Full House

The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin

In Full House, Stephen Jay Gould presents the truth about progress, evolution, and excellence, as well as a different way to understand trends other than as entities moving in a definite direction.

We have always identified trends as bad (loosening of the moral fiber) or good (better ethnic eating in urban areas). But Stephen Jay Gould argues that this mode of interpretation is a bias that needs correcting. In Full House, Gould presents the truth about progress, evolution, and excellence, as well as a different way to understand trends other than as entities moving in a definite direction. Gould examines how the misinterpretation of data and statistics can result in bad science and social policy, while focusing on the nature of excellence from Plato to Darwin and the misconception that progress is inevitable.