Terminology wars revisited: Darwinists, Darwinian evolutionists, and evolutionary biologists

To the post Terminology wars: "Darwinist" vs. "Darwinian evolutionist", Larry Moran (the evolutionary biologist who objected to the term "Darwinist" during my talk at U of T last Saturday, has left a comment, saying that he also does not like the term "Darwinian evolutionist" and asks to be called an "evolutionary biologist."

I hope he won't mind that I am quoting most of his post, to draw attention to his concerns, and then responding below:

I was the person who objected to your use of the term "Darwinist." The word is loaded with all kinds of implications. To those of us who work on evolution it means a person who believes in natural selection as the most important thing in evolutionary biology. This would include people like Richard Dawkins and others who are often referred to as Ultra-Darwinians.

Many of us are not Darwinists in that sense and we would never refer to ourselves as "Darwinists" unless we were specificially referring to our acceptance of Darwin's theory of natural selection. The term "Darwinian evolutionist" is even more objectionable because it labels someone as an evolutionst who tends to side with the Ultra-Darwinian camp.

As it turns out, there's a lot more to modern evolution than just natural selection and the things that Charles Darwin knew in 1859. To call all modern evolutionary biologists "Darwinists" would be like calling all modern physicists "Newtonists" and ignoring the contributions of Albert Einstein and the development of quantum mechanics in the twentieth century.

There's a strictly scientific controversy over the importance of natural selection, and the proper use of the term "Darwinist." It is quite wrong to label all evolutionary biologists as "Darwinists" as though they were all stuck in the nineteenth century. As long as there are some evolutionary biologists who object, then their wishes should be respected. I object, and I'm not alone as Denyse O'Leary recognizes. There's a perfectly good alternative that nobody will object to. Call us evolutionary biologists or even evolutionists.

Okay, fair enough, Larry. I'll run "evolutionary biologist" up the flagpole for a while and see who salutes. I always try to use terminology to which people cannot reasonably object - so far as is consistent with making clear where they stand in a controversy. So I may have to tweak it a bit.

But now, here is my main problem: While working on my most recent co-authored book with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard (Harper 2007), I came across a number of people who - to judge from their published writings - are completely committed fans of Darwin. But they have no clear relationship that I can determine to biology as I think you understand it.

For example,

- Writer Matthew Alper thinks that there is a specific “God” Part of the Brain (2001), which would be news to neuroscientists who image the traces of spirituality using fMRI and CATscans.

- Psychologist Susan Blackmore thinks that there is a unit of thought that is equivalent to a gene. Don't ask whether there is any coherent explanation for a unit of thought. (Religious memes, by the way, are apparently deceitful.)

- Lawyer Joseph Giovannoli thinks that there is such a thing as a psychogene, but don't look for it on a map of the human genome. It is all in the mind/brain/head/somewhere up there anyway.

- Software developer Richard Brodie thinks that memes are viruses of the mind (in other sources, memes are equivalent to genes - but hey, things do evolve, right?). (Note: Richard Brodie writes to say that he does not think viruses of the mind like religion are memes. Apologies for error.)

I call these people Darwinists assuming they are complimented, not offended, to be linked with their hero. I am not trying to put them down when I call them that.

But, Larry, I can sort of see why you wouldn't want to be classed with them, if you actually do science for a living.

I am sympathetic to your wish to reserve for evolutionary biology a level of respect due to a serious academic endeavor, and I would be happy to help. I do think, however, that you and others in your field might want to consider clearly distancing yourselves from the Darwin circus. If you don't, no one can do it for you.

Actually, I think the Darwin circus is the primary reason for controversy around the teaching of Darwinian evolution in schools. I doubt that many people care about the wing powder of peppered moths, the coat colours of urban squirrels, or whether Galapágos finch beaks are fat or thin from one year to the next. But the prospect of giving people with a far-out agenda access to the education system is about as popular today as it has always been.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Why is there an intelligent design controversy anyway? My talk at the U of T ID conference

You can find the talk archived here:

Intro

Part One: How I got involved in covering the intelligent design controversy as a regular beat

Part Two: Why I decided to write a book about the intelligent design controversy

Part Three: What I learned while writing By Design or by Chance?

Part Four: What I learned while blogging at the Post-Darwinist

Part Five: What I expect to happen in the next ten years and why

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Terminology wars: "Darwinist" vs. "Darwinian evolutionist"

At my talk at the University of Toronto last Saturday on the development of the intelligent design controversy, an evolutionary biologist in the audience informed me that evolutionary biologists don't like the term Darwinist, even though they in fact use it, apparently, despite denials on the part of some (scroll down to Edward O. Wilson). So in the talk I was very careful to say "Darwinian evolutionist," wherever I could remember to do so, but was not necessarily consistent.

(Note: If you came here looking for a story about Baylor prof Francis Beckwith's credentials, go here.)

One difficulty is that Richard Dawkins, for example, appears quite comfortable calling himself a "Darwinist," thus so should I be.

And when it comes to purely conceptual ideas like meme theory (a theory about how ideas spread from one person to the next via Darwinian natural selection), it is not clear that any actual evolutionary biology is involved. For that reason, I am reluctant to allow evolutionary biologists to determine terminology in the further reaches of universal Darwinism.)

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being granted tenure at Baylor after a long struggle - even after helping in a small way to destroy the Baylor Bears' ancient glory - in the opinion of a hyper sportswriter.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.