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. Ecologists insisted that the biologists should not assume that the plant would behave in the same way once planted in a field. To take another example, in the cold-fusion debate, many physicists insisted that the reported results were impossible.