Darwinism results 5 May 20145 May 2014 Here are the results of the survey. Since we had such a small response size (n=104) I do not know what can be taken from this. The results were pretty much as I expected – Selection is the main, but not only, key idea of Darwinism, a substantial minority think Darwinism does not exclude religion (even though close to all were not religious), 40% or so include genetic drift under “Darwinism”, but most think it means “natural selection” overall. Comments? 2. Age of respondent Evolution Philosophy
Evolution Myth 4: Darwin was a gradualist 19 Feb 2009 This myth has more to do with what people thought their own views contrasted to, than anything Darwin said, but like all myths, there’s a hint of truth underlying it. The problem with this myth is the ambiguity of the term “gradual”. It is a weasel word, which can mean… Read More
Philosophy Veerryyy interesting, but so sad 17 Sep 2009 Another icon from my youth, Henry Gibson, has died. *sigh* If there is a heaven, I hope he gets a good audience for his poems. Read More
Administrative Lazy Manager Theory 18 Nov 2009 Some people have asked me how I did a PhD, and wrote and taught a subject, while I was also manager of a department of graphic artists, receptionists, and animators, and did the annual report and various other publications. The answer is: Lazy Manager Theory The principle is: if you… Read More
Question 8 answers are so weird. Over 40% does not think that adaptationism is a key idea of Darwinism?! Adaptation is a key idea of natural selection. Does adaptationism mean something else than adaptation, perhaps?
Or there may have been varying ideas, including none at all, about “adaptationism”. I’m projecting here, I suppose. I know what adaptation means, or think I do; but I’m not anywhere near so confident when it’s an -ism. I tend to see the latter, because of a certain amount of usage I’ve seen, as a pejorative applied by some people whom the world would see as Darwinists to Those Other Guys (whom the world would also see as Darwinists) who consider adaptation all-important in evolution (ignoring genetic drift and cockeyed spandrels and so on). So, anybody who perceives the word in this way, if there is anybody, would see the question as not asking whether adaptation in an essential point in evolution but rather whether one agrees with the critique I tried to describe here.
The most natural interpretation of “adaptation” as a word in English is as an active process. But natural selection produces adaptedness of species by a passive process in which no individual or gene is deliberately adapting. So until someone defines it otherwise, I would say that the most natural interpretation of “adaptationism’ is as another word for Lamarkianism.
I would have said “Common descent with modification” but even after the bug with the “Other” option was (mostly) fixed, I still wasn’t able to use that for #6, so I chose “Natural selection”. As for the ” correct answers” – I’d be interested to know who you think best represent evolution, John. I’m not familiar with several of the names, so I (think I) chose Ernst Mayr.