The following terms (pages?) need consolidation to remove redundancy and straighten out essential distinctions:
Darwinism, [Darwinian evolution]?, "the" theory of evolution, evolution. --Ed Poor
The definition of Darwinism was (until LDC changed it):
- all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.
This definition (a) does not say where the variations come from but (b) implies that natural selection *causes* the variations.
I thought that natural selection just determines which variations persist.
So a better definition would be:
- all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. How these variations come into being is anyone's guess.
--Ed Poor
- No, that wouldn't be a better definition, that would be a lie. We _do_ know what many of the causes are. The fact that there might be others isn't really relevant, and if we find them we'll add them to the picture. If we don't find them, there's little reason to blindly speculate about them. --LDC
- Okay, so is Darwinism the theory that speciation is caused only by natural processes such as radiation mutating the genes and NOT by God? This would make his theory just as scientific as a Big Banger saying the universe was created by some force other than God. Both ideas seem a bit philosophical to me, but maybe I'm getting confused by not knowing the meanings of the various words. Anyway, I'm trying not to trash the articles and keeping (most of) my quibbles in the Talk sections. How am I doing? :-) --Ed Poor
Please tell me, someone, if the following idea is merely a quibble or is actually significant.
Evolution occurs through (a) an unknown cause making new species and (b) the weeding out process (natural selection).
My question is the identity of the unknown cause. Is it background radiation, such as cosmic rays, causing random mutation? Could it be God?
Is it any more scientific to say it's not God than that it is God?
Maybe God put gravity on automatic, so to speak. If God exists and God created gravity, He might not be performing a miracle everytime something heavy falls to the ground.
But maybe God created each species of life miraculously. It apparently took millions of years, and He might not have found it boring to tweak His design from time to time and see what came of it.
I think natural selection is an excellent hypothesis and entitled to be called a scientific theory. I'm not sure it's a law like F=MA quite yet.
- That's called Deism or Theism depending on whether or not you think he interfered after creation.
- I suppose the scientific answer to that is "Well, I suppose it could be that way, but so what if it is?" If God's actions are indistinguishable from God's inaction (or non-existence), then what's the point of making a distinction? See Philip Henry Gosse. -- Paul Drye
Darwinian evolution requires that species undergo change, that these changes are inherited, and that they affect fitness. The primary causes of change known to science are sexual reproduction (combination of DNA from two parents) and random mutation, usually caused by radiation (for example, we can cause bacteria in culture to evolve faster by irradiating them). There might well be other causes, such as chemical toxins, human genetic engineering, God, whatever.
As I've seen the term used, "Darwinism" most often refers to any Darwinian process, biological or otherwise. I'm removing your definition and placing it here, because I really don't think it reflects actual usage of the word except maybe among creationists, and such a parochial definition of a term used for rhetoric has no place in a general-audience encyclopedia. --LDC
- It wasn't my definition, I just found it there and quoted it here. --Ed Poor
- Perhaps a NPOV definition of Darwinism would simply be "the theory of evolution espoused by Darwin." I don't mean anything sinister about it, but if the suffix "-ism" somehow seems derogatory maybe it's not a useful word. Marxism, on the other hand, seems to denote a particular flavor of communist thought. Hmm. --Ed Poor
- A theory of biological evolution developed by Charles Darwin and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.
- Darwinism is actually a "meta-theory" which encompasses a number of independent sub-theories: natural selection, sexual selection, pangenesis, actualism?, gradualism, common descent.
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