Evolutionary Science, not Darwinism

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Mung

But if Joshua fumbled the ball he had plenty of others trying to pick it up and advance it for him. We still lack any adequate explanation for why it is illegitimate for ID authors to use the terms when all these authors use it as well.

No, I did not fumble the ball.

@swamidass

I’m defining Darwinism as positive selection driven change as the primary or only mechanism of evolution. This is the definition used by 1) Behe, 2) the dissent from darwinism, and 3) EES.

Of note, look at your own quote from Kimura:

@Mung

The theory was introduced by the Japanese biologist Motoo Kimura in 1968, and independently by two American biologists Jack Lester King and Thomas Hughes Jukes in 1969, and described in detail by Kimura in his 1983 monograph The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution. According to Kimura, the theory applies only for evolution at the molecular level, and phenotypic evolution is controlled by natural selection, as postulated by Charles Darwin. The proposal of the neutral theory was followed by an extensive “neutralist-selectionist” controversy over the interpretation of patterns of molecular divergence and polymorphism, peaking in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, much evidence has been found for selection at molecular level.

First of all, this appears to be an overstatement of neutral theory. Look at Gould’s statements on spandrels. Rather, his work was focused on molecular evolution, and many of his insights ended up also applying to the phenotypic level.

Second, Behe is focused exclusively at the molecular level, precisely where Kimura’s work already falsified positive selection dominated change. This is why he is tilting against windmills. And, yes, other people have made exactly this point: Which Irreducible Complexity? In fact, about 70 years before the IC argument was made, Muller already showed a pathway to generate IC systems.

Third, while scientists studying positive selection are expected to write primary about positive selection, they are not (or should not representing the whole field of evolutionary science as only positive selection. That, however, is exactly how Behe defines it, and how the Dissent form Darwinism defines, and how EES often defines it. That is just transparently false.

Fourth, this is not actually unkonwn to ID leaders. I explained this to WLC last summer (2017) at Dabar. I objected when John Bloom characterized TE as trying to “read Darwinism into Scripture.” A totally false claim. Any how, WLC pressed Meyers (president of DI) at ETS over the Crossway TE book. He publicly acknowledged that basically no one believes in darwinism any more. So they know they are attacking a strawmam, perhaps for rhetorical reasons or as a strategy to box naive objections into naive into an easily falsifiable position.

This not controversial. It is just a basic test of coherence. Everyone arguing against positive selection dominated change alone (Darwinism) is arguing against a long falsified straw man. At some point, one has to graduate to learn that evolutionary science is more than what was in popular books 25 years ago. There is actually an scientific enterprise that has to be engaged with all its complexities.