Talk:The eclipse of Darwinism

Reason for article

This article was created as place to move detailed information from History of evolutionary thought as part of the effort to streamline that article per WP:Summary style.Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Theistic evolution

"By 1900 it had completely disappeared from mainstream scientific discussions, although it continued to be used as a way to reconcile religious belief with scientific discoveries among non-scientists." – why just non-scientists? The theistic evolution article includes Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Ronald Fisher and Theodosius Dobzhansky as examples. It also states that "In describing early proponents of this viewpoint, it is sometimes described as Christian Darwinism." – don't know to what extent TE was used as a term at that time. Anyway, useful article, thanks. . . dave souza, talk 08:08, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a terminology issue. The article Theistic evolution is using a more expansive definition of that term than the historical definition used by the sources for this article. As used in this article the term refers to the idea that God at times directly intervenes, rather than leaving everything to natural law, in the evolutionary process in order to guide its direction. The view described in the theistic evolution article is a much broader concept that says that evolution is compatible with belief in God and/or a belief in the idea that the universe has a purpose even if the process of evolution is completely driven by natural law. The point made by this article is valid in the sense that only the first sense of the term has implications for scientific theory. The broader definition is just a way of saying that evolutionary biologists can be religious, but since the universe is assumed to operate by natural law, this idea isn't a subject for scientific debate the way the more narrow definition is. Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The eclipse of Darwin vs The eclipse of Darwinism

16:37, 18 July 2008 Orangemarlin (Talk | contribs) m (moved The eclipse of Darwinism to The eclipse of Darwin: Unfortunately, Darwinism is used in a historical context, which might be confusing to the casual reader.) -- is it serious? The Eclipse of Darwinism is a stable catch-phrase, nearly a meme. It served as a book title already. The lead paragraph should make it perfectly clear that the article deals with a historical phenomenon, that's enough. Darwinism is not in danger here. Alexei Kouprianov (talk) 00:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you completely. Unfortunately when the rename happened I was in the middle of trying to get history of evolutionary thought through FAC and I didn't want to be distracted by an argument about the name of a subsidary article. However, I would happily support an effort to get an admin to reverse the rename. Rusty Cashman (talk) 03:57, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Since I did it, how about a "no". OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 14:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Does that imply "no objections"? The original title does seem more appropriate and much clearer, as far as I'm concerned. . dave souza, talk 14:17, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The opening sentence of the article should start with the article title in bold. The article appears to be about the phrase "The eclipse of Darwinism" - makes sense that this should be the article title. Given that there are objections to the move and it was not discussed previously, I see no reason why the move can not be reversed and a move request filed. --HighKing (talk) 14:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

We have to keep ourselves aware of the Creationist POV. Since the anti-science crowd considers Evolution=Darwinism, an article of this sort implies that Evolution has been eclipsed. In fact, it hasn't. And Rusty, I had to stand up to your wording on your article with regards to how Evolution and Darwinism is used (if you recall). We have to keep the Creationist POV at bay.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 19:59, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess, we have to keep the creationist POV at bay, but by no means we should bow before them. If Huxley called this period "Eclipse of Darwinism", we should stand for it. I see no trouble in the original title. Alexei Kouprianov (talk) 21:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)