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Friday, July 06, 2007

Close, but no cigar.

 
Over on Post-Darwinist Denyse O'Leary is whining about the fact that so many scientists are non-believers. She quotes from a poll of evolutionists showing that 78% don't believe in God. Having been sensitized to misuse of the word "evolutionist" she adds this at the end of her blog.
(Note for the record: "Evolutionists" here means scientists who believe that gradual Darwinian processes completely account for every aspect of life and that no design whatever is required. It does not mean scientists who merely accept that evolution occurs or that Earth is billions of years old.)
Denyse, it's the word "Darwinian" that's being misused. I'm an evolutionist but I do not believe that "gradual Darwinian processes completely account for every aspect of life." Instead I believe that evolution accounts for life and this evolution includes strict Darwinian processes as well as non-Darwinian processes.

Why do you find this so hard to understand?

13 comments :

Tony Burns said...

"Why do you find this so hard to understand?"

Because she doesn't try?

Anonymous said...

Because they need to conflate common descent with darwinism.

Anonymous said...

How much is God worth? I bet if we offered Christians $1000 to change their minds about His existence we'd be an atheist society in three generations.

Anonymous said...

I don't belive there is any such thing as a Darwinist or evolutionist. I've checked university catalogs for such a degree program. None that I've found. I am a Geophysicist. I use fossils as a tool to date rock formations. I know things evolved, I know Darwin was right, I don't know how evolution works in a biological system but I have held the evidence in my hands. I use the science to the level it intersects with my specialty. I refuse to be labelled by a creationist because I accept the facts. I am not a Darwinist or evolutionist! I am a scientist.

Anonymous said...

Although I’m usually annoyed with the way the ID/Creationist community uses the words “Darwinian” and “Darwinist”, I don’t think Larry should be upset that they aren’t really interested in his effort (among other evolutionists) to get the adaptationist/neutral theory balance just right. In the worldview of the creationists, that is a piddling distinction. They are still overwhelmed and horrified that Darwin accepted a nondirected history of life. And that’s what “Darwinian” means to them. The rest is just minor details.

Anonymous said...

Um, a question, please, Larry:

What, exactly, do people mean when they refer to "Darwinian" and "non-Darwinian" processes? How are these terms being defined?

I mean, I know how I define them. But experience suggests that my definitions are somewhat nonstandard. How do evolutionary biologists define them? (Never mind how creationists and other nonscientists define them.) Is there even a consensus definition?

A. Vargas said...

It can be argued that Darwinism is what was specifically Darwin's and that he himself emphasized. For instance, Lamarck had already introduced the notion of origin of new species by descent and modification from the previous ones. Lamarcks' books were well-known and discussed before the "origin".

The thing about Darwin is how natural selection gives origin to adaptation by a gradual process of selective accumulation of improvements. The idea is that adaptive organic changes shaped by natural selection would have never been possible without the acummulative direction imparted by selection.

This is why the notion of gradualism is engrained with the notion that natural selection is responsible for the origin of adaptations. The synthesis, for instance, is certainly darwinian. Their quantitative models assume adaptive traits are determined by several genes with almost imperceptibly low effects

Larry Moran said...

wolfwalker asks,

What, exactly, do people mean when they refer to "Darwinian" and "non-Darwinian" processes? How are these terms being defined?

"Darwinian" usually refers to evolution by natural selection. "Non-Darwinian" refers to things that Charles Darwin never thought of.

kemibe said...

Asking an ID type to argue against evolution without once using the word "Darwinism" or a variant thereof would have precisely the same effect as demanding that a traditional creationist or orher religious literalist argue for the "evidence" for their position without once referring to the Bible itself. Without these meaningless rhetorical devices, they'd be left bug-eyed and working their mouths avidly but silently, like especially unintelligent fish.

Lars said...

Denyse, it's the word "Darwinian" that's being misused. I'm an evolutionist but I ...
Why do you find this so hard to understand?


Sanders, O'Leary is explaining how she is using the word evolutionist in her post. The word is used in different ways, and she was careful to explain what she meant. What's wrong with that?

I don't belive there is any such thing as a Darwinist or evolutionist. ... I refuse to be labelled by a creationist because I accept the facts. I am not a Darwinist or evolutionist! I am a scientist.

Oh the irony... Are you willing to forego labeling "creationists" because they don't accept what you call "the facts"?

Regardless of that though, labels are a convenient shorthand for stating someone's position. If you hold to certain beliefs (as you obviously do), a label that indicates those beliefs is common practice and doesn't have to carry a negative connotation. Do you feel like "Darwinist" and "evolutionist" are derogatory?

I know things evolved, I know Darwin was right, I don't know how evolution works in a biological system but I have held the evidence in my hands.

Your faith is strong.

Anonymous said...

ID'ers, it's very simple. You need to clean up your act on the topic of common descent. You are the only people that need to make it clear what are you talking about when, talking about evolutionists. Everybody else knows perfectly well what evolution and evolutionists are. Someone who upholds common descent, that new species originate from the old ones, yes, man included.

I'm guessing that for most of you, with your strong family-church traditions, and within your dispensationalist-evangelical context, the notion of ape-men is an aberration. Most of you, who detest "materialism", believe in a supernatural way an intelligent designer can make a complex organism like the human being. Humans appear, NOT by evolution from a previous species, but by intelligent design, with supernaturality involved. Yes sir, talk about dyed-in-the wool creationism.
As long as you think this supernatural finger is involved in the origin of species, you will be prone to deny any tree of life or any of the major connections among the major branches that are commonly accepted in science, since Id'ers tend to argue (wrongfuly) that differences between main branches are insurmountable,. So I don't have much hope you guys will acknowledging any
major deep phylogentic relationships.

With all this creationism going on,
O'Leary's awkward use of term evolutionists is most probably directed to produce the "comforting" notion that the questioning of ultradarwinism is somehow also the questioning of common descent. Ultradarwinism is, of course, untrue, but obviously this does not imply there is no tree of life. All I'm going to say is: Reconsider!! I'll let you in to a secret: Humans ARE indeed primates!!

Finally, I suggest you quit on this endeavour of introducing the supernatural within science. I am a scientist and I don't go around doing silly things like trying to prove there is no god by using science. It just happens to be my personal belief. Likewise, I appreciate it when people don't try to use science to argue there must be a god, specially if in they think the way to do so is to deny rock-solid facts to plead for divine intervention.
Both are horsepooey, in my opinion. Not the "scientific" stuff I'm interested in, to say the least. That's why I detest both dawkins and supernaturalists like the ID'ers. God-talking is not for science, period.

Anonymous said...

Misbegotten terminology. "darwinian processes" is creationist coinage with no meaning.

Talking of "darwinism" in biology is akin to talking of "newtonism" in physics: a bad idea. Aren't you glad physicists don't use terms like that to make polemics against each other?

wolfwalker asks: Larry, what do people mean by [these unneeded terms]? Larry tells him what Larry means. But the terms have no standard meaning. Larry's official ruling is that Darwin never heard of variable rates of morphological evolution and also thought selection was all. This however is like being convicted of a crime because you are considered an accomplice on a technicality, even though you opposed the actual act. Either you stress certain things as strongly as Gould did or you are guilty of the opposite.

In general usage there is evolution {a process, or collection of processes, in nature) and there are related areas of science: evolutionary biology and paleontology. Other terms built on Darwin's name have no fixed meaning.

Some commenters are unaware of the oddest creationist: M Behe. He is an old earth creationist - nothing strange so far - but he claims to accept common descent. His idea though is that although there may be an unbroken string of begats, the Designer made any but the simplest changes in the DNA of the offspring. Oh, and the Designer, blessed be His secret Name, also created terrible diseases. They are obviously too complex to be natural.


Pete Dunkelberg

A. Vargas said...

Behe does not worry me one bit. He has conceded too far and will lose momentum with his true bases in the churches. They want to be told the very notion of ape-men is an aberration, stuff like that. If Behe accepts the well- established phylogenetic relationships among the main groups, I'm telling you, he's gone one step too far!! They want a guy like Ken Ham, not a confused, and confusing, professor. Who cares if Behe thinks certain evolutionary changes were impossible without the push of the divine finger. Creationists don't care!!! They are not interested in ANY evolutionary changes. Then why on earth should us scientists care and honor his work with the grace of controversy? Suffice to say that his imagined supernatural interventions are clearly not scientific hypotheses, and that he's probably wrong in arguing the natural impossibility of events that we all admit have happened anyway. I guess they were possible after all, huh. hehe