SCT: You Can Only Have Thick Darwinism

An eye-opening paper dismisses
the idea that you can thin Darwinism
down to just a theory about biology

This article appeared first in Science & Culture Today.
It contains important implications to understand about Darwinism.

Only Thick Darwinism Served Here
by David Coppedge
Science & Culture Today, 12 June 2024

A rather unusual paper appeared in the Quarterly Review of Biology. Summarizing the paper, editor-in-chief Liliana M. Dávalos described it as “A unified account of Darwinism’s varieties.” (Note immediately that the word “Darwinism” is still current in the literature, despite claims to the contrary.) She’s not talking about “varieties” in the biological sense as Darwin would have conceived them. She’s talking about varieties of Darwinism itself. Here’s how she describes the paper:

In “The Varieties of Darwinism: Explanation, Logic, and Worldview,” authors Hugh Desmond, André Ariew, Philippe Huneman, and Thomas Reydon observe that while some people claim Darwinism’s meaning should be limited to scientific content, others call for its abolition altogether. The authors propose a unified account of these varieties of Darwinism. “We show how the theories introduced by Darwin have grounded a ‘logic’ or style of reasoning about phenomena, as well as various ethically and politically charged ‘worldviews.’” They posit that the full meaning of Darwinism and how this meaning has changed over time can only be understood through the interaction between these dimensions. [Emphasis added.]

Darwinism has evolved? What a concept. It even has its own ecosystem: an interaction of ethically and politically charged worldviews built on a style of reasoning about phenomena. If the authors and editor are right, one cannot get thin-sliced Darwinism limited to scientific content alone. One can only order the thick slice with some rather unsavory seasonings mixed in.

Desmond et al. are not Darwin skeptics. They believe that Darwin came up with a “logic” that explains biological change. Their point is that you cannot get Darwinism in thin slices any longer. Darwinism has evolved into a thicker concept that has attracted a great deal of other stuff growing in and around it. Perhaps we could think of it as mold in a block of cheese, with rats nibbling at the edges. Here, have some!

Only Thick Darwinism Served Here

Many Darwin defenders only want the thin-sliced version, neatly packaged in philosophical cellophane. They speak of natural selection as “only a biological theory” about how species change over time….

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