Stephen Jay Gould

La science contemporaine ayant largement corroboré l’hypothèse darwinienne, donnant ainsi tort à Bergson, il peut paraître inutile de s’intéresser à la critique proposée dans l’Evolution créatrice. L’enjeu de notre étude va être de voir en quoi, bien que Darwin échappe à la critique bergsonienne, il est judicieux de solliciter Bergson pour, d’une part, approfondir notre compréhension de Darwin, et d’autre part l’actualiser à la lumière des découvertes de la génétique contemporaine.

Starting with Aristotle and moving on to Darwin, Marco Solinas outlines the basic steps from the birth, establishment and later rebirth of the traditional view of living beings, and its overturning by evolutionary revolution. The classic framework devised by Aristotle was still dominant in the 17th Century world of Galileo, Harvey and Ray, and remained hegemonic until the time of Lamarck and Cuvier in the 19th Century. Darwin's breakthrough thus takes on the dimensions of an abandonment of the traditional finalistic theory. It was a transition exemplified in the morphological analysis of useless parts, such as the sightless eyes of moles, already discussed by Aristotle, which Darwin used as a crowbar to unhinge the systematic recourse to final causes. With many excerpts, a chronological sequence and an analytical approach, this book follows the course of the two conceptions that have shaped the destiny of life sciences in western culture.

There are two basic themes in Ludwik Kowalski’s commentary on the NOMA principle. The main one is the socio-political  problem: how theists and atheists can live together peacefully. The second issue is the resolution of this problem. Kowalski finds this resolution in the NOMA principle introduced by
Stephen Jay Gould, and it is this second issue on which I will focus. I will indicate that: 1) there is an imprecision in Kowalski’s presentation of the NOMA principle; 2) the NOMA principle is not a valid way of presenting theistic religions; 3) the argumentation adopted by Kowalski is inconsistent, due to inconsistency in the NOMA principle itself.

Late in his career, Stephen Jay Gould claimed that the theory of punctuated equilibria had been the coordinating centerpiece of his work in evolutionary biology. In particular, Gould claimed that the theory coordinated two major themes in his work—the necessity of rendering evolution in a hierarchical context and the critique of the adaptationist programme in evolutionary biology. Yet punctuated equilibria was conceived neither as a support for hierarchy theory nor as a challenge to adaptationism. This raises the question: what caused Gould to foreswear adaptationism and to embrace a hierarchical view of evolution with PE at its center? If PE was not anti-adaptationist and hierarchical at the beginning, why did it become so by the end of the 1970s? A related question concerns how PE coexisted with Gould’s early views on macroevolution for nearly half a decade. How did Gould square his view that macroevolution consisted of mechanical improvement in higher taxa with his view that most evolutionary change is cramped into speciation events, which are stochastic with respect to the direction of ongoing cladal trends? This paper attempts to answer these questions, and in so doing, to shine a light on a major conceptual development in paleobiology: the reconceptualization of macroevolution during the 1970s and ‘80s.

C. P. Snow's 'two cultures' distinction between scientific and humanistic thought is perennial.  It may be said to correspond to empirical and metaphorical bents in human nature.  Since antiquity, attempts have been made by some to bridge the gap. The natural bridge of scientific (in the broad sense) scholarship has been largely overlooked, but the development in the West of philological and historical methods by fifteenth and early sixteenth century humanists (in the technical sense) exhibits numerous criteria and examples of a scientific approach to the world around us, as does such scholarship today.

My general aim is to clarify the foundational difference between Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins concerning what biological entities are the units of selection in the process of evolution by natural selection. First, I recapitulate Gould's central objection to Dawkins's view that genes are the exclusive units of selection. According to Gould, it is absurd for Dawkins to think that genes are the exclusive units of selection when, after all, genes are not the exclusive interactors: those agents directly engaged with, directly impacted by, environmental pressures. Second, I argue that Gould's objection still goes through even when we take into consideration Sterelny and Kitcher's defense of gene selectionism in their admirable paper "The Return of the Gene." Third, I propose a strategy for defending Dawkins that I believe obviates Gould's objection. Drawing upon Elisabeth Lloyd's careful taxonomy of the various understandings of the unit of selec...

Vertebrate viviparity (live-bearing reproduction), placentation, and placentotrophy are widely assumed to have evolved as three successive, gradualistic transformations.  From empirical data and predictive tests on lizards and snakes, this paper indicates that placentae and a degree of placentotrophy have evolved repeatedly as necessary correlates of viviparity, not as subsequent modifications.  In addition, information derived from studies of anatomy, physiology, biogeography, and systematics is used to evaluate new saltationist and punctuated equilibrium models for the evolution of viviparity.  Phylogenetic reconstruction reveals that more than 100 squamate clades have made the transition to viviparity and placentation.  However, various phenotypic intermediates postulated by the gradualistic model are either scarce or unrepresented among known forms, including those in which viviparity has evolved at specific and subspecific levels.



Evolution in squamates seems to have produced a dichotomy between two evolutionarily stable patterns: 1) retention of weakly-shelled or shell-free eggs to term (viviparity), with development of fully functional placentae; and 2) deposition of shelled eggs at or near the limb bud stage of development (typical oviparity).  Conflicting functional demands placed on eggshell morphology may constrain establishment of prolonged, oviparous egg-retention as a viable, historically stable pattern.  Alternatively, the costs of prolonged egg-retention associated with decreased female mobility or decreased fecundity may exceed the benefits in oviparous forms.

Pour celui qui cherche à se plonger dans l’histoire des sciences de l’évolution, O. Perru propose de suivre le fil qui mène de
L’Origine des espèces de Darwin à La Structure de la théorie de l’évolution de S.J. Gould. Le chemin à parcourir va de la théorie
de la sélection naturelle du premier à celle de la sélection hiérarchique et des équilibres ponctués du second. Un tissage subtil
apparaît : il associe les apports des biologistes et des paléontologues aux transformations des contextes philosophiques. Au
bout du chemin la théorie de Gould s’avère à la fois intégrative et restrictive. On note au passage comment elle est utilisée dans
la lecture idéologique et la technique éducative développées par le créationnisme actuel. O. Perru fait enfin part de sa propre sensibilité. Il s’interroge : la théorie de l’évolution a-t-elle vraiment une structure ? Il s’inquiète : faut-il se faire à l’idée d’une évolution par équilibres ponctués de l’espèce humaine ?

The Radicalisation of Recapitulation: Surrealism Evolutionary Theory and the Critique of Progress Donna Roberts

Conference paper, EAM, Helsinki, 2014

Following WWI, the surrealists rejected a seemingly blind belief in the notion of “progress”, as theorised by the philosophers of the French Republic from Condorcet to Comte. In response to the over-privileging of scientific reasoning in the modern age, the surrealists used a Freudian pre-historical topos to outline the fact that, however technologically advanced, humankind is irrefutably defined by instincts that were determined by early biological and social development. Ernst Haeckel’s theory of recapitulation was fundamental to Freud’s thinking on the correlations between the development of the individual and the species. Freud used this ‘Biogenetic Law’ in his theory of the neuroses, positing that different stages in individual life corresponded with different stages in human pre-history.  At the turn of the twentieth century, literature and popular culture were replete with images of atavistic regressions and the return to more primitive states of being, and the surrealists engaged with this in an imaginative and provocative manner. This paper will discuss how surrealist concerns with the “primitive” were underpinned by the influence of evolutionary theories, and that the surrealists utilised (both directly and indirectly) an evolutionary discourse within their critique of the dominant positivist vision of social and cultural progress

ANALYSE : Henri Bergson n'a pas bien été accueilli par la communauté des biologistes. Pourtant, sa philosophie est un garde-fou contre le mécanisme de la théorie de l'Evolution, qui est en réalité un finalisme «honteux», souligne la philosophe des sciences Mathilde Tahar, qui note que les questions que l'auteur de L'Evolution créatrice pose à la biologie sont plus actuelles que jamais. Agrégée de philosophie, Mathilde Tahar est enseignante et doctorante en philosophie de la biologie à l'Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès et au Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, où ses recherches portent sur Bergson, Darwin et l'évolution. Elle présente dans iPhilo les enjeux de sa thèse.

© 2016 iPhilo et ses auteurs, tous droits réservés. L'ensemble des articles publiés dans le journal est accessible gratuitement sur le site iPhilo.fr.

El presente artículo está  una elucidación de carácter filosófico que tiene el propósito de indagar acerca del papel que cumple la evidencia negativa en el ámbito de la experimentación científica cuando es resignificada y adoptada en una nueva formulación mediante la introducción de hipótesis ad hoc. El caso específico que protagoniza todo el artículo es la teoría de los “equilibrios puntuados” elaborada por Stephen Jay Gould y Niles Eldredge en 1972, que asumió la pretensión de resolver una inconsistencia recurrente en la aplicación de las explicaciones darwinistas sobre la naturaleza de la especiación biológica.
La formulación de Gould y Eldredge es tomada como uno de los tantos ejemplos en los que el accionar del científico se dirige a tratar de resguardar la integridad de su hipótesis, buscando soluciones alternativas y apelando la falibilidad de otros elementos que componen la teoría.
Palabras clave: Filosofía de la Ciencia, Biología, Charles Darwin, Gradualismo, Equilibrios Puntuados.

This article is a philosophical elucidation wich is intended to inquire about the role played by negative evidence in the field of scientific experimentation when is resignified and adopted on a new formulation by introducing ad hoc hypotheses. The specific case presented throughout the whole article is the theory of "punctuated equilibria" developed by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge in 1972, who took the claim to resolve a recurring inconsistency in the application of darwinian explanations of the nature of biological speciation.
The work of Gould and Eldredge is admitted as one of many examples in which the actions of the scientist goes to try to protect the integrity of their hypothesis, looking for alternative solutions and appealing to the fallibility of other elements of the theory.
Keywords: Philosophy of Science, Biology, Charles Darwin, Gradualism, Punctuated Equilibria.

This essay critically examines a questionable presupposition of contemporary science—that science is an instrumental means to human ends and as such is a value-neutral project, such that the responsibility for ethical evaluation of science concerns only the uses to which science is put by society and thus does not belong properly to the scientific profession. This view, which C.P. Snow called “the myth of ethical neutrality,” is critiqued along ethical, philosophical, and theological axes of analysis. Once we recognize that science is essentially a form of power, it becomes clear that science is morally ambiguous because the power of control over nature enabled by science contains the potential for domination over humanity. From the Christian perspective that all worldly power is “fallen,” moreover, it is evident that science also is in need of being “ransomed” from evil uses and reoriented toward the priorities of God’s Kingdom. All this entails the need for responsible science to be accountable to transcendent values and thus for science to engage in dialogue with other disciplines, including ethics, philosophy, and theology.

Environmental Philosophy has been used in developing countries as a lethal weapon against the small scale farmers. Emission trading and its lucrative offers leave almost all the academics "sold out" for the corporate capital. They successfully market fear among people that something dangerous is impending upon us lest we handle these farmers with iron fist! Driven by the fear, the common public too raises his voice against the farmer, failing to recognize the difference between agro-industry and small-scale farming.  There are intellectuals who mourn the dead elephants.  However, to one's disappointment, they are culpably and cruelly ignoring the adivasi human beings, mauled, killed and eaten by tigers in India. Had it happened to any human beings in Europe, the homeland of environmental movements and deep ecology, the entire predator species would have become a museum piece.  Author says that instead of Green Terrorism, Green Luddism and Earth first movement, we need Man-First movement and scoffs at the inflated claims of environmentalists that their science is more  an arbitrary science(soft science) than a precision science(hard science).

argued that replaying the 'tape of life' would result in radically different evolutionary outcomes. Recently, biologists and philosophers of science have paid increasing attention to the theoretical importance of convergent evolution—the independent origination of similar biological forms and functions—which many interpret as evidence against Gould's thesis. In this paper, we examine the evidentiary relevance of con-vergent evolution for the radical contingency debate. We show that under the right conditions, episodes of convergent evolution can constitute valid natural experiments that support inferences regarding the deep counterfac-tual stability of macroevolutionary outcomes. However, we argue that proponents of convergence have problematically lumped causally heterogeneous phenomena into a single evidentiary basket, in effect treating all convergent events as if they are of equivalent theoretical import. As a result, the 'critique from convergent evolution' fails to engage with key claims of the radical contingency thesis. To remedy this, we develop ways to break down the heterogeneous set of convergent events based on the nature of the generalizations they support. Adopting this more nuanced approach to convergent evolution allows us to differentiate iterated evolutionary outcomes that are probably common among alternative evolutionary histories and subject to law-like generalizations, from those that do little to undermine and may even support, the Gouldian view of life.

Resumen: Hace más de 20 años, se publicó el trabajo de Cronin y sus colaboradores titulado Tempo and mode in hominid evolution, como respuesta al artículo de Gould y Eldredge de 1977, en el que se afirmaba que la evolución humana es un buen ejemplo de equilibrio puntuado. El trabajo de Cronin et alii marcó un hito en los estudios teóricos de evolución humana; pero a la luz de los nuevos fósiles incorporados en el árbol hominino en estas 2 décadas se ha-ce necesaria una revisión. En este trabajo revisamos la sistemática y proponemos una filogenia para los homininos pliopleistocénicos y, basándonos en estos 2 postulados, discutimos el tiempo y el modo de la evolución de este grupo.

Abstract: More than twenty years ago the work of Cronin et alii, titled Tempo and mode in hominid evolution, was published as an answer to the paper of Gould and Eldredge published in 1977 in wich it was affirmed that human evolution is a good exemple of punctuated equilibria. The work of Cronin et alii marked a milestone in the theorical studies of human evolution; however, considering the new the new fossils incorporated to the hominine tree in the last two decades, a new revision is necessary. In this work we reviewed the systematic and propose a phylogeny for the Pliopleistocenic hominine and according with these two postulates, we discusse about wen and how was this group evolution.

Az, hogy az evolúció alacsonyabb szintű mechanizmusai milyen kapcsolatban állnak az olyan nagyobb léptékű, földtörténeti skálán közvetett módon meg-figyelhető mintázatokkal, mint például a fajok keletkezése és kihalása, az evolúciós biológia egyik legrégebbi, Darwin óta tartó vitája. Az ilyen nagyobb léptékű mintázatok, vagyis a földi élet történetéről szóló ismereteink fő forrása a paleontológia. Bár a paleontológia által szolgáltatott adatok a 19. században kulcsfontosságú szerepet játszottak az evolúciós elmélet kidolgozásában, ennek ellenére a diszciplína státusza és viszonya az evolúcióval foglalkozó többi tudományhoz a múlt század második feléig meglehetősen ambivalens volt. Tanulmányomban a makroevolúció koncepciójának változását, illetve ezzel párhuzamosan annak a folyamatnak néhány állomását vizsgálom meg, hogy Darwintól kezdődően hogyan változott a paleontológia és az uralkodó evolúciós diszciplínák közti kapcsolat.

Just what positions or actions the Argument From Reason (AFR) justifies one to adopt or perform remains hotly disputed. In this paper I introduce the argument and note some concerns, using the second edition of Lewis’s Miracles and Victor Reppert’s development in C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea. I then sketch out two strategies by which naturalists might be able to defend their position. In the first strategy Naturalism is assumed for the sake of argument and a dilemma is posed, neither horn of which favors Supernaturalism. In the second strategy proponents of the AFR are accused of committing the genetic fallacy. I consider whether Lewis’s argument might dodge this accusation if it is read as a de jure challenge to Naturalism. I draw on Plantinga’s early account of warrant and put his rebuttal to Freud and Marx in Warranted Christian Belief to work against the AFR. After these two strategies are introduced I conclude that while the AFR does not defeat Naturalism simpliciter, it calls attention to the deep rift between natural and supernatural worldviews and sheds light on the supernatural assumptions that underlie much of Western thought.​

In 'On the Genealogy of Morality,' Nietzsche sets up an opposition between the 'naïveté of English biologists' in their researches on the evolution of life and the complexity of a methodology able to record the singularity and the contingency of natural events without introducing any finality: genealogy. Nietzsche shares with the 'English biologists' the need to trace the explanation of living beings back to a naturalistic framework liberated from theology, but he questions their linear and progressive conception of evolution. This article explores these two competing accounts of biological life. The first is informed by the adaptationist paradigm, namely the theoretical framework of contemporary 'English biologists'; the second is elaborated by combining the theories of the palaeontologist Stephen J. Gould with the work of Nietzsche and Foucault on life and genealogy.

"Un contributo alla riconfigurazione storiografica e concettuale della rivoluzione evoluzionistica alla luce della tenuta plurisecolare della tradizione biologica aristotelica. La svolta di Darwin si delinea quale puntuale rovesciamento dell'impianto fissista, essenzialista e teleologico coniato da Aristotele, ancora dominante nel Seicento di Harvey e di Ray, nonostante Galileo, e poi egemone fino a Linneo e Cuvier. Svolta esemplificata dall'analisi morfologica delle parti inutili, come gli occhi ciechi della talpa, tematizzate già da Aristotele, e che Darwin usò quale grimaldello per scardinare il ricorso sistematico alle cause finali. Antica eredità teleologica presente in varie forme nel concetto di selezione naturale, ma ormai calata entro una griglia eminentemente storica e aperta alla casualità.

The book aims to offer a contribution to the historiographical and conceptual reconfiguration of the evolutionary revolution in the light of the centuries-old tenets of the Aristotelian biological tradition. Darwin’s breakthrough constitutes a thorough overturning of the fixist, essentialist and teleological framework created by Aristotle, a framework still dominant in the 17th Century world of Harvey and Ray, as well as Galileo, and then hegemonic until Linnaeus and Cuvier. This change is exemplified in the morphological analysis of useless parts, such as the sightless eyes of moles, already discussed by Aristotle, and which Darwin used almost like a crowbar to unhinge the systematic recourse to final causes. This is an ancient teleological heritage present in various forms in the concept of natural selection, but by then confined within an eminently historical framework open to randomness."

The era in which Edgar Allan Poe wrote, that is the 1820s through the 1840s, was one characterized by astounding scientific discoveries and technological advances, along with a wide variety of pseudo-sciences, such as phrenology, and out-and-out hoaxes—all which he responded to and/or engaged in or with in a variety of ways.  For many years, there were two major narratives about Poe and science, one relating to the only book attributed to him to appear in a second edition during his lifetime, The Conchologist’s First Book—the acquisition of a copy of which we are celebrating this evening—and the other about the supposed arc of his career from his famous 1829 “Sonnet: To Science” to his cosmological treatise Eureka, published in 1848, the year before his death.  Each of these narratives about Poe has largely been debunked, the first by Stephen Jay Gould in the 1990s, and the latter by historian of science John Tresch in his biography of Poe published last year.  After talking about these contested readings of the writer and science, I’ll move on to brief discussions of his relationship to 1) detective and mystery writing, 2) science fiction, and 3) the Gothic, aka horror, as no discussion of Poe and science would be complete without some mention of them.

English abstract: A 2005 note on exaptation, a concept coined by Stephen Jay Gould, and its relationship with a famous dictum by William Gibson according to which 'the street finds its own uses for things'. These uses can be studied only retrospectively, not prospectively or intentionally, as they are the products of history and of the contingency of evolution.

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Spanish abstract: Una nota (de 2005) sobre la exaptación, concepto acuñado por Stephen Jay Gould, y sobre su relación con un dicho famoso de William Gibson según el cual "la calle encuentra sus propios usos para las cosas." Son usos que sólo pueden estudiarse retrospectivamente, y no prospectiva o intencionalmente, pues son productos de una historia y de la contingencia de la evolución.

In this essay, I examine the usage of the term "just-so story." I attempt to show that just-so storytelling can be seen as an epistemic concept that, in various ways, tackles the epistemological and methodological problems relating to evolutionary explanations qua historical/narrative explanations. I identify two main, yet mutually exclusive, strategies of employing the concept of a just-so story: a negative strategy and a positive strategy. Subsequently, I argue that these strategies do not satisfactorily capture the core of the "original" meaning advanced by Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin at the end of the 1970s. I revisit the foundation(s) of their anti-adaptationist critique in order to reframe it as a critique of distinctive methodological manners and epistemic maxims related to historical inquiry. Last but not least, I suggest that contemporary evolutionary thinkers have two conceptually different options: they can either adhere to the "original" meaning of the term "just-so story" or accept that "just-so story" is a term equivalent to "implausible narrative explanation."

In this discussion paper I qualify the identification that Barzaghi
and Corcó make of two models of the science and religion relationship,
namely those of Karl Popper and Stephen J. Gould. Although both models  are  independence  models  (according  to  Ian  Barbour's  terminology),  that of Popper can be further developed in order to reach a dialogue model.

Examinamos la contribución de Stephen Jay Gould (en especial en 'I Have Landed') a la narratología cognitiva en su relación con el evolucionismo. La propensión de Gould a las historias complicadas y curiosas, y su resistencia a la simplificación, son instructivas tanto sobre la función cognitiva y adaptativa de la narratividad, cuanto sobre la importancia de una labor reflexiva que permita que nuestras explicaciones narrativas den cuenta de la complejidad efectiva del mundo. Enfatizamos por tanto la importancia cognitiva de las representaciones complejas, y de los relatos críticos que, revisando las narraciones conocidas y aceptadas, se oponen a los estereotipos simplificadores y sacan a nuestra percepción de sus carriles habituales, ofreciendo perspectivas complejas y no convencionales de los acontecimientos.

English Abstract: This paper examines Stephen Jay Gould's contribution to cognitive narratology as it relates to evolutionary theory, in particular in 'I Have Landed'. Gould's penchant for complicated and quirky stories, and his resistance to simplification, are instructive as regards the cognitive and adaptive function of narrativity, and also as regards the importance of a reflective attitude which may enable our narrative explanations to account for the actual complexity of the world. This perspective emphasizes therefore the cognitive importance of complex representations and of critical accounts which, revising currently known and accepted narratives, oppose stereotypical simplification and run our perceptions off their usual tracks, providing complex and non-conventional perspectives on events.

Note: Downloadable document is in Spanish.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 9

Keywords: Cognition, Narratology, Cognitive narratology, Evolution, Criticism, Stereotypes, Narrativity, Demythologization

ABSTRACT Academic Letters
[This section is a continuation (see ‘Academic Letters for the initial submission in review) of the above Podium Presentation given in 1994 in San Rafael Argentina at the XI CONGRESO DE ARQUEOLOGIA ARGENTINA. It has not been altered here-in relying on the genetic evidence available before the Presentation in June 1994. New data (through 2021), since this ‘Presentation’ has not changed but rather further substantiated the genetic signals highlighted in1994. AMH February 2021]

EVOLUTION, CHANCE, AND GOD looks at the relationship between religion and evolution from a philosophical perspective. This relationship is fascinating, complex and often very controversial, involving myriad issues that are difficult to keep separate from each other. EVOLUTION, CHANCE, AND GOD introduces the reader to the main themes of this debate and to the theory of evolution, while arguing for a particular viewpoint, namely that evolution and religion are compatible, and that, contrary to the views of some influential thinkers, there is no chance operating in the theory of evolution, a conclusion that has great significance for teleology.
      One of the main aims of this book is not simply to critique one influential contemporary view that evolution and religion are incompatible, but to explore specific ways of how we might understand their compatibility, as well as the implications of evolution for religious belief. This involves an exploration of how and why God might have created by means of evolution, and what the consequences in particular are for the status of human beings in creation, and for issues such as free will, the objectivity of morality, and the problem of evil. By probing how the theory of evolution and religion could be reconciled, Sweetman says that we can address more deeply key foundational questions concerning chance, design, suffering and morality, and God's way of acting in and through creation.

This paper explores the ways that Daniel C. Dennett’s bestselling 2006 book Breaking the Spell traffics in a set of distinctly American presumptions about the relationship between religion and science. In this Americanized atheism, religion is presumed to be a set of logically organized propositional beliefs--a misbegotten science in need of correction or elimination. I show that a convergent critique, drawing on both evolutionary theory and deconstruction, highlights the limitations of this approach. This convergence raises the theme of accident in both pluralist evolutionary biology and continental philosophy of religion. This opens up a new conversational space between a deconstructive approach to religion and postadaptationist evolutionary theory, with implications not only for a philosophical understanding of religion, but for new, postsecular atheisms.

Stephen Jay Gould, Pere Alberch and the clock-model: Convergence and divergence at the origin of evo-devo

Stephen Jay Gould's book Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1977), recently translated into Italian, is unanimously considered as one of the founding texts of evo-devo. Pere Alberch, another pioneer of the field, was early stimulated by reading Gould's book. In particular, he got into the "clock model", an image devised by Gould to organize thinking and terminology about heterochrony (i.e., evolutionary change of the timing of developmental processes). Alberch engaged Gould in a formalization of the clock model, which they published in 1979. After that work, however, the two authors diverged. Alberch noticed inconsistencies in the view of development they had adopted, and moved on towards a more dynamic view. Gould didn't follow this route, and remained largely insensitive to Alberch's work. Reflection on this debate allows for a clarification of the assumptions of different approaches to ontogenic development. Particular attention is given to the dynamical systems approach, grasped by Alberch in the mid 1980s, and regarded as very coherent and promising in today's evolutionary developmental biology.

There are two basic themes in Ludwik Kowalski’s commentary on the NOMA principle. The main one is the socio-political problem: how theists and atheists can live together peacefully. The second issue is the resolution of this problem. Kowalski finds this resolution in the NOMA principle introduced by Stephen Jay Gould, and it is this second issue on which I will focus. I will indicate that: 1) there is an imprecision in Kowalski’s presentation of the NOMA principle; 2) the NOMA principle is not a valid way of presenting theistic religions; 3) the argumentation adopted by Kowalski is inconsistent, due to inconsistency in the NOMA principle itself.