February 10, 2009

• Don’t Call it “Darwinism”

  
  

  Evolution is not just an idea but also a fact. However, some creationists added -ism to evolution to denounce it as an ideology.

  “It is worth adding that Darwinism is not just an ism, it is an ism that is associated with a single person. Calling evolution “evolutionism” is a specious rhetorical tactic, since it suggests that evolution is an ideology; calling evolution “Darwinism” is specious in spades, since it suggests that evolution is not only an ideology but an ideology that stands or falls with Darwin’s particular formulation of it, and with Darwin’s personal reputation. By calling evolution “Darwinism,” creationists are hoping to plant the idea that evolution is the outmoded and dismissible brainchild of a Victorian amateur, rather than the robust product of a century and a half of dogged scientific inquiry. In the same vein, Darwin is compared to Freud and Marx, all supposedly purveyors of discredited ideologies that deserve to be abandoned; a t-shirt peddled by an intelligent design creationist organization quotes Phillip Johnson, the godfather of intelligent design creationism, as saying, “Freud is dead, Marx is dead, and Darwin isn’t feeling very well” (ARN 2005). So the rhetoric of “Darwinism” dovetails with the longstanding creationist campaign of vilification of Darwin. When The Simpsons caricatured creationism with a video featuring Darwin in a hot embrace with Satan, it was only a slight exaggeration.

  Similarly, in creationist rhetoric, “Darwinism” is used as an epithet to link evolution to objectionable political ideologies. CSC Communications Director Rob Crowther described a group of anticreationist scientists as a “Darwinian politburo” (Crowther 2008). At a conference, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow George Gilder reportedly referred to “Darwinist storm troopers” (Cohen 2007), while intelligent design blogger Denyse O’Leary rails against “Darwinian brownshirts” (O’Leary 2007)—the brownshirts, of course, were the stormtroopers of the Nazi Sturmabteilung. On his personal blog, prominent intelligent design creationism promoter (and CSC Senior Fellow) William Dembski complains of “Darwinian fascists” (later revised, if not noticeably softened, to “Darwinian enforcers”) (Dembski 2006). The linking of evolution with ideologies such as Nazism and Stalinism is clearly intended to encourage the view that evolution is not science, but a dangerous ideology in its own right.
  

  SOURCE Eugenie C. Scott and Glenn Branch,  Don’t Call it “Darwinism”

  http://www.springerlink.com/content/n47h34357743w4p0/fulltext.html
  

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