>>By the way, no scientist I know of recognizes your term “Darwinism” — there’s no such thing. Sure, there is a theory of evolution, originated by Darwin, but scientific understandings today are light-years beyond anything Darwin could imagine.
This is Dobzhansky on Darwinism:
“As Fisher rightly said, natural selection is a mechanism which brings to realization what would otherwise be in the highest degree improbable. Man’s genetic endowment, or that of any other living species, would be infinitely unlikely to arise by a chance concatenation of mutations. There is a kernel of truth in the old objection to Darwinism that it is too much to ask mere chance to create a complex organ, such as human eye, or brain, or hormonal system. But the objection is invalid. It overlooks the fact that evolution is history; evolution is a long succession of threatened losses and recaptures of the adaptedness of the organism to the environment. The elementary events of this history are mutations. Mutations are adaptively fortuitous; however, mutations are determined by the structure of the gene which mutates, and this structure is in turn determined by the evolutionary history of the gene. The gene, the individual, and the species, are time-binding machines.” [Theodosius Dobzhansky, “On Methods Of Evolutionary Biology And Anthropology.” American Scientist, Vol.45, No.5, December, 1957, p.391]
Michael Ruse on Darwinism:
“Generally, however, the misunderstandings and hostilities among evolutionists are frightening. Many if not most Christian evolutionists, following in the tradition of Teilhard de Chardin, reject twentieth- century biology or strive desperately to supplement or replace Darwinism. Few are quite as candid as Keith Ward, but one finds it hard not to suspect similar motives at work among people like Rolston. In part, this stems from an understandable dislike of the strident and intentionally hurtful atheism of Dawkins and his kind. Who would want to agree with such a person, even about science? In part, discomfort with modern science comes because Christians find Darwinism itself too challenging. But at least the Christian evolutionists strike a civil tone in their critiques.” [Michael Ruse, “The Evolution–Creation Struggle.” Harvard University Press, 2005, Conclusion, pp.273-74]
Paul Davies on Darwinism:
“So life may have begun with something comparatively simple – a population of small replicating molecules, say. Perhaps these molecules are simple enough to form spontaneously in many environments; they may even be forming on Earth today. Once the initial molecular replicators get going then Darwinian evolution can kick in, driving the complexity higher and higher, until something approaching the familiar living cell eventually emerges. The important point is that Darwinism doesn’t have to wait for cellular life to arise before it can work its spell; it could be equally effective at the molecular level.” [Paul Davies, “The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone in the Universe?”. Penguin Books Limited, 2011, Chap.2]
Ernst Mayr on Darwinism:
“Charles Darwin was the most talked about person of the 1860S. T. H. Huxley, always a coiner of felicitous phrases, soon referred to Darwin’s ideas as ‘Darwinism’ (1864), and in 1889 Alfred Russel Wallace published a whole volume entitled Darwinism. However, since the 1860s no two authors have used the word ‘Darwinism’ in exactly the same way. As in the old story of the three blind men and the elephant, every writer on Darwinism seemed to touch upon only one of the many aspects of Darwinism, all the while thinking that he had the real essence of what this term signifies. Thus, everybody who read the Origin responded only to those parts of it that either supported his own preconceived ideas or were in conflict with them. What these writers failed to grasp is that Darwinism is not a monolithic theory that rises or falls depending on the validity or invalidity of a single idea.” [Ernst Mayr, “One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought.” Harvard University Press, 1991, Chap.7,p.90]
Stephen Jay Gould on Darwinism:
“Yet Blyth and Darwin could not have been more different in their general vision of nature—and Blyth represented the old as firmly as Darwin pioneered the new. Their variant readings of natural selection represent the most striking expression of two incompatible views. To Darwin, selection is the creative force in evolution. If I had to summarize the essence of Darwinism in a single concept, I would emphasize the directing power of selection. Genetic variation is raw material; it is”random” in the sense that mutations do not arise preferentially directed toward the production of advantageous traits. Adaptation is the result of natural selection, acting relendessly across generations to accumulate favored variation through the differential success of fitter individuals in producing more surviving offspring. Evolutionists have waxed poetic in their metaphorical depictions of selection—Ernst Mayr compared it to the work of a sculptor, George G. Simpson to a poet, Theodosius Dobzhansky to a composer, Julian Huxley to Shakespeare himself. The comparisons may be stretched, or even silly, but they do reflect the essence of Darwinism—the creative power of natural selection.” [Stephen Jay Gould, “An Urchin in the Storm - Essays About Books and Ideas.” W. W. Norton & Company, 1988, Chap.I, p.60]
Jerry Coyne on Darwinism:
“So what is ‘Darwinism’? This simple and profoundly beautiful theory, the theory of evolution by natural selection, has been so often misunderstood, and even on occasion maliciously misstated, that it is worth pausing for a moment to set out its essential points and claims. We’ll be coming back to these repeatedly as we consider the evidence for each.” [Jerry A. Coyne, “Why Evolution is True.” Oxford University Press, 2009, Chap.1, p.3]
Campbell, Reece & Mitchell on Darwinism:
“Darwinism has a dual meaning. One facet is recognition of evolution as the explanation for life’s unity and diversity. The second facet is the Darwinian concept of natural selection as the cause of adaptive evolution... Darwin’s two claims: that modern species evolved from ancestral forms, and that natural selection is the main mechanism for this evolution. The conclusion that life has evolved is based on historical evidence—the signs of evolution discussed in the previous section. What, then, is theoretical about evolution? Theories are our attempts to explain tacts and integrate them with overarching concepts. To biologists,”Darwin’s theory of evolution” is natural selection—the mechanism Darwin proposed to explain the historical facts of evolution documented by fossils, biogeographv, and other types of evidence.” [Campbell et al, “Biology.” Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 5th Ed, 1999, Unit 4, pp.419, 425-426]
Eugene V. Koonin on Darwinism:
“The foundations for the critically important synthesis of Darwinism and genetics were set in the late 1920s and early 1930s by the trio of outstanding theoretical geneticists: Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, and J. B. S. Haldane. They applied rigorous mathematics and statistics to develop an idealized description of the evolution of biological populations. The great statistician Fisher apparently was the first to see that, far from damning Darwinism, genetics provided a natural, solid foundation for Darwinian evolution. Fisher summarized his conclusions in the seminal 1930 book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (Fisher, 1930), a tome second perhaps only to Darwin’s Origin in its importance for evolutionary biology.5 This was the beginning of a spectacular revival of Darwinism that later became known as Modern Synthesis” [Eugene V. Koonin, “The Logic of Chance: The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution.” Pearson Education, 2012, p.7]
I am certain there are others.
Mr. Kalamata
Kalamata:
"This is Dobzhansky on Darwinism:" From 1957.
Kalamata: "Michael Ruse on Darwinism:"
From 2005, Ruse identified earlier as anti-evolution.
Kalamata: "Paul Davies on Darwinism:"
"The important point is that Darwinism doesn’t have to wait for cellular life to arise before it can work its spell; it could be equally effective at the molecular level.” "
Davis from 2011.
I argue against the term "Darwinism" because the state of understandings today is so far beyond what Darwin could imagine.
My term "basic evolution theory" (descent with modifications, natural selection) corresponds roughly to this use of the term "Darwinism".
Kalamata: "Ernst Mayr on Darwinism:"
"However, since the 1860s no two authors have used the word ‘Darwinism’ in exactly the same way.
As in the old story of the three blind men and the elephant, every writer on Darwinism seemed to touch upon only one of the many aspects of Darwinism..."
Right, from 1991, no single definition for "Darwinism".
Kalamata: "Stephen Jay Gould on Darwinism:"
"The comparisons may be stretched, or even silly, but they do reflect the essence of Darwinism—the creative power of natural selection."
Right, from 1988, "Darwinism" = natural selection.
Bottom line: I don't see the word "Darwinism" ever strictly defined or used today outside some historical context.
For example, none of the ENCODE articles reviewed here mentioned Darwin or Darwinism. ![]()