Considering semantics is essential. Dictating semantics is futile.
Pretty good!?! It was scientifically incorrect! Not true but blatantly false. A lie.
insisting on clear use of terms is essential, because the debate is dogged by confusion and mistaken beliefs. This is not dictating anything - I have to smile when I try to imagine dictating to anyone through a blog on the internet - perhaps you may mean 'spreading propaganda through internet forums?" 
As a positive suggestion, the correct terms are: a person is a biologist who accepts the neo-Darwinian paradigm. A person cannot be an evolutionist who practices biology as his scientific discipline. If a person is an evolutionist, he must, be definition, be promoting the ideology of evolution (whatever that may mean).
No, I mean the insistence by some in this thread that their chosen definition of a word is the only legitimate one.
I think you have your signs reversed: such a restrictive definition of “evolutionist” is a really bad suggestion, lacking any basis in either historical or current usage, as Eddie has already pointed out.
I sense a needless debate may be commencing - none has given any reason to contradict a simple definition of evolutionist given in the Oxford Dictionary. If you and Eddie are such authorities on English than please let the Oxford Dictionary know this and they can change the meaning of this term. Legitimacy, from what you say, seems to be in the eye of the beholder. The term has meant, from the time of Darwin, to describe someone who believes in evolution - note the word ‘belief’. My dear chap, this is self evident, and the insistence on it being otherwise comes from you and Eddie.
A biologist is the one who accepts the theory of neo-Darwinian evolution as his current paradigm. How would this be restrictive, since it is correct and unambiguous. An ideologies would insist that evolutionism is a grand theory that applies to virtually everything, and a materialist is one who bases his views mainly on evolutionism.
If this is difficult and confusing, then we can agree on that. So why the fierce debate, when the terms are this easy to understand and use? If terminology does not bother BioLogos, surely the gracious response would be to ignore the matters as of little importance (but then we get back to scientism, and off we go again). 
I’m perfectly happy with the OED definition. Here’s the relevant part:
“2. A person who holds a theory or doctrine of evolution, or interprets a field of study in evolutionary terms; an evolutionary biologist; (in wider sense) an adherent of evolutionism.” Note the absence of the word belief, and the presence of “evolutionary biologist” as one of the possible meanings, and its application to both “doctrine” and “theory”. In other words, pretty much exactly what Eddie and I have both said: it can be used both of an ideological belief and a scientific theory. Why you see some need to restrict it solely to ideological belief I don’t know, but you have no lexicographic justification for doing so.
A biologist is someone who studies biology. Not all biologists accept evolution.
I stand corrected on the exact meaning of biologist, and I agree with you that it has been used to mean both an ideology and as a reference to a theory. So instead of debating the issue, would it not be sensible to ask, how should such a term (and also, for example, other terms such as biologist, scientist) be used in a forum whose primary aim is to harmonise science and faith? The justification is to agree that using such terms to mean both ideology, or science, or perhaps a combination of both (after all, the discussion ventures into theology, id, evolution, scientism, and other areas) - adds to confusion and also may permits erroneous views to appear scientific.
So instead of rancour, the approach should be to agree on how we should use terms central to the faith/science debate. It is difficult to think of anything more central to the BioLogos position, than that of the difference between ideology put forward by evolutionists, and that of a paradigm/theory debated by biologist
The Oxford btw ".evolutionist - a person who believes in the theories of evolution and natural selection.– DERIVATIVES evolutionism.
Thanks for your reply. My take is that there’s not much point to trying to come to an agreement about how which meaning should be used here. Partly because you won’t get people to come to an agreement, and partly because the participants are transient and will be bringing in different usage all the time. Go by context, ask when uncertain, and focus on the issues that are under discussion and not on the terminology.
Jim,
Thanks for a great article! I’ve heard almost all of these misconceptions in casual conversation. Clearing them up paves the way for much more fun and nuanced discussions. I’d like to propose three more common misconceptions:
Natural selection is based on chance.
Virtually everyone I know believes that natural selection, and evolution by extension, is based entirely or largely on random acts of chance. To be honest, I believed this until after I graduated from college (I took AP Biology and have a biology minor) even though all my textbooks said the same thing: if birds eat light-colored moths, the increased probability of survival for dark moths is not random at all.
Natural selection is the only mechanism of biological evolution.
Not only do most of my friends have a poor understanding of natural selection, but they’ve never heard of most other mechanisms of evolution: nonrandom mating, gene flow, genetic drift, mutation. Some of those mechanisms involve chance, and others don’t, so this misunderstanding leads to lots of errant statements about chance and evidence for evolution.
Evolution and biogenesis are the same thing.
I just read an article today that promoted doubt of scientific consensus about evolution. The author used differing views about how life began as evidence of conflicting viewpoints, concluding that those who mention consensus are being dishonest. If the author had realized that he was actually talking about two separate, though related, areas of research, he might not have made such an egregious conflation.
Thanks again for the great read! It has been helpful already in conversation.
Adam J.
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