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sam0345 comments on Prediction market sequence requested - Less Wrong Discussion

30 [deleted] 26 October 2012 10:59AM

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Comment author: sam0345 28 October 2012 08:18:31AM *  4 points [-]

But you can use "evolution" or "free market", because people are divided about this topics, because many of them just lack the basic knowledge.

Evolution is true, in the sense that there is overwhelming evidence that men evolved from apes, and that likenesses between kinds is a literal family resemblance, the result of ancestral shared blood or sap. "Evolution" is untrue, in that use of the word "evolution" tends to be almost perfectly correlated with distaste for the implications of Darwinism, and complete disbelief in the implications of Darwinism for humans and human nature, tends to be a codeword for denial of Darwinism.

Darwinism, however, is true, for the same reasons as evolution is true, and, unlike "evolution", is not a codeword for a collection of pious politically correct beliefs. Hence Dawkins, despite his otherwise progressive beliefs, calls himself a Darwinist, not an evolutionist.

However any discussion of the difference between "evolution" and Darwinism would produce a mind killing response that makes the discussion of gender differences harmless by comparison.

Comment author: MixedNuts 28 October 2012 10:41:03AM 1 point [-]

Um, I'm completely unaware of any difference between evolution and Darwinism. Are you using the latter to mean "The theory of evolution is true, plus eugenics is desirable"?

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 28 October 2012 11:43:26AM *  5 points [-]

Um, I'm completely unaware of any difference between evolution and Darwinism. Are you using the latter to mean "The theory of evolution is true, plus eugenics is desirable"?

Evolution was fairly popular (at least, in some places) before Darwin and arguably many modern people have a pre-Darwinian (teleological) understanding of the idea. Darwin's grandfather wrote poems about evolution before Charles was born, and some of his school mates were followers of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. There seem to be many people that wear "evolution" as attire (presumably to identify with some "educated", "scientific", or "secular" tribe), but that don't really understand natural selection or think it stopped operating on humans some tens-of-thousands of years ago.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 28 October 2012 05:52:47PM -1 points [-]

"Common descent", "natural selection", and "speciation through reproductive separation" are distinct elements of evolutionary theory. The idea of common descent is a lot older than the idea that effectively all biodiversity stems from variable survival and reproduction, and the formation of isolated gene pools.