Darwinism
From SkepticWiki
[edit] Definition
- It can refer to the theory of evolution. This does Charles Darwin rather too much credit: he was not alone in putting forward the theory as he understood it; and our modern understanding of evolution incorporates genetics, on the details of which Darwin was as hazy as his contemporaries.
- For that reason, "Darwinism" can also be used to refer to the state of the theory of evolution as it stood before the discovery of the laws of genetics, as distinct from "the new synthesis" or "neo-Darwinism".
- It is also used by some biologists to refer to the mistaken tendency to overestimate the importance of natural selection at the expense of genetic drift.
- Advocates of punctuated equilibrium sometimes use "Darwinism" to refer to the belief (which they think erroneous) that evolution is a steady continuous process, rather than one interrupted by lengthy periods of stasis. This is a strange use of Darwin's name, since Darwin thought punctuated equilibrium probable (see the article on punctuated equilibrium for more details).
For this reason, we advise that the term should not be used by people wishing to avoid ambiguity.
[edit] Creationists and "Darwinism"
Of course, some people do not wish to avoid ambiguity. Creationists, it would seem, wish to create as much ambiguity and confusion as possible. This they can do by quote-mining perfectly respectable scientists using the word "Darwinism" in one of the two last senses given about, removing the quotation from its context, and pretending that the word is being used in the first sense listed above.
