sciencemind2

He sets up a logic here which is essentially destructive rather than constructive. He asserts in a general way that teleological reasoning breaks down when it leaps to the conclusion that the universe was designed; he then brings in the problem of faulty information to show the original breakdown occurred even before that leap. The inference that one should never reason from faulty information seems like sound enough advice, except that no interpretation of information is accurate in an absolute sense because no information ever is absolutely fixed.
How do you know when your information is faulty? Newton's information seemed sound enough in the eighteenth century, but relativity and quantum theory later showed it wasn't. There is currently no conclusive proof that a Big Bang happened, yet it is often spoken of as a fact of modern cosmology. Similarly, there is no conclusive proof that the first humans evolved in Africa, yet the idea is commonly taught as a fact of physical anthropology.
Does Gould imply that cosmology and anthropology should withhold these interpretations until conclusive facts are obtained? I doubt it, because to do so would destroy the process by which science achieves the generalizations about nature that it seeks. Unfortunately,
however, his reasoning does seem to imply this.
From Gould's perspective, are any generalizations possible? Strictly speaking, given the tenuous nature of all scientific knowledge, the answer must be no. But in practical terms, some generalizations no more provable than that the universe was designed are admissible
because they run along accepted lines in the scientific community.
It begins to look like the admissibility of generalizations depends on what kind of universe one chooses to see. If one chooses to see a mechanical universe, then one kind of generalization is possible, and other kinds are not possible. Even though there is considerable ircumstantial
evidence to suggest that the universe was designed, this is not an admissible idea in a mechanical view. It is eliminated as a possibility because it posits an apparently nonmechanical force and no conclusive proof or logic is offered on the basis of mechanical arguments.
One wonders exactly what is at stake in Gould's mind on this issue, and why he prefers the idea that the universe is a mechanical accident over the idea that the universe has been designed. I suppose that if everything happened by accident, then it is reasonable to think it all can be explained someday. This would have great appeal, one supposes, to proponents of a mechanical universe. An accidental universe, moreover, is free of any inherent meaning. This gives the human mind enormous freedom
to bestow or withhold meaning whenever it chooses. This would be handy because then one's own accepted discipline in the sciences becomes the sole bestower of meaning.
This puts a huge burden on the individual human mind, however. It suggests that the only thing of importance is the individual human mind. Sort of like being the whole tower instead of just the skin of paint.

On the other hand, to posit a universe with a maker might take some of the starch out of science because science would no longer explain reality, but only the skin on the ultimate reality -- the ultimate reality being that inherent designer. Even worse, to posit a designed universe is to risk being fooled, in the way myths and religions have fooled the masses for eons. One would not want to die and enter total oblivion, having been somehow fooled, without conclusive evidence, into believing in God.
Gould regards the idea of a designed universe as "patently ill-founded and quaint in its failure to avoid that age-old pitfall of Western intellectual life-the representation of raw hope gussied up as rationalized reality" (182). In Gould's preferred universe, hope is "raw," suggesting that it is somehow unformed, primitive, mean, or ugly.
These notions make sense in a mechanical universe. Emotions then are merely the effects of chemicals in the body on consciousness, whatever that is, and rationality is the mechanism whereby the emotions are controlled.
Gould represents a trend in science which has gained strength in the last 400 years, particularly the last 100 years: to believe only in the factual results of empirical observation and rational thought. The pitfall of this attitude is that it excludes whole ranges of human experience and inner activity-emotional, intuitive, and symbolic, as well as religious. Growing out of this attitude is a tendency to ridicule those who suggest the existence of God, even though the suggestion is based on considerable circumstantial evidence. I might suggest that in the end this ridicule will turn out to be either a monumental error in judgment, or completely meaningless. For in a universe with a designer, even
errors have meaning.

Reference
Stephen Jay Gould, "Mind and Supermind," in
Physical Cosmology and Philosophy, ed. John Leslie,
(New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 181-88.