Nobody ever calls it “Darwinism” today!

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 17, 2014

Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, News}

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No? Then how come…

In the United States, the term “Darwinism” is often used by creationists as a pejorative term in reference to beliefs such as atheistic naturalism, but in the United Kingdom the term has no negative connotations, being freely used as a shorthand for the body of theory dealing with evolution, and in particular, evolution by natural selection. – Scott, Eugenie C.; Branch, Glenn (16 January 2009). “Evolution: Education and Outreach (New York: Springer) 2 (1): 90. doi:10.1007/s12052-008-0111-2. ISSN 1936-6434. Retrieved 17 November 2009.

Unless they sense they are among friends when promoting it

Note: These people are key players in the Darwin-in-the-schools lobby

Hat tip: Timothy Kershner

Comments

Errata corrige: :() was meant to be a smile :) I don't know what strange hidden emotions my typo could suggest...gpuccio_{October 18, 2014
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Mark: "Lamarckism via epigenetics?" Yes, surely experience can teach bacteria how to get the right sequence of nucleotides! You just learn to adapt your methylome a little, and the rest comes by itself. Why bother about intelligence? There is not much of it around, after all. Better to explain things in non intelligent ways! :()gpuccio_{October 18, 2014
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However, the RV+NS theory is at least an attempt at explaining what we observe. Out of design theories, I am aware of no other attempt.
Lamarckism via epigenetics? You are right to exclude intelligence - that makes no real attempt to explain life :-)Mark Frank_{October 18, 2014
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OT: how come nobody ever says that life is simpler than we thought instead of saying that life is more complicated than we thought? How a molecular Superman protects the genome from damage - Oct 16, 2014 Excerpt: In order for division to occur, our genetic material must be faithfully replicated by a highly complicated machine, whose parts are tiny enough to navigate among the strands of the double helix. The problem is that our DNA is constantly in use, with other molecular machines continually plucking at its strands to gain access to critical genes. In this other process, known as transcription, the letters of our DNA are being copied to form a template that will guide the formation of proteins. But these two copying machines can't occupy the same bit of genetic track at once. Inevitably they will collide – unless a molecular Superman can remove the transcription machinery and save the day. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists have found that this molecular Superman exists in the form of a protein known as Dicer. Better known for its role in selectively silencing genes via a process called RNA interference (RNAi), Dicer is now understood to help free transcription machinery from DNA so that replication can occur. The team, led by Robert Martienssen, a CSHL Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, concludes that this previously unknown function of Dicer is critical to preserve the integrity of the genome in yeast. http://phys.org/news/2014-10-molecular-superman-genome.html DNA - Replication, Wrapping & Mitosis - video https://vimeo.com/33882804bornagain77_{October 17, 2014
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gpuccio, Your three points have driven me nuts over the years when debating Darwinists. Darwinism a nice hypothesis and all but there's no evidence. Reminds me of the hospital episode in Yes, Prime Minister where the PM discovers a hospital with no actual patients. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-5zEb1oS9A Yes, there's RV within a genome. Of course, there's a modest amount of NS. But the extrapolation of life incrementally from coacervates to kangaroos fails any serious scientific and mathematical scrutiny as you pointed out. It hangs mid-air on the faith of its believers, institutional intimidation, and fear of unexplored alternatives. In fact, it seems that there's more observational evidence that genomes are generally deteriorating than they are evolving. -QQuerius_{October 17, 2014
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Moose Dr and gpuccio Thank you for the insightful posts.Dionisio_{October 17, 2014
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Moose Dr: "It would take pretty compelling evidence for me to buy in." Me too! :)gpuccio_{October 17, 2014
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;)humbled_{October 17, 2014
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humbled Thank you for your comments. :)Dionisio_{October 17, 2014
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Gpuccio: "So, when I say that ID and neo darwinism are the only two games in town, it’s simply because I really believe that that is the case." I wholeheartedly agree. If RM+NS provided an explanation that is viable based upon the data, I would accept it. If a third theory is presented, which Dr. Shapiro seems to have attempted to do, I will give it a good look. So far, my perception of Dr. Shapiro's work is that it is a far fetched hypothesis that organisms are their own intelligence, going into their own DNA and making improvements. Unless I very badly misunderstand his theory, it would take pretty compelling evidence for me to buy in.Moose Dr_{October 17, 2014
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Moose Dr: Excellent! As for me, my point of view is simple. Out of design theories, I am aware of no proposed explanation that explains anything, except the RV + NS, which I usually call neo-darwinism because it seems the best way to call it. I have nothing against the RV+NS explanation: it is, IMO, a perfectly legit scientific theory, with the only problem that it is a very bad scientific theory because of three small drawbacks: 1) No logical foundation of the theory (it assumes that complex functions can be deconstructed into small selectable steps, which has no logical reason to be true). 2) No serious attempt at quantifying the probabilistic aspect, that is an integral part of the proposed explanation (and a dogmatic refutation of all those who try seriously to do that). 3) No empirical support to the theory (no evidence of the assumed selectable steps, no evidence of any emergence of complex functional information by the proposed mechanism). However, the RV+NS theory is at least an attempt at explaining what we observe. Out of design theories, I am aware of no other attempt. All those who say that they have alternative explanations, and call them with various esoteric names, have never shown, as far as I can say, any explanation at all of anything. Not even a wrong explanation. So, when I say that ID and neo darwinism are the only two games in town, it's simply because I really believe that that is the case.gpuccio_{October 17, 2014
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There are really two questions that need to be asked about "Darwinism". The first is, does the term Darwinism, or its big brother neo-Darwinism, define the mainstream evolutionist view? I hear a rant from the ID proponents that somehow evolutionary theory has advanced so far that describing it as Darwinism or neo-Darwinism is no longer accurate. They charge that doing so declares our ignorance of the modern view. (My understanding is that the "neo" bit references the Mendelian discovery, and the subsequent discovery of DNA.) I cry foul. They point to a long string of buzz words: population genetics, horizontal gene transfer, gene duplication, genetic drift, molecular clocks, etc. ad infinitum.) The current favorite seems to be the neutral theory. See, the neutral theory doesn't involve natural selection at all. It is NOT neo-Darwinian. Well, if that is your view, then your understanding of the neutral theory is shallow. The neutral theory says that many mutations are neither favored nor dis-favored by Natural Selection. Or to put it in other terms, each mutation is rated by natural selection from "wow" to "ow". Lets call "wow" 10, and "immediately fatally ow" 0. Then the neutral theory says that a lot of mutations rate a 5. These "neutral" mutations, the theory says, can account for the percentage of changes that we see in organisms. However, has natural selection not spoken? Natural selection has spoken, natural selection has rated each mutation with all care and diligence. Natural selection has declared each of the "neutral" mutations to be, well "neutral". In the mean time, it has weeded out vast quantities of deleterious mutations, because it is really good at doing that. Natural selection has found a statistically negligible number of positive mutations -- because positive random mutations almost never happen. So I rehearse, neo-Darwinism, or Darwinism for short, accurately describes the understanding of the currently dominant evolutionary community. Using the term is, well, accurate. The second question is, does the ID community use the term "with prejudice"? We do. If you look, for instance, at Cornelius Hunter's blog, you see him declare that in his view neo-Darwinism is religion. I would contend, however, that the prejudicial component of our view is secondary, not primary. As I debate neo-Darwinism, I rarely am confronted with an evidentiary case. Rather, I predominantly find a philosophical "gotcha" case such as: who is the designer, or of course "you called me a neo-Darwinist, proving that you know nothing." If neo-Darwinists want to loose the pejorative component of the title, I challenge them to respond with evidence, with data. I challenge them to respond to the evidence presented by the ID community with respect for that evidence -- then a well though evolutionary interpretation of it. They can't do that, however, because the evidence is clear -- non-foresighted mutations, plus natural selection cannot by any means explain the variety of life on earth.Moose Dr_{October 17, 2014
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I live in the UK, I use the term "Darwinism" often, so does members of my family as well as friends and other acquaintances. We most certainly do use the term in a negative / pejorative manner. We use the term to describe the Darwin faithful and the religion they subscribe to. Evolution a religion? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DHZCCfzBKsdIy2RMrFXssI2meiYEb88r0Iiv9us1Mb1PGq3U7GrPVkwoSYmt/view?usp=sharinghumbled_{October 17, 2014
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