I was reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and something occurred to me. While I worked my way through the section about the evolution vs. intelligent design debate (which any book about atheism should address), the word "Darwinism" kept popping up. Every time the word was used, I became more and more conscious of it; something about it bothered me.
The thing that struck me is this: why is Darwinism an "-ism"? The -ism suffix is generally used for names of religions (e.g. Judaism, Catholicism, Hinduism), or a philosophical stance (e.g. existentialism, Marxism, even atheism itself), or a political movement (e.g. feminism, abolitionism).
Darwinism, being a scientific theory, doesn't fit into these categories. I can't think of any other scientific theories with the -ism suffix. Wouldn't it be like calling the Laws of Motion "Newtonism", or general relativity "Einsteinism", or genetics "Watson and Crickism"? (Or maybe "Watsonism-and-Crickism" to be more fair to Watson.)
I wonder if the use of the word "Darwinism" weakens the evolution argument in the public eye, because it makes it sound like something less than an established theory. Maybe "Darwinism" has a very precise meaning that I'm unclear on, but it is commonly used when discussing evolution and natural selection. The debate between evolution and creationism (which is appropriately an -ism) is a public, cultural one; and the public, in my opinion, is not so concerned with precisely defining terms.
A word like "Darwinism" lends itself to attacks of this sort: "See? It's just some guy's opinion!" I'd like to see the word used less, at least for the purposes of cultural debate. Charles Darwin obviously deserves a lot of credit, but in this case, a more decisive term may be more useful.
I think the main thing to note here is the difference between a "theory" and a "law". On one hand, you have Newton's Law, which is a proven scientific phenomenon. On the other hand, both Einstein and Darwin presented theories. A theory can have a pretty broad definition (ie - how unlikely does the theorem have to be until it ceases to become one?), and in that sense, you could possibly put religious beliefs in that category. So according to this definition, I suppose "Creationism", "Darwinism", and even "Einsteinism" are all correct.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that gets me with this whole "teaching creationism in schools" debate is that it blatantly ignores the constitution. I've always found it amusing that Americans live and die by their gun laws, yet ignore the fact that their entire system is based on the separation of church and state. If a privately run Christian school wants to teach Creationism, fine, that's their right. But teaching Creationism using public money directly defies the consitution and promotes a certain religious ideal to the general public, which infringes on other people's rights. Somebody needs to steal the consitution, take a highlighter to it, and throw it in the face of anybody that truly believes Creationism belongs in public schools.
Ism doesn't nessicarly have to be a religion or anything like that. for example, baptism is an ism that falls under and action. and although darwinism is clearly scientificaly well respected, there's still those people who don't acknowledge it. So people like to still belive it's a belief to follow
ReplyDelete