Darwinism

The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.

[8][9][10] For example, Darwin was unfamiliar with the work of the Moravian scientist and Augustinian friar Gregor Mendel,[11] and as a result had only a vague and inaccurate understanding of heredity.

Twenty years hence naturalists may be in a position to say whether this is, or is not, the case; but in either event they will owe the author of "The Origin of Species" an immense debt of gratitude.... And viewed as a whole, we do not believe that, since the publication of Von Baer's "Researches on Development," thirty years ago, any work has appeared calculated to exert so large an influence, not only on the future of Biology, but in extending the domination of Science over regions of thought into which she has, as yet, hardly penetrated.

[25] The term Darwinism is often used in the United States by promoters of creationism, notably by leading members of the intelligent design movement, as an epithet to attack evolution as though it were an ideology (an "ism") based on philosophical naturalism, atheism, or both.

[26] For example, in 1993, UC Berkeley law professor and author Phillip E. Johnson made this accusation of atheism with reference to Charles Hodge's 1874 book What Is Darwinism?

[27] However, unlike Johnson, Hodge confined the term to exclude those like American botanist Asa Gray who combined Christian faith with support for Darwin's natural selection theory, before answering the question posed in the book's title by concluding: "It is Atheism.

Reviewing the film for Scientific American, John Rennie says "The term is a curious throwback, because in modern biology almost no one relies solely on Darwin's original ideas ...

[32] Biologist E. O. Wilson at Harvard University described the term as being "a rhetorical device to make evolution seem like a kind of faith, like 'Maoism [...] Scientists don't call it 'Darwinism'.

"[33] In the United Kingdom, the term often retains its positive sense as a reference to natural selection, and for example British ethologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote in his collection of essays A Devil's Chaplain, published in 2003, that as a scientist he is a Darwinist.

In more recent times, the Australian moral philosopher and professor Peter Singer, who serves as the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, has proposed the development of a "Darwinian left" based on the contemporary scientific understanding of biological anthropology, human evolution, and applied ethics in order to achieve the establishment of a more equal and cooperative human society in accordance with the sociobiological explanation of altruism.