Evolution in the related senses of transformism, Darwinism, Neo-Darwinism, and evolutionism
Evolution is the ultimate theory of modern science because it’s all about utility. Early modern scientists and philosophers of science dismissed formal and final causes in favor of material and efficient (i.e., mechanistic) causes. Galileo Galilei rejected final causes and endeavored to answer how things happened, not why. Francis Bacon spurned formal and final causes […]
Over the centuries the various sciences have developed from a focus on history to a focus on nature, that is from a temporal or diachronic focus to a spatial or synchronic one. Saussure saw this in linguistics and reoriented it from a focus on historical language change to language as a system. Both have their
The word “secular” can mean simply non-religious but really means more than that; according to the Online Etymological Dictionary, secular means “worldly, pertaining to a generation or age,” from Latin saecularis “of an age, occurring once in an age,” from saeculum “age, span of time, generation.” The basic distinction is between matters that pertain to the age and world in
Evolutionists argue that, in general, homologous (similar) structures or genes are evidence of common (joint) ancestry between the species. They also argue that vestigial (useless) features show common ancestry between the species and a similar species in which they are functional. Critics of evolution can equally well argue that, in general, heterologous (dissimilar) structures or genes are evidence
Occam’s Razor (also called Ockham’s Razor) refers to a principle of parsimony or simplicity in modern science associated with the medieval monk William of Ockham. His principle states: “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” The word “entities” is ambiguous here: what should be minimized, the total number of entities of any kind or the number of kinds
Karl Popper made falsification the key to scientific legitimacy. But as others have pointed out, scientists do not spend much time trying to falsify theories. Instead, they work to confirm and extend theories. Moreover, an observation that goes against a theory doesn’t falsify the whole theory; it creates an anomaly that can be dealt with
Creation is a fact. Creation is the oldest fact but creation as a paradigm is relatively new. Let me explain. The word “paradigm” was used by Thomas Kuhn for “universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners.” I would characterize a paradigm as a theme or
When Isaac Newton published his Principia with its laws of motion, he asserted their universal application. Since he had unified motion on the surface of the earth with the motion of the solar system, it was a powerful argument. Nevertheless, to claim universal application excessively extrapolated and interpolated far beyond any data available at the time. But you
Science is knowledge (scientia) that is systematically gained and/or organized. That entails that the terminology of science be systematic, i.e, a nomenclature rather than a hodgepodge of terms. This can make discussions about science hard since people have to learn a body of nomenclature before understanding a science. This applies to all sciences, whether natural sciences,
A recent meta-analysis on the old question of nature vs. nurture (Meta-Analysis of Twin Correlations and Heritability) concluded that overall the variation of human traits and disease is 49% due to genetic factors and 51% due to environmental factors. There is a similar question about nature vs. culture in anthropology and education. Evolutionary theory is
