The Ascent of man is the subject of every populist work you can think of -- consider the famous drawing which is lampooned by the picture below, and look at the link... hardly a creationist site.
Cheers!
Posted on 01/28/2009 11:36:17 AM PST by 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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at springerlink.com ...
metmom:That's a keeper...
Moved and seconded.
Cheers!
(...that sounded positively Alinsky-an.)
Targets for our ICBMs, or the dustbin of history, under a conservative administration in the U.S.
Cheers!
Those advocating, and making available on a broad scale, and pushing for societal acceptance of abortion (and instigating policies which undermine the nuclear family), however, may be motivated by eugenic reasons.
And of course, they wouldn't lead their publicity campaigns with that item.
Learn to think, rather than merely retort.
Cheers!
I see the lg random word generator is at it again.
And you'll continue to be an idiot if you do. Just out of curiosity, I looked up the etymology of "Darwinism". It turns out that the word has no relationship to the Charles Darwin scientific idea of the origin of species by "survival of the fittest", but was actually coined to describe the philosophical ideas of ERASMUS Darwin, which is what you creationists are actually making war on. I suggest you leave the science to the scientists, and stick learn some philosophy.
It's the old vernacular vs. specialist-in-the-field-language problem. Try reading Dorothy Sayers' Creative Mind (which I have in the paperback The Whimsical Christian, Collier Books, ISBN 0-02-096430-7).
Cheers!
It gives the idea that the process of evolution is of necessity one of continual improvement, with each "higher" species superceding the "lower".
Now in a sense, this would be true: if one member, or a litter, of a species, happens to have a trait which confers survival advantage up to the active breeding lifetime (at which time one hopes the trait is passed on), then, depending on how stark the advantage, then this trait will be found in more and more members of the group.
And so the group is "more fit".
How this fits into the definition of species (interbreeding to produce fertile offspring) is problematic: think of Mel Brooks' line from The Producers: "I want to play 'The Fearless Chihuahua and the Well-Hung Great Dane") That is, there is not only a problem of cladistics vs. DNA, but the physical process of mating and of fertilization are affected too...has anyone yet come up with a correlation between the receptivity of the eggs of a female of species A, to the sperm of a male of species B, and structural changes in the offspring? At what point do new chromosomes appear, and how are they related to the macroscopic body shape? IF the change in the number of chromosomes is discontinuous (whatever *that means), are the first litter of individuals with the new chromosome present condemned to only date each other on E-Harmony.bio, and does that affect their fertility, or introduce other problems? Beats the heck out of me, maybe a real biologist could provide some links, or explain why THOSE questions are based on a misunderstanding...
And how it fits into macroevolution is not always well-defined, except (hand-waving quickly) "in principle".
But the real problem is that the evolutionary process is a search for maximum fitness relative to *local* conditions, not global: still less is it an overall value judgment.
But populist phrases such as the above are tailor-made to mislead lay people.
You'd think that all the discussion forums would have selected such illustrations for elimination from discussion, but no such luck as yet.
Cheers!
It was obvious that coyoteman had not evolved intelligently enough to understand the complexity of cyber manners that if your a guest on someone else's website who is letting you use their bandwidth for free to opine that you never mouth off to the the site owner on how he should run his site.
EXCELLENT point.
Hint: what would the reaction be at DC if groups of FReepers bragged here about going over there explicitly in order to disrupt, and then came over here to alternately bitch, whine, and moan, and then brag about their bannings by receiving golden "martyr's crown" icons from the Mods here?
Certainly not any of the so-called "open-mindedness"...
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Second error: I am not a creationist.
Third error: Several searches gave C. Darwin as the source of “Darwinism” as did ‘The Online Etymology Dictionary’.
Fourth error: Calling me an idiot.
Darwinism is correct for the Darwin's evolution theory and hence I will continue to use.
DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING!
NO more calls, please.
We have ANOTHER winner!
...it works for me that way when I'm choosing the fastest line at the grocery store.
Cheers!
Is it from a commonly accepted source?
Are there other sources who list the "evo" meaning as a secondary, vernacular usage?
(...and how old is the source, anyway? Languages change -- I thought I read that "blogging" recently was added to the Oxford Unabridged...)
Cheers!
Given the ZOT, it's apparent he was trying to replicate Urey and Miller.
.
Hint for those DC'ers lurking, electrical discharge was supposed to result in amino acids by *association* of simpler constituents, not *dissociation* of a formerly viable poster...
Cheers!
>>But there are lots things that Darwin didn’t know or got wrong - this is yet another reason to use a term like developmental or evolutionary biology - “Darwinism” hasn’t been a science since the 1930’s.
Cheers! <<
I will add that one thing I got from the article in the OP was this link in a foot note
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005007.html
It goes more into the history of the use of the word Darwinism than I’ve seen elsewhere, particularly that it was used much longer by scientists in Britain than it was in the U.S.
That site looks very interesting. Thank you.
Interestingly, that's not Darwin's phrase. His was the "Descent of Man," as in "we are all descended from Adam" (except not so much Adam). I suspect Charles would be right there with you in saying he didn't mean to imply that one kind of animal is better than another.
And I don't think the tendency of humans to regard themselves as the pinnacle of earthly life can be blamed on scientists. Lots of religions, for instance, are pretty adamant that we're special.
The Ascent of man is the subject of every populist work you can think of -- consider the famous drawing which is lampooned by the picture below, and look at the link... hardly a creationist site.
Cheers!
He'll probably gold plate that laurel wreath of his.
“I don't scorn Christianity.” [excerpt]Oh really?
I ... now make it a point to make fun of Christians (especially born againers) whenever a likely opportunity presents itself --LeGrandeSounds like scorn to me...
That is a thought.
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