I may have mislead you by not including all of the material content. I have added all of Gould's pages on Whitman above.
Wolfram wrote (in A New Kind of Science)
Click for full size imageand
which refers back to
Sorry about my marginalizations.
Further Wolfram had said,
I am trying to point out that Gould uses Whitman's work to establish the difference which IS a part of the issues in creation and evolution that natural selection is impotent yet LOOK, Wolfram is essentially using this same thought and yet Wolfram seems to feel that his work is about "adaptation" which for Gould falls with Darwin (functionalism) rather than Whitman, postitive constraints, Gould's proposed changes (formalism) etc.
So either Gould's use of the difference of functionalism and formalism is wrong(seemingly based on Darwin's use of the words "independent" and "utility" I think)or Wolfram has hyped up his contribution beyond what Feynman said to him (I have posted on this on EVC before) or both. I, think both, but that is just me and there is still some room for some of your notion as contained in the post if "variation" and "variable" were further refined. I do not find evolutionists doing this
(which is why I have
http://www.aexion.organd
http://www.axiompanbiog.com)
and so I think that the whole issue can not be invoked under a creation/evolution thought.
Notice in particular that Wolfram said, "Self-reproduction, for example, suggests that flames are alive but mules are not." I know that people at Wolfram's business suggested contrary to me that there is no new "physics" in Wolfram's work as I had suggested on their forum but I AM suggesting there is new biology, here and now.
I posted this topic because understanding it is important in answering the issues on bilaterians that Bernd raised and said he will speak about later in another thread.
Are you still as certain that regardless of whether Whitman might have known of the situation or not that "Gould" seems in support of Wolfram? Gould is not Darwin.