Right, that’s the reason I prefer the term Darwinian to show we are dealing with empirical claims. “Empirically undetectable guided evolution or unguided evolution” doesn’t just roll off the tongue 
“Darwinian” doesn’t mean “empirical.” It’s really easy. All you have to do is say “evolution” or “common descent” and everyone knows you’re talking about science, which is by definition empirical.
Is it characteristic of ID to make everything harder than it has to be?
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So it seems the main issue is dysteleological evolution, which is an ideological overlay on the science. So why not just say that instead of presuming everyone hears dysteleological (instead of natural selection) when they hear Darwinian.
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Strangely, most of the ID/creationist community uses Darwinian to mean the exact opposite. They think Darwinian evolution is non-empirical and religious.
Face palm if you want, but even aside from the tone, associations and connotations, “Darwinian” is just not synonymous with “empirically undetectable guided evolution or unguided evolution”. I think this whole thread is a bit obtuse.
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Not necessarily synonymous, but Darwinism is a concisely stated and pretty well defined subset of all such theories such that we can empirically and mathematically investigate its claims, as well as compare all well defined competitors.
The facepalm is because we just spent quite a few comments explaining why “evolution” and “common descent” are not what ID is fundamentally interested in. Then, when I say that is why I preprefehe term Darwinism to add a bit of precision to what ID is critiquing Jay goes right back to recommending use of “evolution” and “common descent” to identify what ID is talking about. It is as if it is all for nothing! I don’t know what to say anymore. It is just a big circular discussion sigh
How about you guys tell me what you are finding unclear and obtuse, and precisely why, and I can clear up that specific misunderstanding?
Nice idea, but besides being an obscure term it doesn’t differntiate between the Biologos position and the ID position. Both of us claim teleology, but Biologos claims it is scientifically undetectable, while ID claims we can detect it (maybe). So, to distinguish the ID position we now have a mouthful of obscure technical terms. I can’t see that improving communication…same discussion I just had with Jay…do you think we should just talk about “evolution” and “common descent”???
It might be an obscure term, but at least it has the right meaning that everyone agrees on as opposed to a term that you say means one thing but most people don’t seem to agree with you. “The BioLogos position” isn’t a position on what evolution is. Evolution is already a thing. There aren’t different scientific versions of it depending on your theology. The science is the science. When someone at BioLogos says “evolution” they mean the exact same thing an atheist scientist or a Buddhist scientist means by it. I think people who talk about evolution should mean evolution and people who talk about common descent should mean common descent and not be importing extra-scientific ideology onto the terms that other people are just supposed to infer. Teleology isn’t part of evolution, it’s extra. Saying Darwinian doesn’t make evolution dysteleological.
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Correct!
I’m told “Darwinian” is incorrect, “Darwinism” is offensive, and Macroevolution” is nondescript and too vague to be useful. I find I’m running out of options…
Hmm, that does seem frustrating. “Darwinian” seems most appropriate to describe natural selection, to distinguish it from Lamarckian evolution, but we of course just call it natural selection. Ghough I guess Darwin also founded the idea of sexual selection, so is that “Darwinian” evolution too? I think it’s funny for someone to consider “Darwinism” offensive; it just generally seems like an outdated term, but I wouldn’t balk at its use.
You know, I think one of the difficult things with describing something as “macroevolution” is that evolution critics sometimes seem okay with certain aspects of “macroevolution” and not others. For instance, my expertise is on regressive evolution, or the loss / degeneration of traits over time. When discussing, for instance, the evidence for snakes losing their legs, or birds losing teeth, I’ve heard multiple creationists tell me that some of them are okay with this form of evolution, even though traditionally it would be considered “macro” (i.e., major anatomical change). And then with some of this hyperspeciation talk promoted by the modern Creationists that @Joel_Duff frequently engages with, all sorts of morphological changes that were traditionally “macro” (e.g., development of new anatomical features and behavior, major modifications to anatomy and behavior) can be accomplished within 6,000 or so years.
So criticizing “macroevolution” seems to be rather imprecise even among a lot of evolution critics. As such, I start to wonder: what ARE evolution skeptics not okay with? I certainly can think of certain events that seem to be frequent offenders, like fish coming onto land, or whales descending from land-dwelling mammals. Biochemical evolution seems to be a big theme, what with the claims of alleged irreducible complexity.
So perhaps there’s a need to come up with an appropriate term that encompasses these seemingly divergent topics (“highly improbable evolutionary events”?) or perhaps one simply has to clarify what they find acceptable: “I accept changes in gene variant frequencies that have been documented/observed, but I don’t believe that whales could have evolved from land mammals and I don’t believe that blood clotting could have evolved.”
You are right. One definition of Darwinism which has not been discussed is Darwinism as in Social Darwinism, which of course is an embarrassment to those who espouse evolution. Nonetheless, Social Darwinism is based on his understanding of how Natural Selection and hoe it works. It is strong enough that Dawkins has to disavow it without really explaining why and how.
The unspoken problem of evolution is Natural Selection/ Selfish Gene. It is scientific problem, a philosophical problem, and a theological problem. Maybe that is why people fail to address it, which is the bad news, The good news us that it gas been solved by ecological natural selection, which is not based on survival of the fittest.
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Then what is that definition? Does Neutral theory do away with Darwinism?
It seems that ID is ultimately arguing against all natural causes that can bring about the biocomplexity we see today. If there are multiple natural theories of evolution, then why argue against just one?
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Thank you for making my point for me.
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Modifying evolution with Darwinian adds confusion, not precision. That’s why every time I read something from ENV or AIG I have to struggle to translate “Darwinian Evolution” into something meaningful. You were using the term last week to criticize “random variation” when that’s not something Darwin even addressed. This is obfuscation, not communication.
If you want to critique a specific aspect of evolution, just say what it is that you’re critiquing. The English language isn’t that hard to use unless you’re bound and determined to use words in non-standard ways and make people guess what you had in mind.
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Social Darwinism is any of various theories of society which emerged in the United Kingdom, North America, and Western Europe in the 1870s, claiming to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics. Social Darwinists argue that the strong should see their wealth and power increase while the weak should see their wealth and power decrease. Different social-Darwinist groups have differing views about which groups of people are considered to be the strong and which groups of people are considered to be the weak, and they also hold different opinions about the precise mechanisms that should be used to reward strength and punish weakness. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism, while others were used in support of authoritarianism, eugenics, racism, imperialism, fascism, Nazism, and struggle between national or racial groups
from the Wikipedia
@T_aquaticus, don’t you think that science should be applied to life?
That isn’t the antonym. You need both.
This is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Darwinian evolution does not refer to the scientific theory. It refers to completely misguided attempts to smear a theory based on misapplication of scientific theories to areas of philosophy and ethics.
Perhaps we should start a thread on the application of Newtonism to life. Social Newtonism demands we drop people off of tall buildings because Newtonian theory says things should fall. Social Kochism demands infecting the public with infectious diseases.
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T. I think you mean social Darwinism?
Looks like deliberate hyberbole to make a point.
Hmmm. Hopefully T will clarify.