Monday, October 25, 2010

Darwinism? Wrong!

People who accept evolution are often called "evolutionists", or "Darwinists". In actuality, both of these terms are false. The term evolutionist doesn't make any more sense than calling someone who accepted the theory of gravitation a "gravityist". Darwinism, however, is a little more deceiving. It would make sense to call someone a Darwinist because it is his theory of evolution.

Wrong. First off, you don't get a name for every different piece of scientific data you accept or reject. Secondly, Darwin's theory of evolution is barely used in modern biology, rather, it is the springboard that modern evolutionary theory did a back flip off of.

The modern theory of evolution is called "modern evolutionary synthesis". This theory is the culmination of our knowledge of evolution. It combines Darwin's theory of evolution (that species evolved through natural selection on heritable traits) with the rest of our understanding of biology (allele frequency, genetic drift, mutations, etc.)

So, if you're going to mock us, get it right. We're modern evolutionary synthesisists, not Darwinists!

2 comments:

  1. With all respect to your well-raised objection to the use of the word evolution, "modern evolutionary synthesis" is a bit of a mouthful for ordinary people to use in causal conversation. I even wonder if scientists use it when they are talking around the water cooler. Surely, they say M.E.S. or something else that is shorter.

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  2. I don't even think they use it around the water cooler, to be honest, haha. My objection wasn't so much to the term "evolution", but the term "evolutionist", or "darwinist". It's like calling someone a "newtonist".

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