ABSTRACT
The best-known challenge to Darwinism from within biology was, ironically enough, framed by two eminent evolutionary biologists who between them made some of the most influential contributions to the philosophy of biology, Stephen J. Gould and Richard Lewontin. The challenge was advanced in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London and entitled “The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme” (Gould and Lewontin 1979). At the time of publication even the title required decoding, but now almost everyone who pursues the philosophy of biology knows what a “spandrel” is and who Dr. Pangloss was. It is easier to first sketch the drift of their argument and then explain its title. Much of our understanding of the current research program of evolutionary biology is owed to this paper and the responses it elicited. For the paper focuses on adaptationism-the explanation of biological traits as evolutionary solutions to design problems-and on the errors and temptations into which biologists and others following this research program have fallen.
