am i teasing?

the answer to the gould-dawkins debate is...

you won't like this. really.

one day, people will look at the canid fossil record for north america over the late 20th and early 21st century and notice that both the larger and smaller forms disappeared at about the same time, making way for an intermediate form. if made solely using 21st century science, the deduction will likely be that a warming climate made it harder for the larger form to survive, and the smaller form rapidly speciated to fill the niche. gould would essentially make a lamarckian argument that increased rates of mutation followed as a result of the climate change, whereas dawkins would argue that the fossil record is incomplete, and the variation that lead to the intermediate form is simply lost.

but, we're living through this; we know they're both wrong.

what has happened in the canid population is that coyotes and wolves have hybridized, and the hybrid form has outcompeted both of the source forms. 

i do believe that this observation in canids - as well as, soon, in ursids - should have long term implications in resolving this debate.

and, who is right?

there is simply neither a solid logical argument nor any convincing evidence to back up gould's argument for lamarckian reactions to environmental change. gould is not making an epigenetic argument, either. he's explicitly arguing for variable mutation rates, as a reaction to the environment. so, gould is wrong. full stop.

and, dawkins' variation is actually right in front of him in the form of the two ancestral species, he just doesn't realize it. in a mechanical sense, he's essentially correct, even if he's missing the way it works.

i looked into this in 2003-2005ish. so, it will come up in 2033-2035ish.