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Jayson_Virissimo comments on Prediction market sequence requested - Less Wrong Discussion

30 [deleted] 26 October 2012 10:59AM

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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.