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Tales of Feathered Tail
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[1] The popular understanding of evolution includes at least two false assumptions, so widely shared and so deeply (if unconsciously) embedded in the context of conventional explanations that many plain facts, easily grasped at a superficial level of overt recitation, almost always enter the public discourse of newspapers, films, and magazines in a highly confused form that “science writers” either mistake for the actual opinions of scientists or, more cynically, choose to present as the literary equivalent of “easy listening” for succor in drive-time traffic jams1.

[2] In the picture conveyed by these two related fallacies, evolution becomes, first of all, the transformation of one kind of entity into another, body and soul1. So fish evolve into amphibians in a “conquest” of the land, and apes leave the safety of trees, eventually to become human by facing the dangers of terra firma with a weapon in a liberated hand and a fresh twinkle of insight behind the eye2. In the second component of this transformational view, descendants win victory from the heart of their valor in the face of natural selection—for “later” must mean “better,” as the land yields to explorational metaphors of conquest or colonization while the African savannas, for the first time in planetary history, hear sounds of progress in the voice of real language3.

[3] But evolution proceeds by the branching of bushes, not by the morphing of one form into another, with the old disappearing into the triumph of the new1. Novelties begin as little branches on old trees, not as butterflies of Michael Jordan refashioned from the caterpillar components of Joe Airball2. Moreover, most novelties, at least at their origin, grow as tiny twigs of addition to persisting and vigorous bushes, not as higher realizations of ancestors that literally gave their all to a transcendence of their former grubby selves3.

[from Tales of a Feathered Tail, Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, November 2000]

1

Gould believes that the facts about evolution are often falsely represented in the media.
A)True
B)False
2

It’s accurate to say that fish became amphibians.
A)True
B)False
3

Gould implies that evolution proceeds in small steps.
A)True
B)False
4

To Gould, Michael Jordan represents the pinnacle of human evolution.
A)True
B)False
5

    The explanations that science writers present in popular newspapers are the literary equivalent of “easy listening” for succor in drive-time traffic jams.
    The peasant girl, oppressed by her evil landlord, applied to the queen for succor.

"Succor" means
A)a snack
B)distraction
C)relief
D)excuses
6

“Fallacies” (sentence 1, paragraph 2) are
A)falsehoods
B)failures
C)symbols
D)mistakes
7

Which of the following is true, according to Gould?
A)Evolution causes the old to tranform into the new, and the old disappears.
B)Fish became amphibians, and fish disappeared.
C)Apes became humans by dropping from the trees and making tools.
D)Evolution introduces gradual changes that persist alongside of old forms.
8

Which of the following best expresses Gould’s purpose in writing this passage?
A)to praise science writing in the newspapers, magazines, and other outlets of the popular press
B)to defend the teaching of evolution in the schools
C)to correct popular misunderstandings of how evolution works
D)to propose a new theory of evolution





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