If Darwinian theory works so well, why challenge it? There are several reasons to do so. Although Darwinian theory explains many of the facts of evolution better than any other theory, it does not necessarily explain the whole process. Also, some of the results of evolution do not match what Darwinian theory would predict. For example, if evolution leads to a perfect adaptation through natural selection acting on random hereditary changes, the process ought to slow down as it gets closer to the optimum for each species because fewer favourable changes can be made. We should also see a decrease in the number of species as they compete with one another and unsuccessful species are eliminated. But we see no such slowing down, and the number of species appears to be at least as great now as in the geologic past and perhaps even greater.

Discipline and Punish (1975) is a genealogical study of the development of the "gentler" modem way of imprisoning criminals rather than torturing or killing them. While recognizing the element of genuinely enlightened reform, Foucault particularly emphasizes how such reform also becomes a vehicle of more effective control, "To punish less, perhaps; but certainly to punish better." He further argues that the new mode of punishment becomes the model for control of an entire society, with factories, hospitals and schools modeled on the modem prison. We should not, however, think that the deployment of this model was due to the explicit decisions of some central controlling agency. In typically genealogical fashion, Foucault's analysis shows how techniques and institutions, developed for different and often quite innocuous purposes, converged to create the modem system of disciplinary power.