Field of Science

Should Darwin be an 'ism'?

In a few weeks I'm leading a Cafe Scientifique discussion on the topic "Should Darwin be an 'ism'?" I promised to provide a short abstract, so here goes:

Darwin's place in modern biology is unusually personal. When The Origin of Species was first published, biologists readily accepted the publicly controversial idea that all modern life evolved from simpler organisms. But they were dubious of natural selection's role in adaptation, and 'Darwinism' competed with 'Lamarckism' and then ''Mendelism' until the genetic basis of inheritance became clear in the 1930s. Since then many biologists have invoked Darwin whenever they spoke of natural selection, perhaps to make up for our original skepticism. But creationists are now turning this against us, claiming that evolution is nothing but Darwin-worship. Is it time to push Darwin into the closet?

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