Re: [asa] The term Darwinism

Gregory asks:

What seems needed to encourage rapprochement between TEs and IDs is 1) a list of things that both parties agree on about Darwin’s positive contribution to natural-physical sciences (we can assume for the time being, that Darwin didn’t contribute to human-social sciences or that his contribution is not important to the discussion currently engaged here) and also about what his ‘errors’ or ‘mistakes’ or ‘shortcomings’ were. Kurthof is yet another example of an evolutionary scientist flat out admitting that Darwin was sometimes wrong. In addition, they should outline 2) aspects of evolutionary biology that have surpassed Darwin’s views. Doing this would pave the way for a clarification of ‘Darwinism’ so that TEs and IDs don’t have to talk past each other as often. I doubt that the Discovery Institute would agree to do this; would some people at ASA?\

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Ted comments:

Gregory, I apologize for seeming to make a trivial point. There may well be some people *in* ASA who would take this suggestion, whether or not they are active here. There may be others who will not, whether or not they are active here. But no one *at* ASA will respond, insofar as the ASA as an organization has no view on this. Our members probably differ on this. I as president and Randy as our CEO are free to state our views as individuals, but on something like this neither of us speaks for the ASA. No one does. In that we differ quite markedly from TDI. A person could belong to both organizations (ASA and TDI), obviously -- indeed, one of our Council members (Bob Kaita) is a fellow of TDI, but the organizations have very different purposes.

I don't mean to imply, by the way, that you had deliberately chosen your words to say "at ASA" rather than "in ASA." I am guessing that you didn't. I simply want to note this for the benefit of readers who might not be aware of the subtleties here.

Ted

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Received on Mon Jul 6 12:42:32 2009