Stephen Jay Gould Inductivism In Middle Road

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In Darwin’s Middle Road, Stephen Jay Gould depicts inductivism as something that reduces genius to dull. Gould sees the “eureka” view as a creativity trait that only geniuses have. He does not necessarily agree with inductivism because at one point inductivism depicted science as a brutal, almost a barbaric discipline offering no legitimate place to peculiarity, instinct and all the other abstracts characteristics adhering to our vernacular notion of genius. He was against inductivism for all those reasons and he even mentioned in the essay that the way it’s being seen right now. He agrees with the criticism against inductivism and says that they are valid and he welcomes the dethroning of inductivism in the past 30 years and a necessary prelude …show more content…

But not a creativity that comes to everyone. It only comes to certain people, to people who are, let’s say, geniuses. The “eureka” view is like an “aha” moment. It’s like a light bulb goes off and you suddenly remembered something or discovered something. But that eureka view is only in those who are genius, the rest of the normal people like us have to stand by the side and just stare in awe. He sees eurekaism as elitism and inductivism more of as a pedestrian quality. He is not pleased with either of the opposing extremes that the people have defined. What he explains in the essay and also what the name of the essay is “Darwin’s Middle Road”. He wants to abandon both of the traits, which are eurekaism and also inductivism. He does not see the value to either because if you do not pertain on trait of either eurekaism or inductivism. You are not either and he thinks that if you are neither then, to the world you are not good enough. If you don’t have the creativity of the eurekaism, then you are not a genius. If you aren’t good with facts, then you aren’t an inductivist. He believes that Charles Darwin was neither because he uses the example of him to show that in the beginning, Charles Darwin wrote and autobiography for his children that later were published to show that he might have been an inductivist. But others later try to show that he was not an inductivist and that he made a lot of enemies such as preachers because they did