Don’t Call it “Darwinism” [religiously defended as "science" by Godless Darwinists]

springerlink ^ | 16 January 2009 | Eugenie C. Scott and Glenn Branch

[Coyoteman]

We will see and hear the term “Darwinism” a lot during 2009, a year during which scientists, teachers, and others who delight in the accomplishments of modern biology will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. But what does “Darwinism” mean? And how is it used? At best, the phrase is ambiguous and misleading about science. At worst, its use echoes a creationist strategy to demonize evolution.

snip...

In summary, then, “Darwinism” is an ambiguous term that impairs communication even about Darwin’s own ideas. It fails to convey the full panoply of modern evolutionary biology accurately, and it fosters the inaccurate perception that the field stagnated for 150 years after Darwin’s day. Moreover, creationists use “Darwinism” to frame evolutionary biology as an ism or ideology, and the public understanding of evolution and science suffers as a result. True, in science, we do not shape our research because of what creationists claim about our subject matter. But when we are in the classroom or otherwise dealing with the public understanding of science, it is entirely appropriate to consider whether what we say may be misunderstood. We cannot expect to change preconceptions if we are not willing to avoid exacerbating them. A first step is eschewing the careless use of “Darwinism.”

[Anatheme]

Why pick on evolution then?

"I can't think of anything that is so insecure surrounding gravity (etc.) today, that when a concerned group of parents places a sticker on a textbook reminding students as in the example in evolution is mere theory, and not fact, they get sued, can you?"

I hope the lawsuit was thrown out, since everything is a "theory" and its impossible to prove a theory, only to disprove it. Truth has little bearing on utility. Take a falsly geocentric view of the universe and navigating a boat by the stars and the assumption that everything revolves around the Earth still works fine.

Oh, and btw, Edmund Burke never actually wrote that tagline - it is oft attributed to him and may well be something that he might have said but there is nothing in his works or those of his contemporaries to suggest that he did. So much for truth.

RIP Coyoteman

[metmom]

There’s one thing that people like evos/atheists just can’t seem to understand: religion and science do not stand equal before the Constitution. Of the two, one, and only one, is enumerated.

Because of this, Jim Robinson is absolutely right when he aggressively defends people of faith, and the practice of religion. Evos/atheists just don’t seem to understand this, and apparently never will.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

So, you're quoting a "Creationist," in defense of "science," Gumlegs?

He must quote a Christian. Atheists have zero credibility. So quoting great evolutionary geniuses like Dawkins, Huxley etc., would be useless. And he knows it.

The Pope did say: "on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points." If one investigates what he meant by this (no evolution of the soul, no polygenism, no denial of final causes etc.) things suddenly look quite different.

[js1138]

There’s one thing that people like evos/atheists just can’t seem to understand: religion and science do not stand equal before the Constitution. Of the two, one, and only one, is enumerated.

"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

This is the only power granted to Congress for which the means to accomplish its stated purpose are specifically provided.

[tacticalogic]

Near as I can tell, "coyoteman" just got banned for being an idiot but, then, we all knew that; I mean, the guy actually believed in darwinism... Am I missing anything here?

You good with that explanation, YHAOS - CM got banned for believing the ToE?

[count-your-change]

Darwinist seems to be in current usage by others besides the creationists.

“Definitions of darwinism on the Web:
a theory of organic evolution claiming that new species arise and are perpetuated by natural selection
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Darwinism is a term used for various different movements or concepts related to a greater or lesser extent to Charles Darwin’s work on evolution. The meaning of Darwinism has changed over time, and depends on who is using the term.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinism

The principles of natural selection set out by Charles Darwin in the Origin of Species (1859) and other writings; The evolution and common ...
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Darwinism”

And how does the term “Darwinist” bash evolution when Darwin is credited with the soul of evolution, natural selection? Darwin is rightly termed “the father of evolution” is he not?

Global warming went to climate change when the warming wasn’t so warm, So now is Darwin going to be ejected?

There’s more to it then simply, “Oh the creationists use the term ‘Darwinist’ so Darwinian, Darwinist, has to go”.

[metmom]

You good with that explanation, YHAOS - CM got banned for believing the ToE?

You're still here. Does that mean that you don't believe in evolution?

If cm hadn't tried to throw his weight around and act like this was his forum (like DC) and told JR off, I can't see that his banning would have happened.

Evos need to get over their persecution complex.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

All you ever do is shout "Hallelujah!" right along side them, praise them for their faith and their "insight," and endlessly mock and ridicule the countless real scientists who have spent centuries showing that the Bible literalist view of the universe is a bunch of ignorant, superstitious crap written thousands of years ago by people who had no idea how the universe really works, and had no way of ever finding out because the observational tools that they needed simply weren't there yet. And I'd point out that many of those real scientists paid for their "blasphemy" with their lives, thanks to people like you.

A fine monistic diatribe in the spirit of evolutionist Ernst Haeckel.

Science and Christianity, Ernst Haeckel.

[tacticalogic]

You need to get over the idea that you’re going to be able to provoke me into saying something intemperate.

[metmom]

Get over your persecution complex.

Cm was banned over his behavior, not his beliefs.

If it were for beliefs, none of the evos would be here. They would have been gone long ago. All of them.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

To eugenicists, all these deaths were not just an unfortunate by-product of over-zealous adherents (of course, they try to pin them on something else).

Here, this is by Darwin Medalist Karl Pearson. He was addressing an audience of doctors and surgeons:

Let me, even at the risk of talking about the familiar, sketch for you the broad outlines of Darwin's theory of evolutionary progress. The individual better fitted to its environment lived longer than its fellows, had more offspring, and these, inheriting its better fitness, raised the type of the race. The environment against which the individual had to struggle here was not only formed by the other members of its species, not only by its physical surroundings, but by the germs of disease of all types. According to Darwin -- and some of us still believe him to be right -- the ascent of man, physical and mental, was brought about by this survival of the fitter. Now, if you are going lo take Darwinism as your theory of life and apply it to human problems, you must not only believe it to be true, but you must set to, and demonstrate that it actually applies.

Darwin's theory means this, that if individuals are reared under a constant environment, and a larger percentage of them are killed off in the first year of life, then a smaller percentage of those remaining will die in the later years of life, because more of the weaklings have been killed off... Now if there be -- and I, for one, think that two independent lines of inquiry demonstrate that there is -- a fairly stringent selection of the weaker individuals by the mortality of infancy and childhood, what will happen, if by increased medical skill and by increased state support and private charity, we enable the weaklings to survive and to propagate their kind? Why, undoubtedly we shall have a weaker race... Surely here is an antinomy -- a fundamental opposition between medical progress and the science of national eugenics, of race efficiency. Gentlemen, I venture to think it is an antinomy, and will remain one until the nation at large recognises as a fundamental doctrine the principle that everyone, being born, has the right to live, but the right to live does not in itself convey the right to everyone to reproduce their kind... Our social instincts, our common humanity enforce upon us the conception that each person born has the right to live, yet this right essentially connotes a suspension of the full intensity of natural selection. Darwinism and medical progress are opposed forces, and we shall gain nothing by screening that fact, or, in opposition to ample evidence, asserting that Darwinism has no application to civilised man... I say that only a very thorough eugenic policy can possibly save our race from the evils which must flow from the antagonism between natural selection and medical progress.

--Karl Pearson

It seems that Darwinism is anti-medical-progress.

[tacticalogic]

Then saying he was banned for being an idiot, and he was an idiot for believing it ToE would be telling lies about why he was banned, would it not?

[trisham]

Yet they claim religion is responsible for more deaths.

[trisham]

Is the author of this piece an atheist, a Satanist, anti-god, or in some other way unfit to associate with the posters at FR?

********************

Coyoteman was here for many years. It is not my impression that he was deemed unfit to be here because of his belief in the theory of evolution, but because he overstepped himself. It is one thing to promote a belief, it is another to openly reject the publicly stated principles and goals of a private forum, particularly if that rejection is continuing.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

[CE2949BB] The public school system, which must educate children of parents who belong to many different faiths and none at all, must remain neutral.

[grey_whiskers] Why are you posting this drivel on Free Republic at all?

The ideas he insists upon are derived from reputable political geniuses. See here:

Separation of Church and State, Church and School

[trisham]

Gosh, I should visit these threads more often. A peaceful respite from 0bamination news!

***********************

LOL! Good point!

[tacticalogic]

It seems that Darwinism is anti-medical-progress.

And it would be anti-welfare as well.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Not having the intellectual framework readily at hand, leaves one open to the "well if man evolved from the apes, how come there are still apes" questions which would be dismissed by the biologist with Wolfgang Pauli's famous line, "It's not even wrong"

Actually this is an interesting question for a number of reasons. First, if it is so easy to dismiss, why do the responses to this objection almost invariably involve specious analogies with Great Britain and so on? I would like to see a response based on evolutionary science, not specious analogies. Next, Darwin did say that natural selection always preserves favorable variations and always destroys unfavorable variations. If that is so, we may not only wonder why there are still apes, we may also wonder how it came to be that there is more than one species on earth.

[js1138]

Oh interesting. Eugenie C. Scott was (and maybe still is) a member of the American Eugenics Society.

You have a reference for that?

[metmom]

Those are your words, not mine.