One of the funnier moments caught on video by NCSE during the TEA hearings [1] was when Chairman McLeroy misread seminal work by Stephen Jay Gould, and employed his misreading to justify teaching weaknesses of a scientific theory.
Gould was a critic of the viewpoint that gradual changes in species dominate the evolutionary landscape. He cited evidence that the majority of species evolution occurs suddenly, in punctuated ways, with long periods of stability in between [2]. This “punctuated equilibrium” modified the majority view of how evolution was expressed, but in no way negated the fundamental theory of evolution of species by natural selection. It merely suggested stasis periods were the norm, with sudden and rapid change in geologically short periods of time representing the durations of most evolutionary activity.
McLeroy instead uses Gould to illustrate how even top evolutionary researchers cite weaknesses in the theory. McLeroy fundamentally misread the very quotes he used. Gould was questioning weaknesses in scientists assumption of how the majority of evolution takes place, not that it takes place. As a scientist, that was really funny to me. How the whole of an argument can be based on a total mis-reading of the facts. It also tells me that this is “abortion politics”, not “tornado politics” – presented with evidence, different people see different courses of action suiting their values, rather than changing their values to suit a common body of evidence [3].
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tS0_EPyLa4&feature=channel_page
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Punctuated_equilibrium
[3] “The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics” (Pielke Jr., Roger A. )
