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# Evolutionism/talk

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like many -isms does this indicate a faith-based system? Should it read:

  Proponents of evolutionism subscribe to the [theory of evolution]? as a faith and consider creationist ideas false without inquiry.

--MichaelTinkler (who'd like to write a page about 'scientism', but isn't up to the /talk section.)

No, it shouldn't, because they don't. -- AV

Dear Mike. I beg to disagree. The foundation of science is endless inquiry and questioning. This takes a bad "scientist" to leave a proposition without inquiry. Check my note on Piotr Wozniak to see that I myself also dug very deep into the inquiry (talking to my Catholic? priests, talking to [Jehova witness]?es, talking to you and Tim Chambers, etc.). You can call me an evolutionist, but you cannot fairly accuse me of doing no inquiry. I spent hundreds of hours studying religious anti-evolutionary materials. With years I indeed become severely biased and rather impatient (usually "not again!" is the first thing that comes to my mind after a few paragraphs), but you cannot tell me I have not tried! I also belive the world with God would be a nicer place, but I cannot hope this to be true unless this is backed with evidence that I consider acceptable -- Piotr Wozniak

no, I'm not accusing you of being anything -- you're interested in the understanding of evolution in terms of the biological sciences. I am intending not to participate in evolution/creationism. There are, however, people who use science in exactly the way others use religion, as an excuse not to think very much. In contemporary English '-ism' is not a neutral termination, while '-ist' almost is. In fact, '-ist' tends to be a meliorative in exactly the intensity that '-ism' is a pejorative. That is how 'evolutionism' will be understood by most Anglo-American readers of English. --MichaelTinkler.

The belief that materialism is a necessary prerequisite to scientific inquiry is sometimes expressed by highly educated scientists with respectable educational credentials. For example, Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin, wrote the following for the New York Review of Books in a critique of a book on Intelligent Design.

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community of unsubstantiated just–so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute..."(emphasis added)

I personally don't believe any such thing is necessary for the practice of good science. In fact, I frankly can't conceive of "scientific" evidence for an absolute naturalism. What would it look like? Perhaps science can make it possible to be "an intellectually fulfilled atheist," but it can't disprove the possibility of some non-mechanical force acting at some point in or prior to the history of the cosmos. I'm inclined to believe that, in spite of this, there are many who operate from explicit and unproven naturalistic assumptions. For others, like Lewontin, there are philosophical and metaphysical reasons behind their total commitment to materialism. But since these are the same kind of arguments theists have been using to support their systems since the time of Plato, I think it would actually be fair to call this kind of absolute and prior commitment to total naturalism "a faith-based system."

I also agree with Michael that "ism's" are commonly pejorative in common English use. This means that I doubt that Lewontin would enjoy being included in an article on "evolutionism."

These issues are important questions in the history of the philosophy of science. And they are equally important to anyone interested in the intersection between science and religion. But, though I'm sure they belong in the Wikipedia somewhere I just don’t think this is that place.

Nor, can I think of anything worth saying which really fits on this page... Perhaps it should be deleted? Evolutionism is a loaded word. --Mark Christensen

Well, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so the mere existence of evolutionism as a word in my American Heritage (I'm at home without a scholarly dictionary) doesn't mean that we have to use it as an entry. The process of "starting entries and letting others elaborate them" seems to me often to lead to dictionary entries. --MichaelTinkler

Wikipedia got lots of shortcomings, but richness might be one of its greatest strenghts! If it is to live up to my dream, I want to find there EVERYTHING that I ever need to know. A word definition too. In that context, I will take the liberty to add ism entry. As a native Pole, I look at the language via dictionary, which is my language Bible and ultimate judge. I have never had pejorative associations with -ism. The association carries the load of a given personality. Hence Hitlerism would be negative. Marxism or Darwinism would carry the load dependent on your views, and Pavlovianism would be associated with the highest genius of behavioral physiology. Prompted by your claim I checked several dictionaries and ... no sign of (official) negativity there! -- Piotr Wozniak

The negativity attaches to new words, not to existing ones like Marxism or realism or idealism. So if there was a new theory stressing the importance of drumbicality in studying woosefuls, "drumbicalism" would carry a slightly pejorative meaning; it would tend to imply that people who advocate drumbicalism are fanatical in their devotion to drumbicalism, that they do not understand the various valid objections put forth by anti-drumbicalists, that they're backwater, that they're dogmatic, etc. People who defend the importance of drumbicality would probably prefer to call their theory "The theory of drumbicality" or "The drumbicality theory" or something similar, and would shun the label "drumbicalism".

However, if the term does catch on, after a generation or so it becomes neutral.

I'm in favour of abolishing this entry entirely, myself. -- AV

Drumbicalism is a first rate example. However, the 2 generation clause may not be true. Lord knows Marxism has been around for a while, and it is still subject to eye-rolling. Of course the Anglo-American problem is the belief that "common-sense" (i.e., everything opposed to all -ism designated belief systems) is not a belief system itself... --MichaelTinkler

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