Evolutionism

Evolutionism was a common 19th century belief that organisms inherently improve themselves through progressive inherited change over time, and increase in complexity through evolution. The belief went on to include cultural evolution and social evolution. In the 1970s the term Neo-Evolutionism was used to describe the idea "that human beings sought to preserve a familiar style of life unless change was forced on them by factors that were beyond their control".

The term is sometimes also colloquially used to refer to acceptance of the modern evolutionary synthesis, a scientific theory that describes how biological evolution occurs. In addition, the term is used in a broader sense to cover a world-view on a wide variety of topics, including chemical evolution as an alternative term for abiogenesis or for nucleosynthesis of chemical elements, galaxy formation and evolution, stellar evolution, spiritual evolution, technological evolution and universal evolution, which seeks to explain every aspect of the world in which we live.

Since the overwhelming majority of scientists accept the modern evolutionary synthesis as the best explanation of current data, the term is seldom used in the scientific community; to say someone is a scientist implies acceptance of evolutionary views, unless specifically noted otherwise. In the creation-evolution controversy, creationists often call those who accept the validity of the modern evolutionary synthesis "evolutionists" and the theory itself as "evolutionism." Some creationists and creationist organizations, such as the Institute of Creation Research, use these terms in an effort to make it appear that evolutionary biology is a form of secular religion.

19th-century use

Evolution originally was used to refer to an orderly sequence of events with the outcome somehow contained at the start. Darwin did not use the term in Origin of Species until its sixth edition in 1872, (though earlier editions did use the word "evolved") by which time Herbert Spencer had given it scientific currency with a broad definition of progression in complexity in 1862. Edward B. Tylor and Lewis H Morgan brought the term "evolution" to anthropology though they tended toward the older pre-Spencerian definition helping to form the concept of unilineal evolution used during the later part of what Trigger calls the Antiquarianism-Imperial Synthesis period (c1770-c1900).

Modern use

In modern times, the term evolution is widely used, but the terms evolutionism and evolutionist are seldom used in the scientific community to refer to the biological discipline as the term is considered both redundant and anachronistic, though it has been used by creationists in discussing the creation-evolution controversy.

The Institute for Creation Research, in order to imply placement of evolution in the category of religions, including atheism, fascism, humanism and occultism, commonly uses the words evolutionism and evolutionist to describe the consensus of mainstream science and the scientists subscribing to it, thus implying through language that the issue is a matter of religious belief.

The BioLogos Foundation, an organization that promotes the idea of theistic evolution, uses the term "evolutionism" to describe "the atheistic worldview that so often accompanies the acceptance of biological evolution in public discourse." It views this as a subset of scientism.

See also

• Darwinism
• Scientism

References

• Carneiro, Robert, Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology: A Critical History ISBN 0-8133-3766-6
• (on the applicability of this notion to the study of social evolution)
• Review of Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, The Times Tuesday, November 15, 1836; pg. 3; Issue 16261; col E. ("annihilates the doctrine of spontaneous and progressive evolution of life, and its impious corollary, chance")
• Review of Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals The Times Friday, December 13, 1872; pg. 4; Issue 27559; col A. ("His [Darwin's] thorough-going 'evolutionism' tends to eliminate...")
• Ruse, Michael. 2003. Is Evolution a Secular Religion? Science 299:1523-1524 (concluding that evolutionary biology is not a religion in any sense but noting that several evolutionary biologists, such as Edward O. Wilson, in their roles as citizens concerned about getting the public to deal with reality, have made statements like "evolution is a myth that is now ready to take over Christianity").