Dawkins and 'Darwinsim'

[twoism]

Apologies if this has been posted before.

I have a high respect for Prof. Dawkins and he obviously understands evolution much better than I do but often when he talks of evolution, he often speaks of 'Darwinsim' or refers to himself as a 'Darwinist'. I find myself cringing every time he says it.

We've come a long way since 1859 and the modern synthesis is currently the best explanation of the diversity of life. The term Darwinism implies some sort of ideology that has no place in science. Perhaps it's just the 'ism' part.

Max Plank is arguably the founder of quantum mechanics. Yet, if I accept the principles of quantum electrodynamics I'm not going to refer to myself as a 'Plankist' or talk about Plankian ideas. Or an Einsteinist because relativity has been successful.

I'm bristled when he answers a question posed to him by beginning 'Well the Darwinian explanation is...'. Why not what we currently know according to the modern synthesis?

He may rejoin with 'but Darwin had the most important ideas in mind'. What is the Darwinian explanation of genetic drift? Answer: There isn't one because Darwin wasn't aware of this. Imagine somebody putting the question to a person about the latest ideas in quantum mechanics and the answer being 'I accept that but the Plankian view still remains'. That's an absurd thing to say.

I don't mean this to be a strawman and I welcome better examples but does any one else feel this way?

 

[Duvelthehobbit666]

As far as I know, Dawkins calls himself a Darwinist because creationists call him a Darwinists.

 

[twoism]

As far as I know, Dawkins calls himself a Darwinist because creationists call him a Darwinists.

Where did you hear that from?

 

[Squawk]

It depends how much importance you attach to labels. Personally I don't care, I've argued a number of times that I'd rather tell you what my position is than label it. Labeling oneself as agnostic, for example, has a great tendency to cause misunderstanding. The same can be said of Dawkins and Darwinism. I don't think he gives a shit about the label.

 

[Dean]

At the end of the day, who really cares? It's not an ideological term as far as I am aware, and not intended so at least.

Dawkins has described him self as an Ultra-Darwinist, and Adaptationist, and I'm critical of adaptationism's tenets for evolutionary theory. The two terms, e.g. ultra-darwinist and adaptationist, have become somewhat synonymous, and they're not really normative terms in the field of biology.

"Darwinism" itself is a label used for a 19th century ideology, or it was. But that's not how Dawkins is using it.

 

[Gila Guerilla]

When I encounter the term Darwinism, I think: 'Neo-Darwinism', which has a lot more to it than Darwin himself had been able to expalin, and yet it is solidly founded on Darwin's original idea of genetic variation, and selection. Darwin didn't know how this happened at the cellular level - DNA had not been discovered. Darwinian evolution is no longer all about survival of the fittest in the red-in-tooth-and-claw sense it first was; it includes accounting for altruism, for example.

The reason that Darwinism is a good label, is in order to make it distinct from other forms of conjectured evolution, in particular Lamarckism. In Lamarckism, the giraffe for example, got its long neck by habitually stretching up to eat leaves at a higher level in the trees, and so its neck lengthened to achieve this aim. The longer neck was supposedly passed on to the offspring of the giraffes whose necks had elongated - and so on over generations.

This idea is similar to human weightlifters, whose bodies develop larger muscles to help in their aim of lifting heavier and heavier weights. We know Lamarkcism is false, and in the weightlifter example it is in part because we understand the mechanism of muscle building, and that the attributes of body building parents are not passed on to their offspring, not by inheritance anyway.

So there is Darwinian evolution, (neo), and there is 'other' evolution.

 

[Laurens]

I don't particularly see a problem with the term Darwinism or Darwinian...

I've heard physicists refer to 'Einsteinian physics' - I think it is just a mark of respect for a revolutionary figure in science. Not really anything to get upset with.

 

[bluejatheist]

Seems one like creationists and so on consider it useful to turn the science they are opposed to into an 'ism' and so politicize an ultimately non-political set of ideas.

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

It's easier to communicate to delusional people if you use their delusional lingo.

 

[Laurens]

It's easier to communicate to delusional people if you use their delusional lingo.

I'm not sure why people assume Darwinism or Darwinian are terms to specifically relate to creationists.

Darwinism, is surely a counterpart to say Lamarkism - it denotes a certain interpretation of the wider concept of evolution.

And as for Darwinian, well we also use Newtonian, Einsteinian, and so on. I don't see it as being any different.