Gould And Lewontin Summary

To Whom It May Concern, Stephen Gould and Richard Lewontin’s article called The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme shows the consistent religious aspect in most evolutionary writing. An article must meet these three criteria to be worth of publication. Firstly, it must have a persuasive argument. Secondly, it must have an authoritative voice, as if talking with the read instead of at the reader. Lastly, the article must contain an accurate ideas. This article has a great authoritative voice by talking to the reader instead of at them. Although Gould and Lewontin’s article has several attributes, it has some falsehoods included as well. For instance, one critique of their spandrels

thinking does not hold factual in all cases. Therefore, there needs to be data or factual evidence, and not just verbal reasoning, to support their case. While this remains a great paper, but I do understand why people can criticize it for the lack of supporting data. Despite these flaws, they do not undermine the work in this article; thus, it should still be published since the first two of my three criteria were met in this article.
This article meets my first criterion because it draws, at first, a fair analogy between the adaptations of organisms and the spandrels. Spandrels (or flying buttress) are architectural features that are the space between two arches (tapering triangular area) made during the medieval period. They are most commonly found churches, like St. Mark’s Cathedral, referenced in this article, and Reims Cathedral in France. Spandrel is now defined in evolutionary biology as a phenotypic trait that is an evolution by-product, instead of coming from an adaptive selection (Via 1993 & Vrba 1982). The authors believe that this architecture is an unavoidable result from having a dome set on four arches. It is admirable that although the image displayed was of Jesus Christ (Gould and Lewontin 1979, p.582), Gould and Lewontin were not using it to disprove creationism. The purpose of this image was to emphasize how the structural design of the church is just an architectural result of other effects. This idea is similar to the idea of fitness. An organism can maintain the same fitness by surviving longer to perform parental care or reproduce quicker depending on what external factors act on them, like predation. They said the “spaces arise as a necessary by-product of fan vaulting” (Gould and Lewontin, 1979 p. 583). Therefore, the authors believe spandrels do not serve a purpose and compare that lack of purpose to ‘adaptions’ found in organisms. They are correct that not all changes in an organism have a purpose, supporting my third criterion of having accurate ideas in your article as well.
Although I find this plausible, this analogy is not necessarily accurate because there are several ways to brace a dome. For example, you can have columns that hold up the vaulted ceilings, like that Pantheon in Rome. Therefore, the builders at the time had to choose a design for the churches, like the St. Mark’s Cathedral, so they chose the only known structure, during this period, to be able to hold a dome roof. Specifically, the spandrels described earlier are actually adaptive because they formed from the benefits of its structure. Their whole point for the use of “spandrels” was to comment on unsupported theories about adaptation. It is ironic that Gould and Lewontin’s, by using this analogy, are making an unsupported opinion or “storytelling,” as they called it. Therefore, I would suggest Gould and Lewontin not to discuss fields out of their expertise. Theodosius Dobzhansky, a professor in genetics, made the same error in his 1973 work by referencing astrometry, which brings many critics through future research. Furthermore, I would use art in a general sense because, although numerous works do have meaning, a baby’s scribble has no meaning. Thus, this signifies that there is no purpose for change, non-adaption. Evolutionary biologists can avoid criticisms when they focus on a system, like development, living, and evolution itself, rather than analogies alone. Yet it does not diminish their work. Continually, this argument using the spandrels is persuasive, especially to the average reader without an architectural background. Therefore, it fulfills my first criteria of being worthy of publication.
Gould and Lewontin’s article meets my second criterion when they criticize the adaptationists' research and their failure to realize spandrels as a symbol of no adaptation.

They suggest adaptationists “atomize” organism's traits to natural selection and can be viewed as a separate adaptation to act as a non-mutually exclusive function (Gould and Lewontin, p. 585). Gould and Lewontin say instead, that natural selection works on organisms as a whole and not trait-by-trait. In other words, natural selection does not look at individual traits; rather it actually focuses only on the total organism, which Gould and Lewontin were correct about. Additionally, all that natural selection focuses on is an organism’s fitness. Fitness is also relative to other individuals of the population; therefore, there is no direct number for ‘good’ fitness. Natural selection indirectly affects other trait because the genes are correlated. Lastly, the authors provide a great authoritative voice by stating “In natural history, all possible things happen sometimes; you general not support your favored phenomenon by declaring rivals impossible in theory” (Gould and Lewontin, p. 585). This shows a talking with attitude instead of a talking at attitude in this

paper.
One criticism of this point in the article is that the authors are continually attacking the adaptationist. For example, Gould and Lewontin point that some traits within organisms could not come from natural selection affecting evolution because the chance for a beneficial mutation would be impossible (Gould and Lewontin 1979, p. 591). Furthermore, “Eventually becomes a very long time if only one in 1000 or one in 10000 of the 'right' mutations that do occur ever be incorporated in a population” (Gould and Lewontin 1979, p. 591).In other words, they believe that any mutation would lead to an unfit organism. Due to the lack of detail at this point in the article, I was left to assume, based on the few instances they provided. I can understand why some people might feel that this is an attack on evolutionary biologists for them ‘always’ putting reasons towards different traits; however, I feel that this is an unfair criticism. I believe that their work should still be published because their work was before field studies on adaptation were completed. For example, the work done by the Grants on Darwin’s finches is a representation of key works not completed. Additionally, their voice here and throughout the paper allows the reader to feel on the same level as the author, instead of being talked to as insignificant. They try to make the read see it through their eyes. Thus, this article fulfills my second criterion.
Lastly, this article does not fill my last criterion because Gould & Lewontin do not believe that all developmental constraint effects and evolutionary traits need to be explained through natural selection.

Ironically, Gould & Lewontin never explained how the growth in complexity of biological functions, which alludes to organisms that exist today, could show these developmental body constraints and allometry. Furthermore, Gould and Lewontin discuss these other forces, as developmental constraints, which are alternatives to natural selection; however, we know now that these forces have some relationship to natural selection. For example, developmental variation has fitness cost, like reproduction and survival, so developmental systems are subject to selection as well. This part of the article left me with a question. How do developmental constraints go through evolution or change? Gould and Lewontin ignored answering this question because it would mean contradicting themselves and supporting adaptationists. Although this a flaw in their work, it does not damage the work as a whole. I believe this because, even though they contradict themselves, if you look at one side you can agree that not everything in nature does need or has an explanation. For example, the meaning of life, which is a philosophical question about the purpose of existence, cannot be explain through just passing on genes, especially pertaining to humans. However, this does not take away from their other

side and the paper failing to provide accurate/concreate ideas by contradicting itself. Thus, it does not fulfill my last criteria for publication.
My analysis of this paper is that they discuss a lot of old-school developmental biology thinking and insist, without viable data, that body plans and requirements constrain evolution; thus, making it the most interesting aspect, instead of evolution (Gould and Lewontin, p. 594). Evolutionary biologists, in modern day, are much more particular about testing their other possibility to adaptation since there has been an increase in technology available since 1979. I am not blaming Gould and Lewontin, on the contrary, I support the weaknesses of this work because it is impossible to foresee the future, and it shows us a way to see their thought processes were like. Therefore, I would suggest the authors to be wary of evolution because of its rapid change and not discuss fields of active research. Furthermore, using mathematics as your foundation provides a more sound view than rhetoric based on analogies and metaphors. Nevertheless, this should not be the only criterion when judging if a paper should be published. In addition, many of the questions evolutionary biologists propose about constraints on organisms, in modern day, need mathematical support. Finally, this article is worthy of publication because it provides great historic value, by discussing the architectural importance of spandrels. Additionally, their idea is not flawed because not everything nature does not have an evolutionary purpose. Therefore, organisms do not work to become the 'ultimate organism' and some traits are caused by random chance or mutations. Although spandrels are not the best analogy to mutations not having meaning, it does not take away from the over idea of their work. Moreover, this article has met two of my three criteria, the best authoritative voice for the reader and a persuasive overall argument; thus, worthy of publication in this journal.