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 ...
ROTFLOL! If I was the only one in the store and all the registers were free, the one I picked would be the one that crashes.
“I am in favor only of eliminating Christianity from science classes.” [excerpt]If we do that, then things like eugenics become morally acceptable in the science class.
Watch, now he’ll redefine *scorn* and *Christianity*, along with *I*, and *don’t*.
I must have missed something. I asked what it was about Darwinism people should be disabused of. You replied "the Ascent of Man." I point out that Darwin never wrote about "the ascent of man," and you accuse me of changing the subject???
So far, one person has claimed that Darwin's responsible for an idea because he didn't specifically disavow it, and now you say he's responsible for a phrase he didn't write because someone else did. It's hard to get a fix on exactly what "Darwinism" is supposed to be, since there doesn't seem to be a requirement that it have anything to do with what Darwin himself actually wrote. I'm starting to think that "Darwinism" just means "anything I don't like about science or the modern world."
As usual you are confused. I certainly love to deride (that is scorn to you) home schooled born againers like yourself who claim to be be Christians, but I have a very high degree of respect for many of the 'Christian' teachings.
It is possible that I am wrong and that you and Metmom are Christianity. Are you claiming that is the case?
Bingo, Fichori....
I wasn’t homeschooled.
No, not really. The problem is with the scientific popularizers and journalists, who (mis)translate what little they know of science for mass consumption.
It is they who have popularized in the culture the idea of "The Ascent of Man" -- which leads to the "if man is here why are there still monkeys" and the idea that evolution works by the successive replacements of one species by a "superior" one.
Most of what the science says ("changes in allele frequency within a population") is inaccessible to the lay person, since they don't know the words, nor do they always have the background to (correctly) interpret the scientific claims. So they are left jousting at (very) approximate windmills.
Cheers!
“I certainly love to deride (that is scorn to you) home schooled born againers like yourself who claim to be be Christians,” [excerpt]In other words your a liberal troll who comes here to bash conservative Christians.
In other words your a liberal troll who comes here to bash conservative Christians. At least you have the decency to be honest about it.
Give the child a break, as it's about all he has going for him.
He certainly isn't very effective at it.
In fact, we can respond with his "waiting for Godot" attitude with a line from the play:
Hey, "Come on, LeGrande, return the ball, can't you, once in a while?"
So I think we should just rename him Waiting for Zot.
Cheers!
My printed Oxford English Dictionary and online. The coining of the word actually pre-dates Charles Darwin's theory, and referred specifically to Erasmus' concept. IMHO, the OED is "the" standard source for correct English usage.
And neither did you, buddy.
"Second error: I am not a creationist."
Your postings say otherwise.
"Third error: Several searches gave C. Darwin as the source of “Darwinism” as did ‘The Online Etymology Dictionary’."
Try the Oxford English dictionary.
"Fourth error: Calling me an idiot."
If the shoe fits.
"Darwinism is correct for the Darwin's evolution theory and hence I will continue to use."
And you'll continue to be an idiot.
I wasn't trying to play *gotcha*, but to point out that there may be other less authoritative, or less august sources which still support the "Darwinism means evolution" populist usage.
(How many of the people on Jay Leno's Jaywalking -- not a decidedly fundamentalist group -- would define Darwinism as evolution, if they've heard of anything more than last week's American Idol?)
Cheers!
Julian Huxley, who put together Evolution: The Modern Synthesis was president of a society that started both the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Marie Stopes foundation. Marie Stopes was a member of the Eugenics Society. Jonathan Stopes-Roe, her grandson, was a director of Rationalist Press Association, a publisher of anti-Christian propaganda (and evolution books of course.)
Yeah, yeah, Wikipedia, I know.
How's this:
<include std_disclaimer.h>
Cheers!
Here's one from the 1928 book Creation by Evolution. It is a compendium of papers from the creme-de-la-creme of evolution scientists of the time. Edited by Frances Mason. The book was endorsed by Nobel Laureate Sherrington (a eugenist.) He testifies in the introduction that the authors are "eminent authorities." These are exerpts.
Can We See Evolution Occurring?, pg. 24--33, Herbert Spencer Jennings:The doctrine of organic evolution is the doctrine that animals and plants are slowly transforming, producing new kinds; that they have done this in the past and are continuing to do it now. It does not deal with something transcendental, something metaphysical; it deals with processes as real as the running of a stream or the growth of a tree. Organic evolution, then, is a physiological process, like the digestion of food; it is something that is occurring at all times, including the present. The doctrine of organic evolution means simply that if you lived long enough you would see organisms begin as simple creatures, change shape and structure as a growing plant does, become diverse, transform repeatedly, until from one or a few types many would be produced. You would get dissolving views of amoeba transforming to creatures having more definite structures and greater complexity; of Hipparion becoming a horse; of an ape-like creature becoming a man.
In a human lifetime or in many human lifetimes we could not expect these changes to be great. Geological time is enormously long and evolution is prodigiously slow. The doctrine of evolution would therefore not lead us to expect to see widely diverse creatures produced. The popular demand that we should see a cat, or the offspring of a cat, transformed into a dog, or an amoeba into a vertebrate, is not in accord with the doctrine of evolution. We cannot expect in a lifetime to see new "species" produced. All that the doctrine of evolution leads us to expect is that there should appear slight hereditary changes, so that from a single race there are produced a number of hereditarily diverse races, differing slightly.
Do we find this? Studies of this sort have been made of a number of organisms. What was found in such a study made by the present writer may be set forth as a type.
It is common to suggest that amoeba or some amoeba-like creature is the original stock from which animals descended; "from amoeba to man" is a common phrase. It is of interest to examine amoebas from this point of view. Are amoebas still transforming, producing other kinds of animals? Some of the amoebas are naked and formless, so that the detection of any slight hereditary changes would be almost impossible. Others have shells of definite form and structure, furnishing excellent opportunity for the detection of hereditary alterations. These shelled amoebas, though they closely resemble the naked ones, are designated by other names. One called Difflugia corona (Fig. 1) was selected for observation and breeding... A new generation is produced about every two to four days, so that in the course of a year or two many generations may be followed through thousands of descendants produced from one individual.
Do these thousands of descendants all remain hereditarily alike. Or do they gradually and slowly diverge, becoming hereditarily different, as the doctrine of evolution sets forth?
This was studied by allowing a single individual to reproduce for many generations, until it had produced thousands of offspring. In the early generations of such an experiment, hereditary changes cannot be detected. The offspring often differ from the parents in certain respects, but most of these differences appear not to be inherited. The next generation shows similar differences, but as the generations increase in number we find that certain diversities accumulate and become hereditary. In some descendants the spines become longer; in others they remain shorter. In some the bodies are larger; in others they are smaller. Different combinations of size of bodies and of length of spine appear. These differences are inherited. In time from the original single individual a number of diverse stocks have been formed.
What the doctrine of evolution asserts is therefore true for Difflugia. It does gradually transform and produce new races. If this is what evolution means, we have here seen evolution occurring.
Remember that there are two opposite doctrines. One holds that the constitution of organisms is permanent; that they were created as they are and do not change. The other, the doctrine of evolution, holds that the hereditary constitution slowly changes as generations pass; that a single race differentiates in the course of time into diverse ones; that from one stock many are produced. The critical observations that have been made on these minute living organisms through the passage of generations substantiates this theory; they do change and differentiate into diverse races as generations pass. The facts observed are what the doctrine of evolution demands, not what the opposed theory demands.
The evidence of evolution has been read in the rocks and the structures of plants and animals, but under the microscope Dr. Jennings is able to follow evolution not as a theory but as a thing that is actually taking place. —Frances Mason, editor.
Well, Alfred Wallace wrote a book called "Darwinism". Really, how can anyone ask that thousands of references to "Darwinism" in books be erased or semantically eradicated? It's typical Darwinian arrogance to demand such things.
“Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Darwinism
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
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Theory of the evolutionary mechanism proposed by Charles Darwin as an explanation of organic change. It denotes Darwin's specific view of how evolution works. Darwin developed the concept that evolution is brought about by the interplay of three principles: variation (present in all forms of life), heredity (the force that transmits similar organic form from one generation to another), and the struggle for existence (which determines the variations that will be advantageous in a given environment, thus altering the species through selective reproduction). Present knowledge of the genetic basis of inheritance has contributed to scientists’ understanding of the mechanisms behind Darwin's ideas, in a theory known as neo-Darwinism.”
Or T.H. Huxley's use concurrent enough?
” a b Huxley, T.H. (April 1860). “ART. VIII.- Darwin on the origin of Species” 541–70. Westminster Review. Retrieved on 2008-06-19. “What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too circular?”
What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too circular? What if species should offer residual phænomena, here and there, not explicable by natural selection? Twenty years hence naturalists may be in a position to say whether this is, or is not, the case; but in either event they will owe the author of “The Origin of Species” an immense debt of gratitude...... And viewed as a whole, we do not believe that, since the publication of Von Baer’s “Researches on Development,” thirty years ago, any work has appeared calculated to exert so large an influence, not only on the future of Biology, but in extending the domination of Science over regions of thought into which she has, as yet, hardly penetrated”
Orbit of (hush my moufff) Darwinism?
Arrogance attempting to dictate language.
It is up to you. You have the freedom to choose. That is what discrimination and intolerance is all about, making a choice. If you take away someones power to make a choice you are taking away their freedom.
So, I asked him if he was saying that he is pro-choice and he never answered.
The only reason I can think that someone would want to eliminate Christianity and the moral restraints that it brings, is if they wanted to promote things like euthanasia and eugenics.
Liberlas think they’re Gods, and the best judges of how science should work in the world morally and otherwise, but by the empirical evidence they leave behind it’s clear that they’re mistaken.
They, in fact are the only ones incapable and unable of interpreting that very empirical evidence they’ve left behind WHILE DEMANDING to be the keepers of understanding ALL scientific interpretations!
If their results only affected them that would be one thing...
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