Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin (Paperback)

~ (Author) "We reveal ourselves in the metaphors we choose for depicting the cosmos in miniature..." (more)
Key Phrases: shrinking variation, bacterial mode, mean batting average, American League, National League, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The human mind has a trusty device for simplifying a complex world: reduce to averages and identify trends. Although valuable, the risk is that we ignore variations and end up with a skewed view of reality. In evolutionary terms, the result is a view in which humans are the inevitable pinnacle of evolutionary progress, instead of, as Stephen Jay Gould patiently argues, "a cosmic accident that would never arise again if the tree of life could be replanted." The implications of Gould's argument may threaten certain of our philosophical and religious foundations but will in the end provide us with a clearer view of, and a greater appreciation for, the complexities of our world. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In his first single-subject book of original writing since Wonderful Life (LJ 9/1/89), Harvard paleontologist Gould examines trends in natural variation throughout organic evolution, thereby discrediting the abstract ideas of eternal forms, fixed essences, and intrinsic progress. His insightful study even applies to sports systems, accounting for the apparent extinction of .400 hitting in baseball. In light of fossil evidence and overwhelming biodiversity, he concludes that there is no linear pattern or ultimate design to evolution. Instead, life is a spreading web or a branching bush; variation, rather than progression, is nature's expression of excellence. Consequently, our species is not the inevitable end-goal of evolution. It remains for Gould to consider in his next book the ethical and theological implications of his nonprogressive and naturalistic world view. (Are bacteria really as important as human beings?) Gould's book is rather a dense read for the average patron, but his ideas are important. Recommended for all academic and public library science collections.
-?H. James Birx, Canisius Coll., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (September 16, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609801406
• ISBN-13: 978-0609801406
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #240,693 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marching forward? backward? . . . or just "diversifying"?, August 4, 2004

By	Christopher Nelson (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin (Paperback)

After seeing that there were already some 40 or so reviews of this wonderful book, and having read it some years ago I was reluctant to add another. But, being a fan of Gould's magnificent "Wonderful Life" (1989) and seeing some negative, and misleading reviews of this particular book, I had to chime in. To begin with, Gould's books are highly readable and enjoyable as he has a great capacity to relate objective science to the subjective world. "Full House" will be challenging to you if you do not already understand or buy into Darwinism. If not, you'll definitely take issue with his seemingly harsh conclusions (i.e. "Humans are here by the luck of the draw, not the inevitability of life's direction or evolution's mechanism" p.175). The book is about diversity and "the spread of excellence" on earth. Consequently, it puts man in his place (just another organism amongst many, and quite minor compared to bacteria) amongst greater geologic history; and this can be a bit difficult to swallow at first. But read on!

Utilizing baseball and the disappearance of .400 ave. hitting as one major example to illustrate the nature of evolution, Gould shows through statistics how one aspect of the game (hitting) has declined over time, while the rest (pitching & fielding) have increased in skill level. It all makes perfect sense. That's not to say one can't argue with him (although he's now dead), but Gould's contributions to evolutionary theory can be controversial to the unconverted - especially the religious (namely, Catholics & those with firmly held, comfortable beliefs in Manifest Desitiny). Gould (and most science) is directly opposed to this type of anthropocentric thinking; but not, however, traditional Deist beliefs in which God does not interfere with human evolution. In many regards, "Wonderful Life" and "Full House" comfortably fit into an older, more original Christianity - that of Gnosticism, in which the earth is a sort of abandoned proving ground. Gould conjectures: "...perhaps we are, whatever our glories and accomplishments, a momentary cosmic accident that would never rise again if the tree of life could be replanted from seed and regrown under similar conditions" p.18.

The premiss of "Full House" is that "progress is, nonetheless, a delusion based on social prejudice and psychological hope engendered by our unwillingness to accept the plain (and true) meaning of the fourth Freudian revolution" p.20. Later on, Gould reiterates: "The vaunted progress of life is really random motion away from simple beginnings, not directed impetus toward inherently advantageous complexity" p.173. He could be wrong. He could be right. He does however back up his ideas with plenty of observable proofs, experience (he was a paleontologist), and statistics - all in Gould's entertaining and thought-provoking signature style. The fact is, neither Gould nor Darwin nor Freud is saying a person ought to stop striving for excellence - in fact, they're encouraging it! Reading a book like "Full House", or "Wonderful Life" is challenging to many commonly held assumptions about human life, and thus, potentially upsetting, but ultimately uplifting in my view. One optimistic conclusion that may be drawn from this seemingly dismal and dry evolutionary theory is that our life is a unique, wonderful opportunity unparalleled, and definitely not the norm of things.

If the above quotes from the book sound intriguing to you, and you're craving more information, then I highly recommend you try both "Full House" and it's paradigm shifting predecessor, "Wonderful Life". I guarantee that you'll come away with a mind more open, and thoughtful about evolution and life than ever before. Happy reading!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We're Surrounded, May 22, 2006

By	Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Having been buried by statistics courses in college, it has always amazed me how people build entire empires out of the slimmest of statistical information. Making judgments based purely on an 'mean' response is an invitation to the error of thinking that a change in average means a trend is developing, or that you are even likely to get an average response in any particular case. To be able to make an even educated guess one has to look at the mode, the median, and various statistical distributions. Even then, it's possible to be wrong, but at least you will have an excuse.

This book by the late Stephen Gould is one of the best discussions of statistical fallacy I've ever seen. Gould starts out with the story of is confrontation with a form of cancer that is almost invariably fatal within a very short time period. Or rather, the modal life span after diagnosis is very short. Gould was a survivor, and his discussion of how the mode has very little to do with individual cases, and how that the studies are skewed by being left limited (there are no negative life expectancies) is enlightening.

Having made his initial point, Gould elaborates it by turning to the disappearance of the .400 batting average. Because there is a lot more information about baseball than there is about a rare form of cancer, Gould is able to look at another form of statistical skew, where there may very well be an upper physical limit, and the field involves multiple variables (pitching, hitting, etc.). By the time he is done the reader will be confident that batting is doing fine, and ready for the real reason Gould wrote Full House - just who really is the boss of earth.

From Victorian times onward one of the 'myths' we humans tell each other is that we are somehow the apex of evolution. That not only is progress (as expressed by intelligence and complexity) inevitable, but that it actually is progress. Using the same statistics that analyzed the .400 average, Gould explodes many of the misunderstandings about what evolution actually is. We are reminded that humans, in fact, all of the 'animal kingdom' are the tiniest part of life on the earth. The creatures with the most species, best ability to survive, and sheer numbers and weight, are the lowly bacteria. For some 3.4 billion years they have ruled the earth, and everything else has been their food.

On top of finding out that we may very well be the last representatives of a dying genera, we must suffer with the fact that we have been beaten out by the most elementary of life forms. Gould reminds us that 'It is a gift to be simple,' writing in a style that is both entertaining and easily accessible. You may start out statistically disadvantaged, but by the end of 'Full House' you will have a much clearer picture of statistics and evolution. While Gould does not break any new territory in this book, he does take us on a wonderful tour of the real world.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is one of my favorite books, April 20, 2000

By A Customer

I like Gould's style. He is a scientist and not a philosopher. So many other books of this type present purely philosophical, or even worse religious, arguments which have nothing to do with reality (you can "prove" anything with pure logic if you make the correct initial assumptions). This sort of pap is an insult the reader's intelligence. Stephen Gould makes a compelling and logical argument which is supported by empirical evidence and not assumptions. Before reading this book I accepted the popular myth that evolution tends to produce complexity. This book has reduced my ignorance.

I thought the link between baseball and evolution was clever. Gould is a master at finding connections between seemingly disparate subjects. I