But you can use “evolution” or “free market”, because people are divided about this topics, because many of them just lack the basic knowledge.
Evolution is true, in the sense that there is overwhelming evidence that men evolved from apes, and that likenesses between kinds is a literal family resemblance, the result of ancestral shared blood or sap. “Evolution” is untrue, in that use of the word “evolution” tends to be almost perfectly correlated with distaste for the implications of Darwinism, and complete disbelief in the implications of Darwinism for humans and human nature, tends to be a codeword for denial of Darwinism.
Darwinism, however, is true, for the same reasons as evolution is true, and, unlike “evolution”, is not a codeword for a collection of pious politically correct beliefs. Hence Dawkins, despite his otherwise progressive beliefs, calls himself a Darwinist, not an evolutionist.
However any discussion of the difference between “evolution” and Darwinism would produce a mind killing response that makes the discussion of gender differences harmless by comparison.
Um, I’m completely unaware of any difference between evolution and Darwinism. Are you using the latter to mean “The theory of evolution is true, plus eugenics is desirable”?
Um, I’m completely unaware of any difference between evolution and Darwinism. Are you using the latter to mean “The theory of evolution is true, plus eugenics is desirable”?
Evolution was fairly popular (at least, in some places) before Darwin and arguably many modern people have a pre-Darwinian (teleological) understanding of the idea. Darwin’s grandfather wrote poems about evolution before Charles was born, and some of his school mates were followers of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. There seem to be many people that wear “evolution” as attire (presumably to identify with some “educated”, “scientific”, or “secular” tribe), but that don’t really understand natural selection or think it stopped operating on humans some tens-of-thousands of years ago.
“Common descent”, “natural selection”, and “speciation through reproductive separation” are distinct elements of evolutionary theory. The idea of common descent is a lot older than the idea that effectively all biodiversity stems from variable survival and reproduction, and the formation of isolated gene pools.
Might this not just mean it changed direction, faced with an environment where strength size and intelligence were all now less reproductively important than resistance to disease?
Might this not just mean it changed direction, faced with an environment where strength size and intelligence were all now less reproductively important than resistance to disease?
If you mean that there was no such decrease, then that contradicts what I’ve read.
I do not mean that. I assumed MixedNuts was parodying the people I was referring to that don’t understand Darwinian evolution (but think they do), since his argument makes the same kind of error (“directional”, teleological evolution) I was lamenting.
Evolution is true, in the sense that there is overwhelming evidence that men evolved from apes, and that likenesses between kinds is a literal family resemblance, the result of ancestral shared blood or sap. “Evolution” is untrue, in that use of the word “evolution” tends to be almost perfectly correlated with distaste for the implications of Darwinism, and complete disbelief in the implications of Darwinism for humans and human nature, tends to be a codeword for denial of Darwinism.
Darwinism, however, is true, for the same reasons as evolution is true, and, unlike “evolution”, is not a codeword for a collection of pious politically correct beliefs. Hence Dawkins, despite his otherwise progressive beliefs, calls himself a Darwinist, not an evolutionist.
However any discussion of the difference between “evolution” and Darwinism would produce a mind killing response that makes the discussion of gender differences harmless by comparison.
Um, I’m completely unaware of any difference between evolution and Darwinism. Are you using the latter to mean “The theory of evolution is true, plus eugenics is desirable”?
Evolution was fairly popular (at least, in some places) before Darwin and arguably many modern people have a pre-Darwinian (teleological) understanding of the idea. Darwin’s grandfather wrote poems about evolution before Charles was born, and some of his school mates were followers of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. There seem to be many people that wear “evolution” as attire (presumably to identify with some “educated”, “scientific”, or “secular” tribe), but that don’t really understand natural selection or think it stopped operating on humans some tens-of-thousands of years ago.
“Common descent”, “natural selection”, and “speciation through reproductive separation” are distinct elements of evolutionary theory. The idea of common descent is a lot older than the idea that effectively all biodiversity stems from variable survival and reproduction, and the formation of isolated gene pools.
But it did! Look at the decrease in height, weight, and bone and dental health just after agriculture took off.
Might this not just mean it changed direction, faced with an environment where strength size and intelligence were all now less reproductively important than resistance to disease?
I’m pretty sure MixedNuts was joking.
If you mean that there was no such decrease, then that contradicts what I’ve read.
I think they mean MixedNuts drew the opposite conclusion to the one his referenced facts support.
I do not mean that. I assumed MixedNuts was parodying the people I was referring to that don’t understand Darwinian evolution (but think they do), since his argument makes the same kind of error (“directional”, teleological evolution) I was lamenting.