RE: [asa] The Death of "Darwinism"

George said:
"..."but since "Darwinism" gets tossed around so much, usually in a pejorative sense, it's a point well worth making."

I was thinking that too, after reading Denis' book, but was surprised to hear an atheist the other day talking about being a Darwinist. I guess some of them do. I think this would trouble Darwin, if he knew. It is like they make him an idol. Instead of "Darwinist" why not just say "evolutionist?" Example, "As a Darwinist I think..." should be "As an evolutionist, I think...". Is Darwin the only scientist who is used in this manner? I can't think of any others... (just thought of one- "Freudian")

...Bernie

________________________________
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of George Murphy
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 8:17 AM
To: ASA list
Subject: [asa] The Death of "Darwinism"

Sounds like something from ICR's "Acts and Fairy Tales" doesn't it? But I mean something rather different, as you will have realized if noticed the quotes in my subject line. I've just started reading Denis Lamoureux's Evolutionary Creation, & one of the points he makes near the beginning (p.9) about terminology is significant. Denis had a word search done of several categories of scientific journals, comparing the incidence of the word "Darwinism" with that of "evolution" in titles, abstracts and key words of articles in a 10 year period starting in 1997. The ratio Darwinism/evolution was ..0012 for all important scientific journals, .0013 for the biological sciences and .0002 (1 occurence of Darwinism!) for journals concentrating on biological evolution.

The point of this is that "Darwinism" is not a term scientists use in discussing current scientific work &, as Denis argues, should be limited to discussions of the views of Darwin himself. Of course this should be no surprise to those who realize that scientists never refer to "Heisenbergism" instead of quantum mechanics, but since "Darwinism" gets tossed around so much, usually in a pejorative sense, it's a point well worth making.

Shalom
George

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Received on Thu Jan 1 14:13:54 2009