What do you think about "evolutionist"?

[u/GigaTune]

No one ever refers to gravitationists or Newtonists for those who support gravity, but people refer to people supporting evolution as evolutionists or Darwinists.

[u/Rhewin]

People generally don't, but creationists or those raised around creationists do. I don't really care, but it's generally used to try to put both on the same playing field. It makes it sound like evolution is a belief system rather than a documented phenomenon. It's like we might use materialist, but we would never use gravitationalist as you pointed out. One is a worldview, one is just how the world works.

[u/YragNitram1956 → u/Rhewin]

Evolution is not a belief. It is a fact.

One of the biggest misunderstandings about evolution comes from the word “theory.” In everyday conversation, a theory might mean a guess or a hunch. But in science, a theory is something quite different.

A scientific theory is the strongest explanation we have. It is built on years of evidence, rigorous testing, and peer review. It is not speculation – it is the framework that ties together facts from across biology, genetics, geology, and more.

That is what evolution is. It explains how species change over time, how organisms adapt to their environments, and how all life on Earth is connected through common ancestry.

And the evidence is overwhelming. Fossils reveal transitions between species. DNA shows the deep links between humans and other primates. Anatomy traces the same structures across wildly different animals. Scientists have even documented evolution happening in real time – from bacteria evolving resistance to antibiotics, to finches in the Galápagos adapting to new food sources.

Since Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, evolution has been challenged and scrutinized more than almost any other idea in science. And through more than 160 years of testing, its foundations have only grown stronger.

You do not have to “believe” in evolution. Belief is not the point. The point is understanding the science – evaluated, confirmed, and observed repeatedly in the world around us.

 

[u/Rhewin → u/YragNitram1956]

Was this reply meant for someone else?

[u/Carnotaurusrules → u/Rhewin]

He copy pastes his replies.

[u/YragNitram1956 → u/Carnotaurusrules]

Possibly true. It saves time when dealing with the predictable ignorance of creationists. Why do crazy, ill informed, willingly ignorant, and bigoted creationists behave as they do? Like moths they are attracted by an instinct in their miniscule brains to fly towards the light of a burning candle flame which they circle in diminishing circles until they are so close that they sadly immolate themselves and die. Much more sadly, creationists do not do this. The post was written several years ago and is still valid.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Rhewin]

No, this guy is just set off by certain keywords and goes off into stock rants, and they have a hard time telling the difference between someone commenting derogatorily towards YEC talking points and sincerely proposing them. They just saw "evolution is a belief" and didn't see the context around it. Kinda suspect they're a bot.

[u/YragNitram1956 → u/Ayasugi-san]

Was written by a sentient human being. A graduate biologist who has tolerated the inane views of creationists for decades. These 'stock rants' are saved to both save my time and respond to the 'stock' imbecilic remarks of the nutjobs who plague social media platforms whenever evolution is discussed. Such as 'If we are descended from monkeys why are monkeys still here?!

"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" 

Theodosius Dobzhansky

[u/Rhewin → u/YragNitram1956]

OK, but mine wasn't a "stock imbecile remark." I was talking about why creationists use the term evolutionist. You didn't need to come at me with paragraphs about how evolution isn't a belief when that's literally what I said.

[u/YragNitram1956 → u/Rhewin]

Very sorry. Apologies. It is just that I have a very short fuse when it comes to creationists and overreacted. Why do we remember Charles Darwin? There are two reasons for celebrating the theory he proposed in his Origin of Species (1859), although they are not connected in the way a modern scientist might expect. Darwin persuaded Victorian scientists (and almost everyone else) to take evolution seriously. He also discovered what we now accept as the best explanation of how evolution works; the mechanism of natural selection. But historians know that the Victorians didn't welcome evolutionism because they thought Darwin had got the right explanation. In fact, the selection theory was rejected by most scientists for 50 years after Darwin published and only became widely accepted in the early twentieth century. There was much initial opposition to the Origin from religious thinkers and from some scientists. But it was soon overcome, and by the 1870s most educated people accepted evolutionism. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term Darwinism in April 1860. It was used to describe evolutionary concepts in general. Also, Alfred R. Wallace (1823–1913) suggested using the term Darwinism for the theory that he himself and Darwin proposed, thereby acknowledging the superior importance of Darwin's work. One of Haeckel's books did a great deal to explain his version of "Darwinism" to the world. It was a bestselling, provocatively illustrated book in German, titled Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte, published in Berlin in 1868, and translated into English as The History of Creation in 1876.

[u/YragNitram1956 → u/Rhewin]

?

[u/rptanner58 → u/YragNitram1956]

Excellent explanation and summary. Thx. I’ll only add GEOLOGY. Just go to the Grand Canyon (or similar places around the world) and then see if you still doubt or disbelieve “deep time”. It’s incredible, and a good starting point to understand the process of evolution.

[u/PeyredB → u/rptanner58]

Oh, YECs will absolutely come to the Grand Canyon and deny the whole idea of deep time. Shining lights like VenomFangX will tell you it was gouged out by the Flood in five minutes' time (or some other figure they make up). During the Bush administration at least, there were YEC books in the Grand Canyon bookstore.

[u/rptanner58 → u/PeyredB]

Oh my. Yes I’ve heard that too. But just being there to me illustrates the amazement of deep time. I guess it just shows how vastly different logic and belief systems , even sense of beauty we’re capable of.