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==19th Century usage==
==19th Century usage==
"Darwinism" is the noun for when liam gets ready to go to college, he wakes up with a yawn and scratches his hairy chest, this is related to Allahs theory we all evolved from monkeys.
"Darwinism" soon came to stand for an entire range of evolutionary (and often revolutionary) philosophies about both biology and society. One of the more prominent approaches was that summed in the phrase "[[survival of the fittest]]" by the philosopher [[Herbert Spencer]], which was later taken to be emblematic of Darwinism even though Spencer's own understanding of evolution was more similar to that of [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck]] than to that of Darwin, and predated the [[publication of Darwin's theory]]. What is now called "[[Social Darwinism]]" was, in its day, synonymous with "Darwinism" — the application of Darwinian principles of "struggle" to society, usually in support of anti-[[philanthropy|philanthropic]] political agendas. Another interpretation, one notably favoured by Darwin's half-cousin [[Francis Galton]], was that Darwinism implied that because natural selection was apparently no longer working on "civilized" people it was possible for "inferior" strains of people (who would normally be filtered out of the gene pool) to overwhelm the "superior" strains, and voluntary corrective measures would be desirable — the foundation of [[eugenics]].

{{Rquote|right|[Both] a Darwinian 'left' and a Darwinian 'right' were in place before most people had grasped the Darwinian middle, which was where the maker was.<ref>{{Harvnb|Gopnik|2009|p=152}}.</ref>}}
{{Rquote|right|[Both] a Darwinian 'left' and a Darwinian 'right' were in place before most people had grasped the Darwinian middle, which was where the maker was.<ref>{{Harvnb|Gopnik|2009|p=152}}.</ref>}}


Revision as of 10:14, 7 May 2010

This article is about concepts called Darwinism. For biological evolution, see evolution. For modern evolutionary theory, see modern evolutionary synthesis.
Charles Darwin in 1868

Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or evolution, including ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin.[1][2][3] The meaning of Darwinism has changed over time, and varies depending on who is using the term.[4] In the United States, Darwinism is often used by creationists as a pejorative term but in the United Kingdom the term has no negative connotations, being freely used as a short hand for evolutionary theory.[5]

The term was coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in April 1860,[6] and was used to describe evolutionary concepts, including earlier concepts such as Malthusianism and Spencerism. In the late 19th century it came to mean the concept that natural selection was the sole mechanism of evolution, in contrast to Lamarckism, then around 1900 it was eclipsed by Mendelism until the modern evolutionary synthesis unified Darwin's and Gregor Mendel's ideas. As modern evolutionary theory has developed, the term has been associated at times with specific ideas.[4]

While the term has remained in use amongst scientific authors, it is increasingly regarded as an inappropriate description of modern evolutionary theory.[7][8][9] For example, Darwin was unfamiliar with the work of Gregor Mendel[10], having as a result only a vague and inaccurate understanding of heredity, and knew nothing of genetic drift.[11]

Conceptions of Darwinism

As "Darwinism" became widely accepted in the 1870s, caricatures of Charles Darwin with an ape or monkey body symbolised evolution.[12]

While the term Darwinism had been used previously to refer to the work of Erasmus Darwin in the late 18th century, the term as understood today was introduced when Charles Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species was reviewed by Thomas Henry Huxley in the April 1860 issue of the Westminster Review.[13] Having hailed the book as, "a veritable Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism" promoting scientific naturalism over theology, and praising the usefulness of Darwin's ideas while expressing professional reservations about Darwin's gradualism and doubting if it could be proved that natural selection could form new species,[14] Huxley compared Darwin's achievement to that of Copernicus in explaining planetary motion:

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.[6]

Another important evolutionariy theorist of the same period was Peter Kropotkin who, in his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, advocated a conception of Darwinism counter to that of Huxley. His conception was centred around what he saw as the widespread use of cooperation as a survival mechanism in human societies and animals. He used biological and sociological arguments in an attempt to show that the main factor in facilitating evolution is cooperation between individuals in free-associated societies and groups. This was in order to counteract the conception of fierce competition as the core of evolution, which provided a rationalization for the dominant political, economic and social theories of the time; and the prevalent interpretations of Darwinism, such as those by Huxley, who is targeted as an opponant by Kropotkin. Kropotkin's conception of Darwinism could be summed up by the following quote:

In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense– not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.

— Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion.

19th Century usage

"Darwinism" is the noun for when liam gets ready to go to college, he wakes up with a yawn and scratches his hairy chest, this is related to Allahs theory we all evolved from monkeys.

[Both] a Darwinian 'left' and a Darwinian 'right' were in place before most people had grasped the Darwinian middle, which was where the maker was.[15]

In Darwin's day there was no rigid definition of the term "Darwinism", and it was used by opponents and proponents of Darwin's biological theory alike to mean whatever they wanted it to in a larger context. The ideas had international influence, and Ernst Haeckel developed what was known as Darwinismus in Germany, although, like Spencer Haeckel's "Darwinism" had only a rough resemblance to the theory of Charles Darwin, and was not centered on natural selection at all.

While the reaction against Darwin's ideas is nowadays often thought to have been widespread immediately, in 1886 Alfred Russel Wallace went on a lecture tour across the United States, starting in New York and going via Boston, Washington, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska to California, lecturing on what he called Darwinism without any problems.[16]

Other uses

The term Darwinism is often used in the United States by promoters of creationism, notably by leading members of the intelligent design movement, as an epithet to attack evolution as though it were an ideology (an "ism") of philosophical naturalism, or atheism.[17] For example, Phillip E. Johnson makes this accusation of atheism with reference to Charles Hodge's book What Is Darwinism?.[18] However, unlike Johnson, Hodge confined the term to exclude those like Asa Gray who combined Christian faith with support for Darwin's natural selection theory, before answering the question posed in the book's title by concluding: "It is Atheism."[19][20][21] Creationists use the term Darwinism, often pejoratively, to imply that the theory has been held as true only by Darwin and a core group of his followers, whom they cast as dogmatic and inflexible in their belief.[22] Casting evolution as a doctrine or belief, as well as a pseudo-religious ideology like Marxism Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). , bolsters religiously motivated political arguments to mandate equal time for the teaching of creationism in public schools.

However, Darwinism is also used neutrally within the scientific community to distinguish modern evolutionary theories from those first proposed by Darwin, as well as by historians to differentiate it from other evolutionary theories from around the same period. For example, Darwinism may be used to refer to Darwin's proposed mechanism of natural selection, in comparison to more recent mechanisms such as genetic drift and gene flow. It may also refer specifically to the role of Charles Darwin as opposed to others in the history of evolutionary thought — particularly contrasting Darwin's results with those of earlier theories such as Lamarckism or later ones such as the modern synthesis.

In the United Kingdom the term retains its positive sense as a reference to natural selection, and for example Richard Dawkins wrote in his collection of essays A Devil's Chaplain, published in 2003, that as a scientist he is a Darwinist.[23]

See also

Template:Wikipedia-Books

Notes

  1. ^ John Wilkins (1998). "How to be Anti-Darwinian". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 2008-06-19.
  2. ^ "Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks » …on what evolution explains". National Center for Science Education. Retrieved 2008-12-22.
  3. ^ based on an European Southern Observatory release (December 9, 2006). "Galactic Darwinism :: Astrobiology Magazine - earth science - evolution distribution Origin of life universe - life beyond :: Astrobiology is study of earth science evolution distribution Origin of life in universe terrestrial". Retrieved 2008-12-22.
  4. ^ a b Joel Hanes. "What is Darwinism?". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 2008-06-19.
  5. ^ Scott, Eugenie C. (16 January 2009). "Don't Call it "Darwinism"". Evolution: Education and Outreach. 2 (1). New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/s12052-008-0111-2. ISSN 1936-6434. Retrieved 17 November 2009. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ a b Huxley, T.H. (April 1860). "ART. VIII.- Darwin on the origin of Species". Westminster Review. pp. 541–70. Retrieved 2008-06-19. What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too circular?
  7. ^ John Wilkins (1998). "How to be Anti-Darwinian". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
  8. ^ Ruse, Michael (2003). Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose?. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 293. ISBN 0674016319. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  9. ^ Olivia Judson (July 15, 2008). "Let's Get Rid of Darwinism". New York Times.
  10. ^ Sclater, Andrew (June 2006). "The extent of Charles Darwin's knowledge of Mendel". Journal of Biosciences. 31 (2). Bangalore, India: Springer India / Indian Academy of Sciences: 191–193. doi:10.1007/BF02703910. Retrieved 2009-01-03. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ Laurence Moran (1993). "Random Genetic Drift". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
  12. ^ Browne 2002, p. 376-379
  13. ^ "The Huxley File § 4 Darwin's Bulldog". Retrieved 2008-06-29.
  14. ^ Browne 2002, p. 105-106
  15. ^ Gopnik 2009, p. 152.
  16. ^ "Evolution and Wonder - Understanding Charles Darwin - Speaking of Faith from American Public Media". Retrieved 2007-07-27.
  17. ^ Scott, Eugenie C. (2008), "Creation Science Lite: "Intelligent Design" as the New Anti-Evolutionism" (PDF), in Godfrey, Laurie R.; Petto, Andrew J. (eds.), Scientists Confront Creationism: Intelligent Design and Beyond, New York: W. W. Norton, p. 72, ISBN 0-393-33073-7
  18. ^ Johnson, Phillip E. "What is Darwinism?". Retrieved 2007-01-04.
  19. ^ Matthew, Ropp. "Charles Hodge and His Objection to Darwinism". Retrieved 2007-01-04.
  20. ^ Hodge, Charles. "What is Darwinism?". Retrieved 2007-01-04.
  21. ^ Hodge, Charles (1874). What is Darwinism?. Scribner, Armstrong, and Company. OCLC 11489956.
  22. ^ Sullivan, M (2005). "From the Beagle to the School Board: God Goes Back to School". Impact Press. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
  23. ^ Sheahen, Laura. Religion: For Dummies. BeliefNet.com, interview about 2003 book.

References

Look up darwinism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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