NOVA: STEPHEN JAY GOULD: THIS VIEW OF LIFE (TV)
Summary
One in this series of science documentaries. This edition examines the life work of paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. The program begins as Gould, who teaches the highly in-demand course "The History of the Earth and of Life" at Harvard University, talks about the importance influences on his life from his father, Joe DiMaggio, and Charles Darwin. He explains that he became interested in science at a young age after visiting the Museum of Natural History in his hometown of New York City and viewing the dinosaur fossils on display there. On the first day of his college course, he explains to his students that he wants them to rethink a number of popular biases in scientific theory, namely the "comforting views" that everything in the natural world is precise and logical rather than random, noting that this reflects our hopes and not reality. In past centuries, the beginning of life was explained mainly through religious stories and belief, but that all changed after Darwin's 1859 publication of "The Origin of Species." Gould discusses Darwin's theory of natural selection, explaining that species flourish or wither through random variation rather than some "master plan." All species produce more offspring than can realistically survive, and those with beneficial characteristics survive and multiply. When industrial changes altered the color of certain trees, for example, the panthea moth evolved to have a darker color as well so that it could hide successfully from predators. Gould also mentions a certain parasitic clam that has, over time, developed a physical apparatus that resembles a fish in order to lure in real fish so that it may attach itself to them.
Gould goes on to explain that imperfections, rather than "ideal" designs, more accurately reflect historical changes over time, giving the example of the panda's "thumb": the panda, an herbivore descended from carnivores, has an elongated wrist bone that resembles a thumb that assists, albeit clumsily, in eating bamboo. Gould focuses largely on snails, specifically the genus Cerion, explaining that they are the most diverse land snail and have many widely varying appearances, hinting at the importance of "master genetic switches," and he comments on the joy of making new discoveries, even in seemingly unimportant creatures. In 1972, Gould and Niles Eldredge published their theory of punctuated equilibrium, which suggests that evolutionary change comes suddenly and rapidly, rather than evenly and gradually over time. Gould draws parallels to the world of baseball and meets his childhood idol, DiMaggio, happily recounting his memory of receiving a signed ball from the famous center fielder. He explains that baseball statistics have changed over the years not because the players are less skilled but because the game is more organized, comparing this to the decreased range of biological designs over the millennia—there are fewer species now because the less successful ones have died off. He notes that some creatures, like the peacock, contain characteristics that are "good for the organism but bad for the species" in the long run. He then comments on the futility of assigning human moral values to nature, pointing out that animals that kill and use other animals are not "cruel," they are simply surviving.
The common theory of all life as a structured hierarchy, or "ladder," was replaced with Darwin's "branching bush" allegory, which explains how successful species lead to the development of others, whereas failed species simply stop. In the nineteenth century, however, scientists were fond of "ranking" human races in terms of superiority, and Gould travels to the University of the Witwatersrand in apartheid Johannesburg, which is one of the country's few integrated schools, to discuss the biological basis for human equality. He states that fossils have proven that Africa is definitely the "cradle of human evolution," but adds that many scientists have attempted to prove otherwise, hoping in vain that life actually developed in a more white-centric area of the world. He discusses Samuel George Morton, who measured human skulls in a practice known as craniometry to prove that Europeans had bigger heads, and therefore more advanced brains, than their darker-skinned fellows. Gould notes that aside from being scientifically incorrect, Morton actually recorded the skull sizes incorrectly anyway, but theorizes that he did so out of unconscious prejudice rather than intentional fraud. He notes that people sometimes limit their own potential by putting too much stock in biological technicalities, such as IQ, rather than pursuing objective scientific truths.
Gould then testifies in Washington D.C. about the dangers of nuclear winter, talking about the Alvarez hypothesis, also known as "impact theory," which explains the extinction of the dinosaurs by theorizing that an asteroid or meteor of some sort collided with Earth and caused a dust cloud that blocked out the sun, thus destroying plant life and eventually killing the dinosaurs themselves, as determined by Luis and Walter Alvarez. Gould explains that a similar consequence would likely arise from man-made nuclear war, and he stresses the idea that humans are not the triumphant "end product" of evolution, but are instead just one of many currently-successful life forms on the planet that deserves protection. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS WGBH Boston, MA
- DATE: December 18, 1984 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:00:00
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:38285
- GENRE: Information/Education
- SUBJECT HEADING: Education/Information; Biography; Science
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1974-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Paula S. Apsell … Executive Producer
- Colin Moor … Coordinating Producer
- Linda Harrar … Producer, Director, Writer
- Barbara Costa … Associate Producer
- Lanie Zera … Narrator
- Stephen Jay Gould … Interviewee
- Joe DiMaggio … Guest
- Luis Alvarez
- Walter Alvarez
- Charles Darwin
- Niles Eldredge
- Samuel George Morton