Historical Reflections on Central Europe: Selected Papers from the Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies, Warsaw, 1995 ed. by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum (review)

humanities 325 rapid change followed by long periods of stasis. What has this to do with values? According to Ruse, plenty. For one thing, Gould is interested in upgrading his own cherished discipline of paleontology. Instead of taking their marching orders from geneticists, the fossil folks can lead the way. Second, Gould has a Marxist background, and punctuated equilibria fit in nicely with a picture of history highlighted by revolutions. Third, the Darwinian gradualism which he opposes is tied to the so-called adaptationist program of sociobiology, a theory which tries to account for all human characteristics and behaviours in biologically adaptive terms. Gould, perhaps because of his Jewishness and his socialism , sees human differences as more the result of culture and environment than of nature. These, according to Ruse, are the kinds of values that can play a role in the thinking of a scientist. But do they determine scientific outcomes? Did they determine the outcome for Gould? There is a classic distinction philosophers make between `discovery' (having an idea in the first place) and `justification' (having objective evidence for accepting it). In a pinch we could say that Gould's values contributed to the former, but played no role in the latter. Ruse notes that the scientific community has paid scant attention to punctuated equilibria. So he concludes that Gould's values did not contribute to the course of evolutionary thinking. By contrast, the values of E.O. Wilson (who had a southern Baptist and military background which led to strong views about sex roles) have found their highly influential way into sociobiology. Ruse, however, sharply separates the `real' science from `popularizations' and claims that Wilson allows his various values only into the popular realm. When it comes to real science, traditional epistemic values such as prediction, explanatory scope, and so on carry the day for Wilson and for the scientific community at large. Ruse's principal conclusion is that science is largely an objective enterprise. Scientists are rife with subjective values and these values play a role in motivating scientific work. They also play a role in popularizations. But in real science objective epistemic values come to the fore. Messy though it is, science is an objective process. Like all of Ruse's earlier books, this one is a pleasure to peruse. (Thanks to a lack of support for our universities, Canada is losing many of its top academics. Wouldn't it be a pity of we were to lose our best philosopherhistorian of biology?) Charmingly irreverent and opinionated, gracefully witty and informative, Mystery of Mysteries is a great read, for professional and public alike. (JAMES ROBERT BROWN) Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, editor. Historical Reflections on Central Europe: Selected Papers from the Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies, Warsaw, 1995 326 letters in canada 1999 Macmillan and St Martin's. xiv, 246. US $65.00 The fall of communism in 1989 became a turning point in the history of research on East Central and Eastern Europe. Scholars no longer need to answer Cold War ideological and practical challenges. Western and Eastern academies can co-operate closely, forgetting about censorship and secret police. The Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies, held in Warsaw between 6 and 11 August 1995, is a fine illustration of these changes. For the first time, the International Council for Central and East European Studies could organize its meeting behind the former `iron curtain' and gather equal numbers of Western and Eastern scholars, who could also freely communicate and exchange their ideas before and after the Congress. As a result of this undisturbed co-operation, many interesting papers were presented during the Fifth Congress. They will be (or have already been) published as separate books in the impressive series edited by Ronald J. Hill, Professor of Comparative Government at the University of Dublin. The reviewed book is a part of this series and, besides S.J. Kirschbaum's introduction, includes fourteen papers: `Legitimacy and Myth in Central and Eastern Europe' by Philip Longworth, `Community, Memory and Law in Medieval Poland' by Piotr Górecki, `Boundary Delimitation in Medieval Poland' by Grzegorz MyÑliwski, `The Construction and Deconstruction of Nineteenth...