Darwinism
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{{otheruses4|concepts called Darwinism|modern evolutionary theory|evolution|other uses|Evolution (disambiguation)}}
[[Image:Charles Darwin.jpg|thumb|Charles Darwin]]
'''''Darwinism''''' is a term used for various different movements or concepts related to a greater or lesser extent to [[Charles Darwin]]'s work on [[evolution]].<ref name=antidarwinian>{{cite web |url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/anti-darwin.html |title=How to be Anti-Darwinian |author=John Wilkins |date= 1998 |publisher=[[TalkOrigins Archive]] |accessdate=2008-06-19}}</ref> The meaning of ''Darwinism'' has changed over time, and depends on who is using the term.<ref name=whatis>{{cite web |url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/darwinism.html |title=What is Darwinism? |author=Joel Hanes |date= |publisher=[[TalkOrigins Archive]] |accessdate=2008-06-19}}</ref>
The term was coined by [[Thomas Henry Huxley]] in April 1860,<ref name=westminster>{{cite web |url=http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A32&pageseq=29 |title=ART. VIII.- Darwin on the origin of Species |author=Huxley, T.H. |authorlink=Thomas Henry Huxley |date=April 1860 |publisher=[[Westminster Review]] |pages=541-70 |quote=What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too circular? |accessdate=2008-06-19}}</ref> and was used to describe evolutionary concepts, including earlier concepts such as [[Malthusian]]ism and [[Herbert Spencer|Spencerism]]. In the late 19th century it came to mean the concept that [[natural selection]] was the sole mechanism of evolution, in contrast to [[Lamarckism]], then around 1900 it was eclipsed by [[Mendelism]] until the [[modern evolutionary synthesis]] unified Darwin's and [[Gregor Mendel]]'s ideas. As [[modern evolutionary theory]] has developed, the term has been associated at times with specific ideas.<ref name=whatis/>
While the term has remained in use amongst scientific authors,<ref name=howto>{{cite web |url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/anti-darwin.html |title=How to be Anti-Darwinian |author=John Wilkins |date=1998 |publisher=[[TalkOrigins Archive]] |accessdate=2008-06-27}}</ref><ref name=MiamiHerald>{{cite web |url=http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/inbox/story/560850.html |title=Knowledge and its discontents: Darwin passes his own test |author=Michael Ruse |authorlink=Michael Ruse |date=2008-06-08 |publisher=[[Miami Herald]] |accessdate=2008-06-27}}</ref> it has fallen from favour amongst modern evolutionary biologists for various reasons.<ref> {{cite web |url=http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/lets-get-rid-of-darwinism/#comment-7082 |title=Let’s Get Rid of Darwinism |author= Olivia Judson |date=July 15, 2008, 6:48 pm |publisher=New York Times}}</ref>
For example, Darwin was unfamiliar with the work of [[Gregor Mendel]],<ref> {{cite web |url=http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/lets-get-rid-of-darwinism/#comment-7082 |title=The monk in the garden: The lost and found genius of Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics. |author= Robin Marantz Henig |date=2000 |publisher=Boston: Houghton Mifflin}}</ref> having as a result only a vague understanding of [[heredity]], and knew nothing of [[genetic drift]].<ref name=GeneticDrift>{{cite web |url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/genetic-drift.html |title=Random Genetic Drift |author=Laurence Moran |date=1993 |publisher=[[TalkOrigins Archive]] |accessdate=2008-06-27}}</ref> Particularly in the [[United States]], ''Darwinism'' in modern usage is often a [[pejorative]] term employed as such by [[creationism|creationists]].<ref>[http://www.impactpress.com/articles/spring05/sullivanspring05.html ''From the Beagle to the School Board: God Goes Back to School''], Morris Sullivan, [[Impact Press]], Spring 2005.</ref>
==19th century Darwinism==
[[Image:Darwin ape.jpg|thumb|right|150px|As "Darwinism" became widely accepted in the 1870s, amusing caricatures of [[Charles Darwin]] with an [[ape]] or [[monkey]] body symbolised [[evolution]].<ref>{{harvnb|Browne|2002|p=376-379}}</ref>]]
While the term ''Darwinism'' had been used previously to refer to the work of [[Erasmus Darwin]] in the late 18th century, the term as understood today was introduced when [[Charles Darwin]]'s 1859 book ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'' was reviewed by [[Thomas Henry Huxley]] in the April 1860 issue of the ''[[Westminster Review]]''.<ref name="urlThe Huxley File § 4 Darwins Bulldog">{{cite web |url=http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/guide4.html |title=The Huxley File § 4 Darwin's Bulldog |format= |work= |accessdate=2008-06-29}}</ref> Having hailed the book as "a veritable [[Joseph Whitworth#Whitworth rifle|Whitworth gun]] in the armoury of [[liberalism]]" promoting [[naturalism (philosophy)|scientific naturalism]] over [[theology]], and praising the usefulness of Darwin's ideas while expressing professional reservations about Darwin's [[gradualism]] and doubting if it could be proved that [[natural selection]] could form new species,<ref>{{harvnb|Browne|2002|p=105-106}}</ref> Huxley compared Darwin's achievement to that of [[Nicolaus Copernicus|Copernicus]] in explaining planetary motion:
{{quotation|What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too circular? What if species should offer residual phænomena, here and there, not explicable by natural selection? Twenty years hence naturalists may be in a position to say whether this is, or is not, the case; but in either event they will owe the author of "The Origin of Species" an immense debt of gratitude...... And viewed as a whole, we do not believe that, since the publication of Von Baer's "Researches on Development," thirty years ago, any work has appeared calculated to exert so large an influence, not only on the future of Biology, but in extending the domination of Science over regions of thought into which she has, as yet, hardly penetrated.<ref name=westminster/> }}
"Darwinism" soon came to stand for an entire range of evolutionary (and often revolutionary) philosophies about both biology and society. One of the more prominent approaches was that summed in the phrase "[[survival of the fittest]]" by the philosopher [[Herbert Spencer]], which was later taken to be emblematic of Darwinism even though Spencer's own understanding of evolution was more [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck|Lamarckian]] than Darwinian, and predated the [[publication of Darwin's theory]]. What is now called "[[Social Darwinism]]" was, in its day, synonymous with "Darwinism" — the application of Darwinian principles of "struggle" to society, usually in support of anti-[[philanthropy|philanthropic]] political agendas. Another interpretation, one notably favoured by Darwin's half-cousin [[Francis Galton]], was that Darwinism implied that because natural selection was apparently no longer working on "civilized" people it was possible for "inferior" strains of people (who would normally be filtered out of the gene pool) to overwhelm the "superior" strains, and voluntary corrective measures would be desirable — the foundation of [[eugenics]].
In Darwin's day there was no rigid definition of the term "Darwinism", and it was used by opponents and proponents of Darwin's biological theory alike to mean whatever they wanted it to in a larger context. The ideas had international influence, and [[Ernst Haeckel]] developed what was known as ''Darwinismus'' in [[Germany]], although, like Spencer Haeckel's "Darwinism" had only a rough resemblance to the theory of Charles Darwin, and was not centered around natural selection at all.
While the reaction against Darwin's ideas is nowadays often thought to have been widespread immediately, in 1886 [[Alfred Russel Wallace|Wallace]] went on a lecture tour across the United States, starting in New York and going via Boston, Washington, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska to California, lecturing on what he called Darwinism without any problems.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/darwin/transcript.shtml|title=Evolution and Wonder - Understanding Charles Darwin - Speaking of Faith® from American Public Media|accessdate=2007-07-27}}</ref>
==Other uses==
The term ''Darwinism'' is often used in the [[United States]] by promoters of [[creationism]], notably by leading members of the [[intelligent design movement]] <ref = Jonnson_essay_on_darwinism>{{cite web | last = Johnson | first = Phillip E.| title = What is Darwinism? | url=http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/wid.htm | accessdate = 2007-01-04 }}</ref> to describe [[evolution]]. In this usage, the term has connotations of [[atheism]]. For example, in [[Charles Hodge]]'s book ''What Is Darwinism?'', Hodge answers the question posed in the book's title by concluding: "It is Atheism."<ref = Ropp_essay_on_darwinism>{{cite web | last = Matthew | first = Ropp | title = Charles Hodge and His Objection to Darwinism | url=http://www.theropps.com/papers/Winter1997/CharlesHodge.htm | accessdate = 2007-01-04 }}</ref><ref = Hodge_book_online>{{cite web | last = Hodge | first = Charles | title = What is Darwinism? | url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19192/19192-8.txt | accessdate = 2007-01-04 }}</ref><ref =Hodge_book>{{cite book | last = Hodge | first = Charles | year = 1874 | title = What is Darwinism? | publisher = Scribner, Armstrong, and Company | id = {{OCLC|11489956}} }}</ref> Creationists use the term ''Darwinism'', often pejoratively, to imply that the theory has been held as true only by Darwin and a core group of his followers, whom they cast as [[dogma]]tic and inflexible in their [[belief]].<ref>[http://www.impactpress.com/articles/spring05/sullivanspring05.html ''From the Beagle to the School Board: God Goes Back to School''], Morris Sullivan, [[Impact Press]], Spring 2005.</ref> Casting evolution as a doctrine or belief bolsters religiously motivated political arguments to mandate [[Teach the Controversy|equal time]] for the teaching of creationism in public schools.
However, ''Darwinism'' is also used neutrally within the scientific community to distinguish modern evolutionary theories from those first proposed by Darwin, as well as by historians to differentiate it from other evolutionary theories from around the same period. For example, ''Darwinism'' may be used to refer to Darwin's proposed mechanism of [[natural selection]], in comparison to more recent mechanisms such as [[genetic drift]] and [[gene flow]]. It may also refer specifically to the role of Charles Darwin as opposed to others in the [[history of evolutionary thought]] — particularly contrasting Darwin's results with those of earlier theories such as [[Lamarckism]] or later ones such as the [[modern synthesis]].
A notable example of a modern scientist who has used the term in a positive sense is [[Richard Dawkins]].<ref>Sheahen, Laura. [http://www.beliefnet.com/story/136/story_13688_1.html Religion: For Dummies]. BeliefNet.com, interview about 2003 book.</ref>
==See also==
*[[Modern evolutionary synthesis]]
*[[Neo-Darwinism]]
*[[Neural Darwinism]]
*[[Social Darwinism]]
*[[Darwin Awards]]
*[[Pangenesis]] - Charles Darwin's hypothetical mechanism for heredity
==References==
{{reflist}}
*{{Citation
| last = Browne
| first = E. Janet
| author-link = Janet Browne
| year = 2002
| title = Charles Darwin: vol. 2 The Power of Place
| publication-place = London
| publisher = Jonathan Cape
| isbn = 0-7126-6837-3
}}
==External links==
{{Wiktionary}}
*[http://www.universaldarwinism.com Universal Darwinism]
*[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/darwinism/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry]
*[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/darwinism.html What is Darwinism]
*[http://www.evolution-of-man.info/history.htm The Darwinian Revolution]
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