On the Meaning of Neo-Darwinism

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Marty

So trying to understand your thrust here. I think you are saying that ID is arguing against panadaptationism AND that neo-Darwinism is defined in the literature as panadaptationism. Underlying is that panadaptationism is replaced by Neutral Theory.

That would imply to me that the literature is using neo-Darwinism in a more specialized way. And that’s fine, it’s just that the term seems to be used much more broadly outside the literature.

So @Marty, this there is a common equivocation between

1. Darwinism (meaning our best understanding of evolutionary science)
2. Darwinism (meaning positive-selection dominated change)
3. Darwinism (meaning atheism)

Some scientists use Darwinism to mean #1, but this is actually very rare among evolutionary biologists in their scientific work. It is much more common for us to be talking about non-Darwinian processes too.

However, it is common for ID, YEC and Atheists to equivocate these because it serves their joint rhetorical goals to present evolutionary science to be in direct conflict with religion. Moreover, blurring the line between 1 and 2 makes it possible for people to argue they have disproven #1 by disproving #2.

A great example of this is the Irreducible Complexity Argument: Which Irreducible Complexity?. Look how Behe defines IC2:

@swamidass

An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.
http://www.discovery.org/a/442

Do you see the problem with the bolded phrase?

@swamidass

Still, for the IC2, most knowledgeable scientists agree that IC2 systems exist in nature too. Similar to IC1 systems, we are convinced that evolution can evolve IC2 systems also. Embedded in this definition is an important straw man. He writes “one or more unselected steps.” Here, into the IC2 definition is being smuggled a strict enforcement of “Darwinian” evolution. Now, anyone following biology at a basic level of competence knows that strict-Darwinian evolution was falsified a long time ago, in the 1970s. We now know that a large proportion of changes are near neutral or even slightly deleterious in the short term. So this dominant pathway of change is intrinsically ruled out by Behe’s definition.

Here, Behe is making the case that Darwinism (positive selection dominated change) is insufficient to explain the diversity of life. And biologists already agree, and think non Darwinian mechanisms are important too. The problem is that he treats Darwinism as if it is modern evolutionary theory, and it is not.

Same thing happens in the Dissent from Darwinism:

“A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” states that:

We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.

A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism - Wikipedia

Notice that random mutation and natural selection does not include non-Darwinian evolution. They have defined evolution here to be Darwinism (positive selection dominated change), not the modern theory. This is a truly strange statement, calling for scientists to scrutinize a falsified theory. One might as well call for scrutiny of Newtonian Physics, or of Phrenology. Why? We already moved on from that decades ago? While we are at it, we might as well ask when scientists will stop beating their wives.

As a science student, the Dissent from Darwinism was a key event in my journey away from ID. When I realized they were arguing against a cartoon version of modern evolutionary science, and did not even seem to realize it, I was floored. I couldn’t trust the arguments without carefully scrutinizing them. They did not stand up to the same scrutiny to which my work as a PhD student was subject. It was all downhill from there.

I wonder if ID could benefit from Steelman Instead of Strawman, but to date they are engaging with strawman versions of the evolutionary science I’ve learned about as a scientist. The abuse of the term Darwinism is a key way how this happens. Remember, these are mutually contradictory definitions, even though they are connected to the same utterance. Rather than go along with the ID-YEC-Dawkins consensus around “Darwinism”, I use it in the technical precise way.

@Marty

So trying to understand your thrust here.

Does that make more sense? How do you understand this all.