Re: [asa] Global Anti-Darwinism

What is Darwinism? As a purported ideology (whether endorsed or
bashed), it rarely shows a close match with the actual views of
Charles Darwin. In antievolutionary parlance, it tends to be an
ill-defined catchall for evil philosophical/moral views, and often it
is asserted that any acceptance of biological evolution as a
scientific process inherently leads to acceptance of the full suite of
evils. On the other hand, advocates of atheism often present their
anti-theism as a part of Darwinism or attribute their own views to
Darwin.

Even usage as a scientific term within biology is far from
standardized. Here, the questions are how strict a correspondance
with Darwin's ideas is in view and on what topic. For example, apart
from Mendel's overlooked work, there was no knowledge of the workings
of genetics in Darwin's day. Thus in one sense all evolutionary work
that takes genetics into account is non-Darwinian. However, the basic
outline of evolution posited by Darwin includes the premise that some
sort of genetic information is transmitted. As we know it today,
genetics fits the requirements of evolution, and so could be
considered Darwinian in a broad sense. This would be merely a
nomenclatural issue were it not that attempts to attack evolution
routinely distort claims in the scientific literature that evolution
happened one way rather than another as evidence against evolution.

Thus, I don't know what anyone means when they call something Dawinism
or related terms. I would therefore not identify myself as a
Darwinist; rather, I would say that the available evidence indicates
that he was largely right about evolution and seriously astray, though
not in the precise ways claimed by antievolutionists, on the topic of
theology.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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