Criticism Of Darwinism

The social media revolution and evolution is being called the new “Digital Darwinism.” It’s an important idea and movement for all of us to heed. Esteemed marketer Brian Solis says: “Digital Darwinism is upon us, ‘the evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than our ability to adapt.  Disruptive technology is the bearer of tremendous opportunity and equally a harbinger of obsolescence.” I’ll take opportunity...  

I have been posting on an exchange between William Dembski, one of the intellectual pillars of the Intelligent Design movement (ID) and Darrel Falk, President of the BioLogos Foundation, which may be characterized as an Evolutionary Creationist organization. Here is the latest previous post.In the conclusion of his response to Dembski, Falk indicates that he agrees with Dembski about a great many things, and that Darwinism, as usually...  

There has recently been an exchange of views between some Southern Baptist theologians, and members of the BioLogos Foundation, on the question posed by the title. I have posted on the views of William Dembski, a Southern Baptist theologian, and a prominent member of the Intelligent Design movement (ID), expressed in two posts, which was published on the BioLogos blog, and on responses to those views, from Todd C. Wood, a young-earth...  

In a previous post, I referred to a debate on origins through posts to the BioLogos Forum's blog. William Dembski, a mathematician, philosopher and theologian, and a proponent of Intelligent Design, wrote a position paper, at the request of the BioLogos Forum. In it, he argued that Darwinism is not theologically neutral. Darrel Falk, an official of that Forum, and probably best classified as an evolutionary creationist, responded. Todd Wood, a...  

I have recently posted on an exchange between Darrel Falk, of the BioLogos Foundation, and William Dembski, one of the pillars of the Intelligent Design movement (ID) on the question of whether Darwinism is theologically neutral. This is the latest post in my series.I also posted about what Todd Wood, a Young-Earth Creationist, had to say about the exchange. He has written more about the exchange, and he claims, in this latest post, that ID is...  

It's always amusing to see creationists try to explain why Charles Darwin was wrong, especially when they make up lists of reasons "Darwin's theory of evolution does not hold up to scientific scrutiny." These are always people who wouldn't know what scientific scrutiny was if it knocked them immobile with a carefully measured dose of Conus snail toxin, strapped them to an operating table, and pumped high-intensity Science directly into their...  

ATLANTA, May 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In an egregious example of academic bullying, renowned neurosurgeon and director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital Dr. Ben Carson has been publicly chastised for his views on evolution and called...  

IT FEELS LIKE it took fish less time to grow legs and walk on land than it took for President Obama’s position on gay marriage to finally “evolve” to supporting it. Leave it to the ever-cautious “No Drama Obama” to take an epic moment in the slow forward march of civil rights for all Americans and to leave supporters to wonder if they should be shouting, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” or asking the president, “Jeez, what took you so long?”  

The sky is falling! Many interest groups and journalists raced to tell that to the public when a modest but important bill became law in Tennessee early in April. The law instructs teachers and administrators to "create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and...  

April 19, 2012 1:21 AM[SYDNEY] Near the site where the first bomb landed on Australia in World War II, Il Lido restaurant serves watermelon cubes with aged balsamic vinegar at A$3 (S$4) each to diners overlooking a swimming lagoon and artificial wave pool.  

Earlier today I wrote about the Repub roadmap for change for the United States which the Dems have aptly described as Social Darwinism. Little did I know as I wrote this piece that Mark Zuckerberg was writing a check for $1 billion in the cause of Tech Darwinism. The survival of the fittest. The cool little startup, Instagram, becomes a footnote in the food chain, with a very nice reward attached. Good for them! $1 billion buys a lot of In-and...  

Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging, preventing the creation of fresh Insolence, at least Insolence of the quality that you've come to expect. This is one of those times, and it doesn't help that it's a holiday week plus a week I was traveling. So I dug way back into the archives, back to five years ago, for a little gem that reminds me that I really should write about evolution more. As the AACR meeting showed me this year, it's...  

A current controversy raging in evolutionary biology is whether adaptation to new environments is the result of many genes, each of relatively small effect, or just a few genes of large effect. A new study published in Molecular Ecology strongly supports the first "many-small" hypothesis.  

I wrote a book that came out in early 2009 called, “The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be,” that talked about the history of the American political debate. One of my fundamental arguments was that conservatives are using the same arguments against modern day progress that their ideological ancestors used against the progress we made throughout history. What I underestimated, though, is how fiercely and broadly the...  

A current controversy raging in evolutionary biology is whether adaptation to new environments is the result of many genes, each of relatively small effect, or just a few genes of large effect. A new study strongly supports the first "many-small" hypothesis.  

In the recently published "Darwinian selection continues to influence human evolution", Phys.org conveys a common understanding of our human origins. In a generally reputed sharp contrast, Church hierarchies advocate "Creationism" as ...  

The second of two new books on evolution I posted about in last week’s Book Notes, Christianity in Evolution: An Exploration is quite a departure from previous attempts to reconcile Darwinian theory with Christianity. Jack Mahoney, a professor ...  

Researchers who studied people in Finland found human evolution is still going on. Their conclusions contradict the popular misconception that humans stopped evolving when they took up farming and became monogamous.  

I thought conservatives didn't believe in evolution, but it's only biological Darwinism they don't believe in. When it comes to social Darwinism they are all for it. Go figure. I've often wondered what motivates conservatives' greedy and selfish ...  

Darwinian 'survival-of-the-fittest' laws continue to shape human evolution in the modern age, research has found. Humans are subject to the forces of natural selection just like any other species, say scientists. Human customs such as marriage have not ...  

I don't think believing that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution through natural ... At the time of Darwin himself, his great defender Thomas Henry Huxley (grandfather of the novelist Aldous Huxley) set out consciously to make of Darwinism a phenomenon ...  

Connor Wood wrote a piece at Science on Religion about why some people have an antipathy towards the theory of evolution. Leah at Unequally Yoked responds with a post, “Scared of Darwin for All the Wrong Reasons.” I should probably respond to the content of the posts. I might do so later. Right now, I’m [...]  

Over at Patheos’s group blog on science and religion, Connor Wood is trying to explain why people have a visceral discomfort with evolution.  He sees natural selection as the ultimate example of “nature red in tooth and claw” — a rigged game that ...  

Creationism" (Scott is the head of the National Center for Science Education) and Carl Zimmer's "Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea" (which served as a companion to the PBS seven-part series on the topic). Both have two pages or so discussing social ...  

The losers remained poor, or hired out, or went to California. I didn't realize that this was “social Darwinism,” which was a high-falutin' way of justifying the “survival of the fittest” applied to human society. I thought it was the way the world works.  

I recently had an online exchange with a Presbyterian Christian who began with asserting something rather peculiar; he suggested a link between religiosity and being "fit to live." The very term "fit to live" should send chills down the spine of any de...  

'Pirates! Band of Misfits' Director Peter Lord, On Defending Darwin and ...MoviefoneOur Darwin, his mission in life is getting a girl. He's more interested in getting a girl than anything else. He doesn't know the first idea about evolution, [although] the Captain gives him a couple of hints. There's always talk about, ...and more »  

In his April 15 letter to The News and Sentinel, William Taylor ("God vs. NPR") stated "the so-called theory of evolution isn't even a viable scientific theory" - despite the fact that thousands of accomplished scientists have proved its validity during ...  

TIME (blog)Soccer Darwinism: The English Premiership's Survival ClashesTIME (blog)Europe may incline towards socialism when it comes to taking care of its populations' basic needs such as health care, education and income-security, but when it comes to professional football, it mimics the cut-throat survival-of-the-fittest ...and more »  

Many potential predators and competitors had not reached the island at this time. This allowed the vangas to quickly occupy ecological niches, diversify and spread across the island. "This first bout of rapid diversification resulted in vanga species which ...  

Why is Darwin's "bank of life" tangled? Because, in part, the "arrival of the fittest" is sufficiently likely. Adaptation is able to happen only because of this. Selection winnows, as the wag said, but the abundant possibilities of the ways of life yields the arrival of the fittest.  

She says most people are familiar with Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution by natural selection — survival of the fittest. But Jamieson, a political communication authority at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center, explains that ...  

I wrote a book that came out in early 2009 called, The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be, that talked about the history of the American political debate. One of my fundamental arguments was that conservatives are using the same ...  

Writer/producer Steven Bochco has teamed with Entertainment One (eOne) to produce the original one-hour television series, Evolution, a sci-fi story about the discovery of a box that contains all human knowledge. Evolution will be shopped to MipTV and to ...  

urban slums festered, and a significant portion of America was impoverished. Social Darwinism encapsulated the idea of survival of the fittest (a phrase Charles Darwin never actually used) as applied to societies as a whole. Its chief apostle in ...  

The work, published in the journal Molecular Ecology, involved McGill University biology professor Andrew Hendry and evolutionary geneticists from Basel University in Switzerland. They examined threespine stickleback fish and their adaptation to ...  

Social Darwinism isn't what it used to be. President Barack Obama lambasted the Paul Ryan budget as "thinly veiled social Darwinism" in a scorching budget speech last week. The charge displayed the same care as his contention that it would be ...  

There is a famous image from Darwin's thoughts. He likened evolution to a dirt floor filled with wooden wedges hammered into them. New species were new wedges hammered into a crowded floor, crowding out old wedge-species. The crowding captured ...