Although Mr. Gould and Mr. Lewontin, both Marxists, signed on to many of the political attacks on Mr. Wilson, they also believed that his scientific methods were fundamentally flawed. Still, they didn't make that argument until after they had raised their political concerns. The dispute had to do with the use of models in research. The models explained aspects of social behavior. He and Mr. Gould see modeling as overly simplistic.
Good science requires studying molecular behavior directly, in the laboratory.
Even models that work perfectly may not be accurate representations of reality, they point out. Science is an ongoing project. Scientists always have incomplete data, so they try to conjure up mechanisms that seem credible, and await further testing to prove or disprove their theories. Differing conceptions of scientific practice butt up against one another in many controversies, Ms. Segerstrale says, but don't rear their heads otherwise. For instance, in the early days of the controversy over genetically modified foods, molecular biologists were certain that if they understood a plant in the laboratory, they could predict what would happen in the environment.