Well, assuming you do listen, I’m saying his thesis is doesn’t have the implications you claim. Straightforward adaptationism is often a mistake, yet the results of natural selection for beneficial adaptations are still very plain in the world around us; there is a reason people noticed them in the 1800s.
Gould argued there was more to the picture, but that does not make the whole thing invisible or ineffable, and many of his other essays support the idea that lots of adaptations are plain enough. Nothing in this makes denying their existence, as with creationism, any more sensible.
And yeah, I both embrace and dismiss things all the time, because reality is subtle and lots of things only give you a partial perspective on it. Gould’s books are among those, and I make no apologies for that.
