<< ... this quoting out of context that is so often aimed at rhetorical
or cheap pedagogical effect rather than real thought (one only has to
speed-read through all those severely muddled very widely read essays
by the toy-(sometime)historian Stephen Jay Gould to realize we are
confronting a pathology here, nay, an insanity -- the sort of madness
both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein found to be the condition of our world,
especially where it supposes itself to be thinking). >>
This is a pretty strong accusation against Gould. A number of philosophers
and historians of biology (including myself and a number of far more able
and eminent ones) take Gould quite seriously. Briefly, what are the major
sins of Gould as historian. (This has relevance to history of math. insofar
as you ennumerate some general sins in intellectual history or history of
science.)
Val Dusek