultural reading of Darwinism" (2007, p. 94) through the explication of the novel. In so doing he provides a reading of

a novel that engages contemporary debates about neo-Darwinism by representing a series of interrelated conflicts between scientific, literary, and religious worldviews. The novel seeks not to pronounce authoritatively on the validity of neo-Darwinism but–as novels tend to do–to imagine human beings with conflicting temperaments and beliefs placed in situations of crisis. Through these crises, the novel investigates and tests the legitimacy of the characters' different worldviews. The major themes of the novel are, moreover, important Darwinian themes, and thus what may initially look like mere disciplinary disputes between the "two cultures" play out in a range of surprising ways–as conflicts about sexual fidelity, childbearing, self-deception, and the power of narrative (2007, p. 94-95).

Greenberg demonstrates the surfacing of social-related themes atop science- oriented themes, mostly from evolutionary biology. He wisely sees that McEwan's use of ideas from the life sciences directly relates to the main themes of the novel, "conflicts about sexual fidelity, childbearing, self-deception, and the power of narrative." Writers, indeed, explore these sort of themes in novels, but themes that would not typically be couched in the language and concepts of Darwinian evolutionary theory or sociobiology. However, while Greenberg does focus on these most obviously salient themes related to the social, by foregrounding the social, he avoids directly analyzing how McEwan uses his novel as an avenue to explore ideas taken directly from thinking in the contemporary popular life sciences. Whereas Greenberg argues that the Darwinian themes surface relative to the social relations of the characters, I work in the other direction: that the social elements comprising the relationships of the characters and their actions encourage us to consider the challenge not of only C.P. Snow's two cultures debate and its most

168

current formulation, John Brockman‘s TC concept (1995; 2003), but of the claim there exists a fundamental divide between the sciences and the humanities. I read McEwan as exploring this false dichotomy to suggest that the poles are not so disparate and that there is a common ground between the two.

Shared Ground between the Sciences and the Humanities

McEwan announces finding shared ground as his project in —Literature, Science, and Human Nature.“ The essay appears in Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative (Gottschall and Wilson 2005), an anthology dedicated to exploring how literature and Darwinism intersect. In his essay, McEwan espouses the idea that there is shared ground between the science and humanities. The ability of human beings to tell stories, in both domains, links them. His essay suggests that we can learn about our shared human nature by looking to literature as well as science and that, in fact, only literature can provide us with a look into how we conceptualized our pasts. Moreover, he argues that literature is much more accessible to us than modern science. We can recognize the quality of another‘s mind by simply reading a text, while science requires other skills, usually mediated by mathematics. What we recognize as literature, McEwan claims, are universals the writer has communicated. —At its best, literature is universal, illuminating human nature at precisely the point at which it is most parochial and specific“ (Gottschall and Wilson 2005, p. 6). This simple statement is loaded with the academic conflicts between the extremes of cultural relativists vs. biological determinists. What McEwan does, though, demonstrates a way out of the bind that would view human nature as culturally and/or biologically determined by, instead, shifting the focus.90 For him, what is interesting is how the specifics illuminate the universal. The irony is that much of high art and literature that seeks to utilize the universal to claim authority for a text (i.e., Shakespeare should be in the canon because his representation of say, Hamlet, reflects universals of human behavior) does so at the expense of popular culture. But in such an anthology that seeks to insert the life sciences into literature and, with some of its more ardent proponents (i.e., Joseph Carroll), seeks to

90 This is similar to what Hart (2001) has done, as has Gould (2003).

169

challenge much of contemporary critical theory and practice, McEwan also offers us a way to see how pop culture can be universal. For example, there can be very little that is more parochial and culturally specific than something like South Park. This animated social commentary show uses the basest form of humor to do more than entertain. In fact, its very use of something like the representation of World of War Craft as a contemporary new media addiction reflects a very specific moment in the computer gaming industry‘s affect on culture. However, by demonstrating how consuming such an activity can be addictive and prevalent within —geek“ culture, it not only reflects very real phenomena in a niche market within society. It may, indeed, as McEwan‘s lead suggests, point to something more universal, like the instinct for human beings to do a number of things: create narratives (real or virtual), become engrossed in social circles and milieus, feed pleasure centers, etc. The trick becomes apparent when admitting that canon-makers universalize particular qualities through their selections, just as I have done. McEwan, though, like most Literary Darwinists is certainly not after championing popular culture in this article or his book, even if his book walks a fine line between highbrow literature and popular fiction. What he does is demonstrate how science and the humanities (what he calls —literature,“ in a typical disciplinary power grab) share a common element in narrative. He gives us several paragraphs on Darwin‘s life, wherein he suggests —let us read his life like a novel“ (Gottschall and Wilson 2005, p. 7), forming his own narrative. But, of course, this is what Darwin has done, as well, in formulating his major ideas in the Origin and other works. Darwin also suggested that universal feelings and expressions are innate and can be viewed in the expressions of infants. McEwan follows this, as have modern evolutionary psychologists, to suggest that novelists understand this as well (that literature, as well as science, has vindicated Darwin) without admitting up front that, maybe, novelists are also good a lying with a smile. Thus, For McEwan the humanities and the sciences have reinforced each other in this search of human universals in human culture and biology. But McEwan knows there‘s a problem: the very attempt to define ourselves as human beings is tied up in our own concepts of modernity. He provides examples of how major and minor transitions were viewed in very historical, often eruptive cultural moments from Virginia Woolf to Woodstock to T.S. Eliot to Burkhardt. In them he sees

170

the humanist‘s —aim of locating the roots of our modernity . . . to ask at which moment, in which set of circumstances, we became recognizable to ourselves“ (Gottschall and Wilson 2005, p. 13). Of course in the sciences, they have a different way of defining this modernity. Whereas in the humanities the most broad-seeking comparativists may go back as far as the Neolithic revolution in terms of sociology or the —Garden of Eden“ in terms of theology, one dominant narrative begins with the emergence of the Renaissance and the later Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment that followed. The sciences, though, go back even farther than 10,000 years to our Pleistocene past. McEwan wisely sees that what both the sciences and the humanities are after is similar to a secular creation myth in which we determine our view of ourselves. —Literary writers seem to prefer an explosive, decisive moment, the miracle of birth, to a dull continuum of infinitesimal change“ (Gottschall and Wilson 2005, p. 14). Both domains tell stories validly. Conflict often occurs over the focus–often conceptualized as the particular vs. the universal–as well as over the very real distinction that science is accretive and uses experimental methods while literature (only one aspect of the humanities) repeats past patterns through endless variation that tend to change the patterns over time. McEwan shows that what may be in conflict is the concept of rupture vs. gradual change. Locating our definitions of ourselves in specific historical moments may offer the literary mind an answer on what it means to be a human being with a historical past because it implies the possibility of change (hopefully, for the better). Furthermore, McEwan mentions the conflict in the twentieth century between those who saw behavior as primarily shaped by culture vs. those who wanted to reinsert Darwin into the picture and how this later conflict centered in the academy over various positions between positivism/realism and social constructivism. He ends his essay with work done by anthropologists, like Paul Ekman, who argued that indigenous people of New Guinea could recognize emotions in photographs of modern Americans. McEwan suggests that today (over fifty years after the original controversial research) it is becoming harder to find indigenous people and, thus, our living records of the past are nearly diminished. Literature, though, for McEwan can act as a surrogate. —Literature must be our anthropology“ (Gottschall and Wilson 2005, p. 18). His example comes from Homer. A problem surfaces with the sole use of such a strong classical figure as

171

McEwan‘s example. It suggests that our traditional canons are the only places where one might find such anthropologies. Moreover, this move toward viewing literature as anthropology can itself be a form of passive genocide. It intimates there‘s no reason to keep indigenes around because the kernel of human experience can be found in Homer. Regardless of whether McEwan would acknowledge the oblique implication of his thesis, the elevation of literature to such heights still begs the question: which literature?

The novel

The question of McEwan‘s hope for the humanities, and literature, to act as a powerful agent in defining human nature does surface in the novel. However, EL‘s critical reception covers —a wide range of responses, from the ecstatic to the dismissive“ with criticism ranging from attacks on his [McEwan‘s] use of ideas from the sciences to those praising his prose style (Clark and Gordon 2003, p. 58-59). Some see it a psychological representation of its main character, popular science-writer and card- carrying rationalist Joe Rose, peppered with rudimentary aspects of crime and detective fiction (Malcolm 2002, p. 171). However, as Peter Childs notes, —McEwan‘s novel has yet to develop a considerable body of criticism“ (2007, p. 1). Much of the commentary has come in the form of reviews, although a few books addressing the novel have surfaced (Slay 1996; see also Ryan 1994). The novel‘s most evident theme is the notion of love and how it surfaces in the interaction of its three main characters: 1) Joe 2) his wife the Keats‘ scholar, Clarissa and 3) the erotomaniac and religious zealot, Jed Parry. Moreover, the novel presents three main dramatic scenes–1) an incident with a hot air balloon in which a man falls to his death 2) a failed attempt on Joe‘s life and 3) Joe‘s shooting of Parry in defense of Clarissa–to dramatize the tensions among the characters. The novel begins with two fast-paced chapters detailing the incident with a hot air balloon, an emotive narrative lynch-pin holding together the rest of the novel. In this incident, the narrator, Joe, is hurled into an event with a group of men who attempt to restrain a balloon with a young boy inside the basket. The group comprises six saviors, Joe, the eventual hero/victim John Logan, Jed Parry, and three other men. For a few moments they work together, hanging on before a gust of wind launches the balloon into

172

the air. "With five of us on the line, the balloon was secure" (10). But, eventually someone lets go, causing a cascading effect of likewise releasers, except one man, Logan, who remains steadfast even as the balloon climbs a hundred feet in the air. He eventually loses his grip and plummets to his death. Thus, the novel provides us with a perfect dramatic sequence to encapsulate an "entanglement theme" and "the aftermath" (2), the idea that these characters' lives have become drastically entangled because of a simple tragedy and that what comes later (the aftermath) is tightly regulated by the initial event. Moreover, concepts like entanglement and aftermath reflect a social dynamic that one would expect to see explored in such a novel (and they should be). The major prevalent social theme (taken from the title) is —enduring love,“ and this theme surfaces in the text even before the actual balloon incident. Jed and Clarissa are picnicking in the English countryside when the disturbance happens. McEwan tells us of their moments together, reminding Joe "of our very first meetings and the months we spent falling in love" (5). Such an explication could easily be extended through the entire novel in which the concept of enduring love is explored via the three main characters: 1) Joe and his fight to maintain his relationship with Clarissa 2) Clarissa and her study of Keats‘ enduring love of Fanny Brawne and 3) Jed Parry, the evangelical erotomaniac and his absurd insistence that Joe has fallen in love with him during the balloon incident and that god has ordained their amorous union. Yet McEwan's novel does much more than this when viewed as a consilient reflection of the relationship between the sciences and the humanities. It provides a few pieces of expository text situated in various places in the novel that act as direct avenues into debates within the life sciences and clue us in to its internal structure. At one point, near the end of Chapter 1, McEwan introduces the first of his controlling TC themes: the problem of altruism and human nature (see Chapter 2 of this dissertation). This introduction comes at the most dramatic moment during the balloon incident: when Joe narrates "It was my duty to hang on, and I thought we would all do the same." The following paragraph describes the split-second dilemma the rescuers faced. Hold on together as a group, possibly recovering the balloon to the ground, or let go and risk being whisked into the air. Someone does let go and signals a key way in which to read the novel: "I didn't know, nor have I ever discovered, who let go first" (14).

173

With this line, the narrator jumps out of the dramatic events, so tightly delivered, and inserts a paragraph and a half of pure exposition that might seem jarring if not for its narrative function. As Joe looks back at the incident and explains that no one will take the blame for letting go first, he claims there is no comfort in the idea it was prudent to save one's self because

there was a deeper covenant, ancient and automatic, written in our nature. Cooperation . . . but letting go was in our nature too. Selfishness is also written on our hearts. This is our mammalian conflict: what to give to others and what to keep for ourselves (15).

The narrator tells us that from this dilemma springs our morality and the basis of society. "Mostly, we are good when it makes sense." And the little society congregated on the ends of ropes attached to a skyward balloon suddenly no longer made sense and, thus, disintegrated, claiming a victim in the one man who held on a bit too long. What we learn here is that "altruism had no place." However, as the philosopher and historian of biology Michael Ruse notes, we learn that all is not as it seems with the lone man, John Logan, who held on. Ruse writes that at first, it seems he does so for purely selfless reasons: to save the boy. Then, we learn his wife believes he was with his mistress and, thus, he must have held on to show off (not so selfless after all). Later, we learn he was simply giving a ride to a man and the man‘s mistress (thus, answering the doubts his wife had about two car doors left open by John and a fleeing companion as he rushed to help) and that his actions, again, can be viewed as purely altruistic. Ruse provides a literary reading to comment on how a novel like McEwan‘s does just what Greenberg claims is often difficult: a poet (novelist) reads science in a helpful way. For Ruse, the central issue in the novel is a sociobiological one, but one that has interested the humanities for centuries: the explication of the concept of enduring love via concepts like altruism. —I have to confess that my reading of EL has quite won me over to the view that the creative artist can tell us things about science that the rest of us would simply not grasp“ (2000b). What is this? Ruse tells us McEwan —has a more

174

sophisticated underlying theme.“ That through —science and the like, we can start to discover how life truly is, rather than how it appears to us.“ I think Ruse is surprised that a creative artist can use his methods and medium to come to such a conclusion that is taken for granted by scientists. Yet, this is what McEwan does as he uses his novel to reinforce ideas common in the TC.91 I follow Ruse by using such a line as —altruism had no place“ (and the balloon incident it reflects) as a way into the novel. Our narrator tells us "so much followed from this incident . . . such pathways of love and hatred" (19), then depicts a scene where Joe meets Jed Parry. Joe watches the man fall and eventually decides to trek across the field to see if he might still live. On his heels follows Jed. Joe arrives first and approaches the dead body. All goes as expected–the horror of finding Logan in a sitting position, his shoulders caved in, his facial bones distorted–until Jed inserts himself and does the unexpected. He implores Joe to pray with him. The rest of the novel is comprised of Joe dealing with the unexpected results, the —aftermath,“ of the balloon incident‘s affect on Jed. Not only does Joe suffer his own anxiety about letting go, he must confront a man who is insistent that Joe has fallen in love with him and that god has sent him to save Joe‘s atheist's soul. While this occurs, Clarissa grows exceedingly concerned with Joe's new —obsession.“ The rationality she loves in him seems to be disappearing. But, no one believes him even after an attempt is made on his life. His own irrationality/obsession is vindicated as something more substantial than delusion when he finds Jed in his home, holding a knife to Clarissa's throat. However, this brief summary does not do justice to the level of complexity given to social elements and relationships in the novel. Where Greenberg sees these social elements as pointing to the importance of Neo-Darwinian themes in McEwan's novel, I argue that the Darwinian themes are best viewed as illuminating a deeper substructure: the engagement of the sciences and the humanities. Greenberg does not go deep enough. And it is here that McEwan's novel provides us with a picture of the human that denies the rigid classification of antipodal binaries, as well as a view of the sciences and the

91 Yet Ruse sees a highly important literary element. That the novel is about the problem of altruism guides him to the use of an indirect reference to the Pauline epistle of 1st Corinthians in which enduring love is the message. Ruse reads McEwan as not only examining altruism via sociobiology but suggests that these ideas point to a human nature fully compatible with Paul‘s message of enduring love (for more information on Ruse and McEwan, see Ruse 2006).

175

humanities that is less about their distinctions and more about their similarities. This is done by representing the sciences and the humanities as sharing a very real and prevalent human predilection for narrative creation. The rationalist Joe becomes obsessed with revealing the truth of Jed. The imaginary/fabricated love of the erotomaniac Jed endures in a way that challenges the notion of —normal“ love, demonstrating how such an internal narrative proves to be, while —inaccurate,“ long lasting. Clarissa's way of viewing (i.e., narrating) the world through —poetic“ eyes reveals a deeper knowledge of what was happening to their relationship, one that Joe comes to understand later: the real problem was about the lack of children in their lives (75). Such social themes can be easily explored as salient elements in the novel. However, what underlies them is the complex relationship between traditional, often conflicting worldviews (usually conceptualized as the humanities) vs. those that descend from the new approaches of science minded thinkers in the 17th century (Cartwright and Baker 2005; Gould 2003; Toulmin 1990). This novel is a depiction of a beleaguered rationality (Joe‘s) in opposition to the poetic sensibilities of the humanities: the literary on one hand (Clarissa‘s) and the religious sensibilities on the other (Jed‘s). This can be illustrated along a variety of avenues. One, in particular, appears when Joe visits the London Library to research Darwin's contemporaries and the use of narrative and anecdote in science writing. "My idea being that Darwin's generation was the last to permit itself the luxury of storytelling in published articles." As a popular science writer, Joe is interested in how science writing has removed the human as a central controlling element in its elucidation of scientific ideas. What he sees is that the anthropomorphic tendency in humans to create important narratives clouds their judgment in the description of natural phenomenon, or so it apparently (according to Joe) did much more in Darwin's day. As an example of human craftiness, he tells the story of how a science writer explains the motivation of a dog sneaking into its master's chair after acting as if it wanted to be let out. This, Joe thinks, is nothing more than the insertion of human narrative onto animal behavior. But he finds it charming. "What I liked here was how the power and attractions of narrative had clouded judgment. By any standards of scientific inquiry, the story, however charming, was nonsense" (44). Furthermore, Joe follows this

176

with a bit of information about why the London Library is an inadequate place to research.

The science collection here was laughable. The assumption appeared to be the world could be efficiently understood through fictions, histories, and biographies. Did the scientific illiterates who ran this place, and who dared called themselves educated people, really believe that literature was the greatest intellectual achievement of our civilization (44-45).

Here we have, in condensed form, the primary tension in the novel: the tendentious feud between the humanities and the sciences as knowledge legitimizers. McEwan is working from the cyclical tension that has arisen at various times since the new philosophy of Descartes and Bacon challenged the traditional orthodoxy of Aristotelian thought and Renaissance humanism in the sixteenth century. It has been called the Battle of the Books and the Ancients vs. Moderns. It has resurfaced in the varying challenges to the Enlightenment Project, first as a Romantic challenge of the reason-based worldview of the philosophes and their descendants via the elevation of the aesthetic and the intuitive. It surfaced again in the supposed —warfare“ between science and religion of the late 18th century, as well as in the Two Cultures debates in the mid twentieth century. Most recently, the broad-scale rebellions across the academy usually labeled the science wars saw historicist, constructivist, relativist, etc., moves away from more traditionally positivistic oriented thought in the sciences and realist approaches in philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, literary studies, etc. (for a look at how these broad historical sequences relate, see Cartwright and Baker 2005). At the heart of these conflicts, interactions, engagements, etc., is the fundamental question of the relationship of the sciences to the humanities and the importance of the role of the human (see Chapters 1 and 2 in this dissertation). What Joe represents in his critique of the London library is the current distaste by some thinkers that diminishes the importance of the humanities, regarding knowledge building. Such a stance places him squarely within a specific camp in the —science wars,“ one that is highly distrustful of the literary and interpretive methods that are the descendants of Renaissance humanism. However, he

177

tells us that what is agitating him is his very human "emotional condition, the mental- visceral state I had yet to understand" (45). Joe is a science-minded rationalist becoming obsessed with understanding the role his actions caused in the death of John Logan, as well as obsessed with countering the madness of Jed Parry. In Joe's challenge to understand himself and those around him the novel reveals the importance of narrative for both the sciences and the humanities (something that goes a long way in diminishing the previously mentioned tension). Not long after the segment in which Joe muses in the London library about Darwin and narrative in science writing, he's at home thinking about the piece he needs to write when we are given another chunk of expository information introduced with Darwin. Here Joe tells us that in the 19th century the novel was the dominant artistic form. But something happened. According to him, both science and literature became professionalized and dominated by small elites. Physics in the sciences and modernism in the humanities. And with the professionalization, both were formalized and abstracted. "So the meanderings of narrative had given way to an aesthetics of form; as in art, so in science" (52-53). But, we realize this is a narrative he himself is telling about western thought, one of which he is unsure. He gives counter examples from Thackeray to Freud to Balzac. He accuses himself of abandoning truth for a great evil: magazine journalism. This segment reveals that Joe is torn between these two worlds. On one hand there is the professional world of academic science of which he once was a part but left for the middle ground of popular science writing. On the other hand is mere journalism, story-telling, the stuff of the humanities. Yet, this critique of himself and of the humanities is ironic because the main action of the novel is one in which narrative is central. Joe must reconstruct the balloon incident in order to assess his guilt, as well as enact a sort of penance and go to Logan's widow to tell her what happened (58-59). The novel revolves around the relationships of its three main characters. Joe, Clarissa, and Jed represent the three conflicting worldviews, Greenberg‘s "the scientific, literary, and religious" (94). Joe, of course, is the —rationalist.“ Moreover, Joe can also be viewed in opposition to Clarissa and Jed, these two characters together representing the meta-category of the humanities. McEwan provides a helpful way to view Joe‘s two foils with another of his expository interpolations. This time, Joe is musing about the work he

178

must do during the day. The topic is the smile. He uses this phenomenon to enter the fray of academic debate concerning the role of culture vs. genetics in the formation of human behavior. As if taking his cue first from E.O. Wilson and the later second wave Evolutionary Psychologists, McEwan has Joe comment that "we do not arrive in this world as blank sheets, or as all purpose learning devices. Nor are we the 'products' of our environment" (74). McEwan's clever substitution (and indirect allusion) of sheets for slates92 should alert us to the fact he is echoing ideas directly related to the counter arguments of Evolutionary Psychologists like Leda Cosmides and John Tooby against that the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM),93 which supposedly argues for culture as the primary factor influencing human behavior (1992). Moreover, Joe actually mentions "Edward O. Wilson" in the same paragraph, the doyen of sociobiology and the inspiration for much of McEwan's ideas in the novel, McEwan‘s —own particular intellectual hero“ (Garner). At this point in the novel, Joe's rationalism is stable, but McEwan is setting us to up to see how he problematizes it by making Joe obsessed with revealing the truth about Jed. Here, though, the first steps reveal Clarissa‘s take on Evolutionary Psychology as a new sort of fundamentalism. Regarding the latest fad of focusing on genetics in popular science writing, Joe tells us that

Clarissa had generally taken against the whole project. It was rationalism gone berserk. 'It's the new fundamentalism,' she said one evening. 'Twenty years ago you and your friends were all socialists and you blamed the environment for everyone's hard luck. Now you've got us trapped in our genes, and there's a reason for everything!' She was perturbed when I read Wilson's passage to her. Everything was being stripped down, she said, and in the process some larger meaning was lost (74-75)

92 In today‘s world a common reader will certainly identify the idea of a blank sheet of paper as something to be written upon but may miss a reference to Locke‘s tabula rasa upon one must write in chalk. 93As described by Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby, see (1992). See also Stephen Pinker‘s popular science book about the matter, Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature (Pinker 2002).

179

Here, with Clarissa‘s views, McEwan is reflecting the standard argument that the sciences and the humanities are fundamentally different: the sciences are about reduction, while the humanities provide a chance at holism.94 However, after three paragraphs of exposition about the genetic turn in psychology and sociology, Joe tells us "What we were really talking about at this time was the absence of babies in our lives" (75). We are led to believe that the novel functions as Greenberg says it does: that these Neo-Darwinian themes simply reflect the deeper, more fundamental themes of human social relationships. While I certainly do not contest this, if one wishes to take that perspective, I would argue that such domestic concerns like having a family, while important, are not the most fundamental elements in the book (nor are they the most developed). For example, we learn that Joe and Clarissa eventually adopt a child, but we learn this as a quick line in the appendix (259). Furthermore, when Joe later states emphatically, "As I went out into the hallway, back toward the answering machine, I thought, I'm in a relationship [with Jed]" (77), I see this as reflecting inter-personal themes that operate on the surface but that reflect a more fundamental philosophical conflict. Within the novel, such a potentially important dramatic element has having a baby is muted in the text while the implications of obsessing over a relationship with a stalker are foregrounded. The importance is the conflict between the characters‘ positions and how they represent the three worldviews. Thus, my position differs from Greenberg‘s because I view the social elements pointing toward the deeper structure of explicating TC ideas from within evolutionary biology. This representation is problematic because McEwan wisely complicates Joe as a representative of rational science. Joe‘s new worry about Jed‘s very real madness becomes a sort of obsession itself, thus, clouding his rationality. Clarissa notices this. McEwan uses her to challenge the reliability of our narrator. In Chapter 9, Joe relinquishes his role as narrator, but only partially. The chapter begins with Joe telling the story from Clarissa's POV. —It would make more sense of Clarissa‘s return to tell it from her point of view. Or at least from the point as I later construed it“ (85). Speaking in third person present, Joe narrates his version of how Clarissa is experiencing the events. Joe

94 One should note that the use of —fundamentalism“ as used by Clarissa is an allusion to Stephen Jay Gould‘s ideas as detailed in The New York Review of Books (see Chapter 5). McEwan does not mention Gould anywhere in is novel.

180

has been growing increasingly agitated because of Jed‘s attention. At one point, Jed leaves thirty-three messages on the answering machine, which Joe erases. This causes Clarissa to doubt the veracity of Joe's claims he has a stalker. She tells him that Jed "is not the cause of your agitation. He's a symptom" (90) although she shivers as she sets herself into a bath, imagining that Joe has become "unhinged" (161) and that Jed is a figment of Joe's imagination. The reader, then, begins also to doubt Joe‘s reliability as a narrator. But McEwan's text here points to an important distinction. The irrational functions on two levels: the emotional and the truly mad. Clarissa then claims that the symptom that has been agitating him is the fact he is not doing serious scientific work, what she calls his "old obsession" (110). Furthermore, McEwan also allows Jed his time as a narrator in the form of letters to Joe. Like Clarissa, Jed represents the humanities. Whereas Clarissa is a literature scholar, Jed taught English as a foreign language. However, he is more closely associated with religion, a humanistic domain in which he views himself on a mission from god to convert Joe, "to set him free of his little cage of reason" (144). Yet Jed is portrayed as sincere in his love and his religious zealotry, while also being represented as insane. In the letter he writes, "Joe, Joe, Joe . . . I'll confess it, I covered five sheets of paper with your name" (106). His type of obsession, while a form or irrationality, reveals itself as a different kind altogether than Joe's. Again, McEwan plays with the image of a blank sheet, this time being filled with the mad stuff of Jed‘s obsession. Clarissa, it appears, is the rational one, a nod by McEwan (a novelist) to the power of literature. What we see in the second of the three most dramatic scenes (the assassination attempt, preceded by the balloon incident and followed by the shooting of Jed) is a carefully crafted scene that not only dramatizes the factuality that Joe does, indeed, have a pathological stalker, but also represents the basic thrust of the novel in which McEwan uses his characters to explore the differences and the similarities between the sciences and the humanities. A birthday lunch for Clarissa with Joe and her mentor and godfather, the scholar Jocelyn Gale, turns into a botched attempt on Joe's life. It begins with Joe arriving late. Both Jocelyn and Joe have gifts for Clarissa, the former offering a brooch in the shape of the DNA double helix, the latter a first edition of Keats‘s collected poems. What we have are two objects, both beautiful, and both representing their collective

181

enterprises. Clarissa even exclaims, "Oh god it's beautiful!" when she sees the brooch, whereas Joe's present elicits an actual hug and whispered promises of later sexual activity. Interspersed between these gift giving elements are two expositions, one about chemists who helped discover DNA (and those who followed erroneous paths) and another about Keats visiting Wordsworth. Jocelyn tells the story of Johann Miescher and how he identified DNA in the nineteenth century but how a teacher blocked his paper for two years. Miescher continued and eventually found the nucleic acid that comprises DNA (which meant nothing prior to the importance of Mendel‘s work being known). Jocelyn explains that the chemists at the time just knew the find was insignificant. And they were wrong; thus, the accepted story of DNA was wrong until the time of Franklin, Crick, and Watson. Clarissa then tells the story of Keats visiting Wordsworth and presenting —Endymion,“ wherein Wordsworth is supposed to have said dismissively that it was —a very pretty piece of Paganism.“ Clarissa admits, though, that we are not to trust the myth of this famous put down. Both expositions deal with the importance of narrative, an element that binds the sciences and humanities as two very human endeavors (the important distinction, of course, being that the former provides some sort of validation, while the latter does not). The lesson here (unstated by McEwan) is that science was adamant and wrong, whereas the humanities admit up front the difficulties inherent in story telling. (175-183) McEwan recognizes the problems of having such strong elements of —the human“ at the center of these endeavors. When Joe is being questioned by the police after the attempt on his life, he muses about the fact no one could get their stories straight, that "we lived in a mist of half-shared, unreliable perception," that "pitiless objectivity, especially about ourselves, was always a doomed social strategy." And then Joe ties this very common, human element to our natural past. "We're descended from the indignant, passionate tellers of half-truths, who, in order to convince others, simultaneously convinced themselves." As a rationalist Joe thinks this is a "defect" and that science and metaphysics [questions about ultimate reality] are to Joe such grand human endeavors. But "disinterested truth" and "objectivity" are still very much beholden to the limits of our own evolutionary past (196). McEwan privileges science and its attempt at objectivity, while admitting that even our perceptions of it are colored by human lenses,

182

without overtly admitting that science does the same thing as fiction: provides a human narrative agent. Furthermore, we see McEwan's ambivalence in the way that Joe reflects on the final encounter with Jed. At the end of the novel, Joe is coming home from making an illegal hand gun purchase when he gets a call from Jed, who explains he is at Joe‘s home with Clarissa and that Joe should hurry along. Joe does so, only to find Jed with a knife to her throat. Joe shoots him in the shoulder and is frustrated to see Clarissa‘s horrified reaction. He realizes he doesn't live in a world of cold logic where Clarissa runs into his arms in overjoyed thanks. Joe recognizes the problem with his desire. "Such logic would have been inhuman" (231). Clarissa stares at him with such horror he thinks their relationship is over. "I was getting things right in the worst possible way" (232). Joe's rationality doesn't work emotionally for Clarissa in such situations where knives are brandished and guns fired. The emotional strain on Clarissa prevents her from rationally focusing on Joe‘s vindication. She was held at knife-point. Emotion was in abundance, and Joe had not foreseen this. The next chapter is a letter from Clarissa to Joe where she castigates him. "You're being right is not a simple matter" (233). And, "You were right; you acted decisively and you're right to take pride in that. But what about the rest" (235)? Clarissa here functions as the voice of human —wisdom“ that comes to us from the humanities. Such a function should not be a surprise because McEwan, himself, is a representative of the literary, even as he supports many ideas directly funneled from the TC. What Clarissa, and the humanities, represents is the importance of the social world for humans that cannot be reduced to its atomistic parts. The logic and rationality of the sciences, then, is seen as superior in its ability to generate knowledge of the natural world but inferior in navigating through the complexities of the human social world (where people are sometimes held at knife-point). However, one aspect of the humanities, the religious, does not fair so well in McEwan‘s novel. Jed Parry's representation as both sincere in his love for Joe and his love for god, coupled with his insanity, is indictment enough. The novel actually ends with a letter from Jed to Joe during his incarceration in a mental health facility. After reasserting his enduring love, the letter ends telling Joe to remember that "faith is joy" (262). It is on this ironic note, that McEwan ends his novel.

183

Jed, of the three characters, comes off the worst. While Clarissa acceptably represents the humanities, McEwan uses Jed to reflect problems within the humanities that go beyond the mere literary. For example, go beyond the instinct for telling narratives to declaiming them. He is certain, from the very beginning, that the entanglement of Jed and Joe is a product of god‘s will. He is also certain that all else that follows is true. For Jed, Joe loves him even though Joe protests. There is certitude about Joe that does not reflect the humanities‘ understanding of narrative‘s inherent problems. Jed represents problems inherent in —religion,“ but religion of a specific kind: he is a zealot, reminiscent of a fundamentalist instinct for certainty and dogma. Jed is convinced of many things, primarily that God has sent him on a mission to convince Joe of their mutual love and, likewise, that Joe does, in fact, love him. The erotomania is certainly a type of pathology we can easily recognize, but McEwan is also telling us something about his conception of the TC. Jed‘s type of religious thought is unacceptable because it goes beyond mere story telling into an arena of certainty. Certitude is the primary offense that some religious thought offers, which McEwan is vilifying. This is consistent with his representation of a complex TC. Modern science is predicated on doubt. Jed has none of this, and so comes off less well than Clarissa, who can be accused of —telling stories“ but doing so, often, with wisdom about how humans operate in the narrative-rich social world.

Conclusion

What we see in McEwan‘s novel is an example of the tensions between C.P. Snow‘s Two Cultures and, with such an obvious lacuna, a need for a Third. No single character occupies this latter role, although Joe himself might be considered one as a popular science writer. He thinks of himself as a journalist and has admitted to using the fluffy stuff of human narrative in his articles. However, it might be argued that McEwan (in the role of the author) is the TC representative, an example that challenges the idea that literary studies thinkers do not speak to scientists (1995, p. 17-19). If we take this to

184

mean that, more often than not, professionals in the humanities are not interested in ideas from the sciences, I have hoped to show that McEwan certainly is a counter example. In particular, what McEwan does with EL is to use the simplistic dichotomy of the sciences and the humanities to depict three particular characters as positions of three very specific modes of thought. Of course, in their most simplistic forms they represents science, literature, and religion, respectively, yet McEwan does not caricature them or cast them in such tight molds. In particular, we see Joe as occupying a middle ground in which the rationalist becomes the obsessed, while the humanities scholar demonstrates a very human ability at navigating through a complex social world. Is there any irony that the religious figure maintains a degree of joy throughout the narrative, yet still remains in the worst light: the truly insane? Possibly so. That is McEwan represents Joe and Clarissa as attempting to narrate reality but recognizes they have difficulties in doing so. Both the sciences and the humanities (i.e., the humanities as the literary, not the religious) narrate the world but are mediated by limiting factors that they recognize. But McEwan represents the religious aspect of the humanities as happy in its disconnect from reality, without the necessary understanding of the limitation. If we are to search for any sort of consilience, it should be in the fact that Joe is proven right and wrong. Jed certainly was a stalker. Yet, Clarissa‘s POV that Joe hadn‘t managed their relationship during the crisis is also correct. Ultimately, EL can be read as a love story of passion and madness. However, situated within the context of the emerging TC, it proves to be an optimistic yet complex look at the relationship between the sciences and the humanities and what it takes for true collaboration between the great branches of learning: a recognition that narrative, with all its problems, is inherent in both endeavors.

185

REFERENCES

The wedge strategy: Center for the renewal of science and culture. [cited 04/23 2008]. Available from http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html.

Alcock, John. 2000. How stephen jay gould is wrong about evolution. Boston Review (April/May).

Appleman, Philip, ed. 2001. Darwin : Texts, commentary. A Norton critical edition. 3rd ed. New York: Norton.

Barash, David P. 2002. Grappling with the ghost of gould. Human Nature Review 2, (07/09/2002): 283-292.

Barbour, Ian G. 1997. Religion and science : Historical and contemporary issues. 1st HarperCollins rev. ed. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco.

Barkow, Jerome H., Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby. 1992. The adapted mind : Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Barthes, Roland. 2001. The death of the author. In The norton anthology of theory and criticism., ed. Vincent B. Leitch, 1466. New York: W W Norton and Company.

Bell, Daniel. 1999. The coming of post-industrial society : A venture in social forecasting. Special anniversary ed. New York: Basic Books.

–––. 1976. The cultural contradictions of capitalism. New York: Basic Books.

Best, Steven, and Douglas Kellner. 2001. The postmodern adventure : Science, technology, and cultural studies at the third millennium. Critical perspectives. New York: Guilford Press.

Bhaskar, Roy. 1998. The possibility of naturalism : A philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences. 3rd ed. London ; New York: Routledge.

Brockman, John. 2003. The new humanists : Science at the edge. New York: Barnes & Noble.

–––. 1995. The third culture: Beyond the scientific revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Brown, Andrew. 1999. The darwin wars : How stupid genes became selfish gods. London: Simon & Schuster.

Buller, David J. 2005. Adapting minds : Evolutionary psychology and the persistent quest for human nature. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

186

Buss, David M. 1999. Evolutionary psychology : The new science of the mind. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Callebaut, Werner, ed. 1993. Taking the naturalistic turn, or, how real philosophy of science is done. Sciences and its conceptual foundations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Carroll, Joseph. 2004. Literary darwinism : Evolution, human nature, and literature. New York: Routledge.

–––. 1998. Steven pinker's cheesecake for the mind. Philosophy and Literature 22, (2): 478-485.

–––. 1995. Evolution and literary theory. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

Cartwright, John H., and Brian Baker. 2005. Literature and science : Social impact and interaction. Science and society. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Abc-Clio.

Chambers, Robert. 1844. Vestiges of the natural history of creation. London: John Churchill.

Childs, Peter. 2007. Ian McEwan's enduring love. Routledge guides to literature. London ; New York: Routledge.

Clark, Roger, and Andy Gordon. 2003. Ian McEwan's enduring love. New York: Continuum.

Conrad, Joseph, and Robert Kimbrough. 1988. Heart of darkness : An authoritative text, backgrounds and sources, criticism. A norton critical edition. 3rd ed. New York: Norton.

Cooke, Brett, and Frederick Turner. 1999. Biopoetics : Evolutionary explorations in the arts. Lexington, Ky.: Icus.

Cosmides, Leda, and Tooby, John. Letter to the editor of The New York Review of Books on stephen jay gould's "darwinian fundamentalism" (june 12, 1997) and "evolution: The pleasures of pluralism." (06/26/1997) [cited 11/26/2007]. Available from http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html

Crane, Mary Thomas, and Alan Richardson. 1999. Literary studies and cognitive science: Toward a new interdisciplinarity. Mosaic 323, (2) (June): 123.

Davies, Tony. 1997. Humanism. New critical idiom. London ; New York: Routledge.

Dawkins, Richard. 2003. A devil's chaplain : Reflections on hope, lies, science, and love. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

187

–––. 1999. The extended phenotype : The long reach of the gene. Rev. ed. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

–––. 1998. Unweaving the rainbow : Science, delusion, and the appetite for wonder. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

–––. 1997. Human chauvinism. Evolution 51, (3) (Jun.): 1015-1020.

–––. 1996a. The blind watchmaker : Why evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design. New York: Norton.

–––. 1996b. Climbing mount improbable. 1st American ed. New York: Norton.

–––. 1995. River out of eden : A darwinian view of life. Science masters series. New York, NY: Basic Books.

–––. 1978. The selfish gene. New York: Oxford University Press.

Dennett, Daniel Clement. 1997. 'Darwinian fundamentalism': An exchange. The New York Review of Books 44, (13) (08/07).

–––. 1995. Darwin's dangerous idea : Evolution and the meanings of life. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Dennett, Daniel Clement, and John Maynard Smith. 1993. 'Confusion over evolution': An exchange. The New York Review of Books 40, (1&2).

Derrida, Jacques. 1997. Of grammatology [De la grammatologie.]. Correct ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Dobbin, Frank. 2004. The new economic sociology : A reader. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Douglas, Mary. 1986. How institutions think. The frank W. abrams lectures. 1st ed. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press.

Dreyfus, Hubert L., and Paul Rabinow. 1982. Michel foucault, beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.

Eagleton, Terry. 2003. After theory. London ; New York: Allen Lane.

–––. 1991. Ideology : An introduction. London ; New York: Verso.

Easterlin, Nancy, and Barbara Riebling. 1993. After poststructuralism : Interdisciplinarity and literary theory. Rethinking theory. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press.

Eco, Umberto, and Umberto Eco. 1994. The name of the rose. A harvest book. [Nome della rosa.]. 1st Harvest ed. San Diego: Harcourt Brace.

188

Eldredge, Niles. 1995. Reinventing darwin : The great debate at the high table of evolutionary theory. New York: Wiley.

Ferngren, Gary B. 2002. Science and religion : A historical introduction. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Forrest, Barbara, and Paul R. Gross. 2004. Creationism's trojan horse : The wedge of intelligent design. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Foucault, Michel. 1994. The order of things : An archaeology of the human sciences [Mots et les choses.]. New York: Vintage Books.

–––. 1984a. Nietzsche, genealogy, history. In The foucault reader., ed. Paul Rabinow, 390-390. New York: Pantheon Books.

–––. 1984b. On the genealogy of ethics: An overview of work in progress. In The foucault reader., ed. Paul Rabinow, 390-390. New York: Pantheon Books.

–––. 1984c. Truth and power. In The foucault reader., ed. Paul Rabinow, 390-390. New York: Pantheon Books.

–––. 1984d. What is enlightenment?; In The foucault reader., ed. Paul Rabinow, 390- 390. New York: Pantheon Books.

–––. 1978. The history of sexuality [Histoire de la sexualité.]. 1st American ed. New York: Pantheon Books.

–––. 1977. Discipline and punish : The birth of the prison [Surveiller et punir.]. 1st American ed. New York: Pantheon Books.

Frye, Northrop. 1957. Anatomy of criticism; four essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Futuyma, Douglas J. 2002. Stephen jay gould a la recherche du temps perdu. Science 296, (5568) (Apr. 26): 661-663.

Garner, Dwight. The salon interview: Ian McEwan. (march 31, 1998) [cited 11/01/2008]. Available from http://www.salon.com/books/int/1998/03/31/cov_si_31int/index.html.

Gottschall, Jonathan, and David Sloan Wilson, eds. 2005. The literary animal : Evolution and the nature of narrative. Rethinking theory. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press.

Gould, Stephen Jay. 2003. The hedgehog, the fox, and the magister's pox : Mending the gap between science and the humanities. 1st ed. New York: Harmony Books.

189

–––. 2002. The structure of evolutionary theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

–––. 1999. Rocks of ages : Science and religion in the fullness of life. The library of contemporary thought. 1st ed. New York: Ballantine Pub. Group.

–––. 1997a. Darwinian fundamentalism. The New York Review of Books 44, (10).

–––. 1997b. Evolution: The pleasure of pluralism. The New York Review of Books 44, (11).

–––. 1997c. Evolutionary psychology reply to comments on my article on darwinian fundamentalism by steven pinker, werner kalow and harold kalant. The New York Review of Books 44, Vol. 44.

–––. 1997d. Full house : The spread of excellence from plato to darwin. 1st pbk. ed. New York: Three Rivers Press.

–––. 1992. The confusion over evolution. The New York Review of Books 39, (9).

–––. 1989. Wonderful life : The burgess shale and the nature of history. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton.

–––. 1982. Darwinism and the expansion of evolutionary theory. Science 216, (4544) (Apr. 23): 380-387.

–––. 1981. The mismeasure of man. 1st ed. New York: Norton.

–––. 1980a. Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging? Paleobiology 6, (1) (Winter): 119-130.

–––. 1980b. The panda's thumb : More reflections in natural history. 1st ed. New York: Norton.

–––. 1977. Ever since darwin : Reflections in natural history. New York: Norton.

Gould, Stephen Jay, and Richard C. Lewontin. 1979. The spandrels of san marco and the panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences 205: 581-98.

Gould, Stephen Jay, and Elisabeth S. Vrba. 1982. Exaptation-A missing term in the science of form. Paleobiology 8, (1) (Winter): 4-15.

Graff, Gerald. 1992. Beyond the culture wars : How teaching the conflicts can revitalize american education. 1st ed. New York: Norton.

Greenberg, Jonathan. 2007. Why can't biologists read poetry? ian McEwan's enduring love.(critical essay). Vol. 53.

190

Griffiths, Paul E. 1995. The cronin controversy. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46, (1) (Mar.): 122-138.

Habermas, Jürgen. 1987. The philosophical discourse of modernity : Twelve lectures. Studies in contemporary german social thought. [Philosophische Diskurs der Moderne.]. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Hart, Elizabeth F. 2001. The epistemology of cognitive literary studies. Philosophy and Literature 25, (2): 314.

–––. 1998. Matter, system, and early modern studies: Outlines for a materialist linguistics. Configurations 6, (3): 311-343.

Hassan, Ihab Habib, 1925-. 2001. From postmodernism to postmodernity: The Local/Global context. Philosophy and Literature 25, (1): 1-13.

Hayles, N. Katherine. 1991a. Constrained constructivism: Locating scientific inquiry in the theater of representation. New Orleans Review 18, .

–––. 1991b. Chaos and order : Complex dynamics in literature and science. New practices of inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

–––. 1990. Chaos bound : Orderly disorder in contemporary literature and culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Horgan, John. 1996. The end of science : Facing the limits of knowledge in the twilight of the scientific age. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub.

Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 1995. Dialectic of enlightenment [Philosophische Fragmente]. New York: Continuum.

Hull, David L. 2001. Science and selection : Essays on biological evolution and the philosophy of science. Cambridge studies in philosophy and biology. Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Jameson, Fredric. 1998. The cultural turn : Selected writings on the postmodern, 1983- 1998. London ; New York: Verso.

–––. 1991. Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Post- contemporary interventions. Durham: Duke University Press.

Johnson, Philip E. 2002. Wedge of truth: Splitting the foundations of naturalism. Illinois: InterVarsity Press.

–––. 1995. Reason in the balance: The case against naturalism in science, law, and education. Illinois: InterVarsity Press.

–––. 1993. Darwin on trial. Illinois: InterVarsity Press.

191

Kellert, Stephen R., and Edward O. Wilson. 1993. The biophilia hypothesis. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Kurtz, Paul. 1973. The humanist alternative : Some definitions of humanism. London; Buffalo: Pemberton; Prometheus Books.

Kurzweil, Ray. 2006. The singularity is near : When humans transcend biology. New York: Penguin.

–––. 2000. The age of spiritual machines : When computers exceed human intelligence. New York: Penguin Books.

–––. 1990. The age of intelligent machines. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Latour, Bruno. 2004a. Politics of nature : How to bring the sciences into democracy [Politiques de la nature.]. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

–––. 2004b. Why has critique run out of steam? from matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry. 30, (2).

Leavis, F. R., and Michael Yudkin. 1963. Two cultures? the significance of C. P. snow. being the richmond lecture, 1962. New York: Pantheon Books.

Lewontin, Richard C. 2000. It ain't necessarily so : The dream of the human genome and other illusions. New York: New York Review of Books.

–––. 1992. Biology as ideology : The doctrine of DNA. 1st U.S. ed. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

Lindberg, David C., and Ronald L. Numbers. 1986. God and nature : Historical essays on the encounter between christianity and science. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lumsden, Charles J., and Edward O. Wilson. 1983. Promethean fire : Reflections on the origin of the mind. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

–––. 1981. Genes, mind, and culture : The coevolutionary process. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Lyotard, Jean Fran¦cois. 1984. The postmodern condition : A report on knowledge. Theory and history of literature. [Condition postmoderne.]. Vol. 10. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Malcolm, David. 2002. Understanding ian McEwan. Understanding contemporary british literature. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

Malik, Kenan. 2002. Man, beast, and zombie : What science can and cannot tell us about human nature. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

192

Mayr, Ernst. 1988. Toward a new philosophy of biology : Observations of an evolutionist. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Mazlish, Bruce. 1998. The uncertain sciences. New Haven Conn.: Yale University Press.

McEwan, Ian. 1998. Enduring love : A novel. 1st in the U.S.A ed. New York: Nan A. Talese.

Nehamas, Alexander. 1998. The art of living : Socratic reflections from plato to foucault. Sather classical lectures. Vol. 61. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Norris, Christopher. 1991. Deconstruction, theory and practice. New accents. Rev. ed. London ; New York: Routledge.

–––. 1987. Derrida. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Numbers, Ronald L. 1993. The creationists. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Pennock, Robert T. 2001. Intelligent design creationism and its critics : Philosophical, theological, and scientific perspectives. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

–––. 1999. Tower of babel : The evidence against the new creationism. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Pinker, Steven. 2007. Toward a consilient study of literature. Philosophy and Literature 31, (1): 162-178.

–––. 2002. The blank slate : The modern denial of human nature. New York: Viking.

–––. 1997. How the mind works. 1st ed. New York: Norton.

Pinker, Steven, and et al. 1997. Evolutionary psychology: An exchange. The New York Review of Books. Vol. 44.

Richardson, Alan. 1999. Cognitive science and the future of literary studies. Philosophy and Literature 23, (1): 157-173.

Richardson, Alan, and Ellen Spolsky. 2004. The work of fiction : Cognition, culture, and complexity. Aldershot, Hampshire, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Richardson, Alan, and Francis F. Steen. 2002. Literature and the cognitive revolution: An introduction. Poetics Today 23, (1): 1.

Richter, David H. 1989. The critical tradition : Classic texts and contemporary trends. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Ruse, Michael. 2006. Darwinism and its discontents. Cambridge, Mass ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

193

–––. 2005. The evolution-creation struggle. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

–––. 2003. Darwin and design : Does evolution have a purpose?. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

–––. 2002. Stephen jay gould: An appreciation. The Global Spiral. (05/21) [cited 11/27 2005]. Available from http://www.metanexus.net/metanexus_online/show_article.asp?6302.

–––. 2001. Can a darwinian be a christian? : The relationship between science and religion. Cambridge, Mass ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

–––. 2000a. Being mean to stephen jay gould. The Global Spiral (1/12/2000) [cited 11/01/2008]. Available from http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/tabid/68/id/8481/Default.aspx.

–––. 2000b. Biology and beyond: The art and science of love. Science and Spirit 11, (1).

–––. 2000c. The evolution wars : A guide to the debates. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Abc- Clio.

–––. 1999. Mystery of mysteries : Is evolution a social construction?. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

–––. 1996. Monad to man : The concept of progress in evolutionary biology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

–––. 1988. But is it science? : The philosophical question in the creation/evolution controversy. Frontiers of philosophy. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

–––. 1986. Taking darwin seriously : A naturalistic approach to philosophy. New York, NY: Blackwell.

–––. 1982. Darwinism defended : A guide to the evolution controversies. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, Advanced Book Program/World Science Division.

Ryan, Kiernan. 1994. Ian McEwan. Writers and their work. new series. Plymouth, UK: Northcote House in association with the British Council.

Sarup, Madan. 1993. An introductory guide to post-structuralism and postmodernism. 2nd ed. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Segerstråle, Ullica Christina Olofsdotter. 2000. Defenders of the truth : The sociobiology debate. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

194

Selzer, Jack. 1993. Understanding scientific prose. Rhetoric of the human sciences. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press.

Shakespeare, William, Gerald Graff, and James Phelan. 2000. The tempest : A case study in critical controversy. Case studies in critical controversy. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Shermer, Michael B. 2002. This view of science: Stephen jay gould as historian of science and scientific historian, popular scientist and scientific popularizer. Social Studies of Science 32, (4) (Aug.): 489-524.

Slay, Jack. 1996. Ian McEwan. English authors series. Vol. 518. New York; London: Twayne Publishers; Prentice Hall International.

Smith, John Maynard. 1995. Genes, memes, and minds. The New York Review of Books 42, (19).

Snow, C. P. 1969. The two cultures; and, A second look: An expanded version of 'the two cultures and the scientific revolution' [Two cultures and the scientific revolution]. London: Cambridge U.P.

Snow, C. P., and Stefan Collini. 1993. The two cultures (canto). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sober, Elliott. 1993. Philosophy of biology. Dimensions of philosophy series. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Soper, Kate. 1986. Humanism and anti-humanism. Problems of modern european thought. London: Hutchinson.

Spolsky, Ellen. 2002. Darwin and derrida: Cognitive literary theory as a species of poststructuralism. Poetics Today 23, (1): 43-62.

–––. 1993. Gaps in nature : Literary interpretation and the modular mind. SUNY series, the margins of literature. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Sterelny, Kim. 2003. Last will and testament: Stephen jay gould's "the structure of evolutionary theory". Philosophy of Science 70, (2) (Apr.): 255-263.

Sterelny, Kim, and Paul E. Griffiths. 1999. Sex and death : An introduction to philosophy of biology. Science and its conceptual foundations. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.

Sterelny, Kim, and Jon Turney. 2001. Dawkins vs. gould : Survival of the fittest. Revolutions in science. Cambridge: Icon : Totem Books.

Toulmin, Stephen Edelston. 1990. Cosmopolis : The hidden agenda of modernity. New York: Free Press.

195

Turner, Frederick. 1992. Beauty : The value of values. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

–––. 1988. Genesis : An epic poem. Dallas; New York, N.Y.: Saybrook; Distributed by W.W. Norton.

–––. 1985. Natural classicism : Essays on literature and science. New York: Paragon House Publishers.

Wilson, Edward O. 2006. The creation : An appeal to save life on earth. 1st ed. New York: W. W. Norton.

–––. 1998. Consilience : The unity of knowledge. 1st ed. New York: Knopf : Distributed by Random House.

–––. 1984. Biophilia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

–––. 1978. On human nature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

–––. 1975. Sociobiology : The new synthesis. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

–––. 1974. The insect societies. Cambridge, Mass.,: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Wright, Robert. 1990. The accidental creationist. The New Yorker (Dec 13): 56.

Šišek, Slavoj. 2002. Cultural studies versus the "third culture". The South Atlantic Quarterly 101, (1): 19-32.

196

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Sic transit gloria mundi.

197