Talk:Evolutionism (disambiguation)

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[edit] The dictionary is flawed

Please do shift the headings as you wish ---Rednblu | Talk 05:02, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This seems likely the dictionary is flawed, (like sometimes we get britannica articles that are flawed too), we already know that evolutionism was not formulated by Darwin. (And this def flatly contradicts the following bit too). Also, evolutionism is not a word used in scientific articles afaik.

Ok, I have a source for this :

Campbell, Biology, - 3rd Ed. ISBN 0-8053-1880-1 is a comprehensive textbook introduction to the field of Biology (more than 1200 A4 pages, don't drop it on your foot! :-p ), but no mention of Evolutionism in the equally comprehensive index. It does have a Darwinism which is rather more limited in scope, and refers only to living organisms.

A search of [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed pubmed] yields a mere 26 hits for Evolutionism out of a total database of over 11 million citations, all 26 related to either anthropological views of evolution, history of biology, and 1 or 2 on I think serious discussions with creationists. None of the citations refer to primary literature or review articles on evolution. I'd have thought perhaps there would be SOMETHING, gosh!

From my perspective as a biologist, if it's not on pubmed, it doesn't exist, so there you have it. Don't look at me! :-/

Perhaps really old articles from the early 20th century or before (which aren't indexed on pubmed) might use the word evolutionism in the sense suggested here, I don't have the time to look that up right now. You'd need to actually physically go to a specialised university library, and pray that you find something.

  • Pre-Darwinian ideas that Darwin's contemporaries and later scholars adapted to explain how the earth, sun, life, humans, and civilizations could come to be without divine intervention; see Evolutionism

This item is somewhat misleading, needs to somehow explain that this is no longer a current use of evolutionism, and perhaps drop the mention of Charles Darwin entirely, or limit such mention strictly. Especially in light of the above! :-)

Kim Bruning 21:13, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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<<This seems likely the dictionary is flawed>>

I don't know. I am just a dictionary user. It is my impression that the NPOV approach would be to quote the different dictionaries. I suggest you actually look in a real dictionary--under the entry for evolutionism.  :)

I am not surprised that the word evolutionism is not in any respectable biology book. But then neither is the word capitalism. :(( From that I would conclude that biologists do not use the term evolutionism--nor the term capitalism--when speaking of Biology. So I would not use either the word evolutionism or the word capitalism on a Biology test. :)

In any case, it is my impression that Biology is merely one POV to be reported as the Biology POV on Wikipedia--to compare with the POVs of all the dictionaries.  :|

How about a separate line for the definition of evolutionism from every dictionary you can find? Are then they all flawed?  :(( ---Rednblu | Talk 00:39, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

329481 hits for capitalism on Pubmed. Quite respectable. :-)
That and hmm, well, if I'm reading biologists writing about their work, or a dictionary write about their work, for some reason I'm going to trust the biologists first. ;-)
Dude, 26 hits for evolutionism, none of those on current research. The darn dictionary is just wrong. Even if they all say the same thing, they're still wrong. It's just not there. Kim Bruning 02:47, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The law is flawed

<<The darn dictionary is just wrong. Even if they all say the same thing, they're still wrong.>>

Yes the folks in Pubmed don't use the word evolutionism. It is not in their POV. If this were a Pubmed POV Wikipedia, you could leave it out. Or you could say it is the 26 hits of junk--worth just 26 / 329481 of a Wikipedia page. But is this a Pubmed POV Wikipedia?  :(

Dictionaries are not Pubmed POV.  :(( Dictionaries are NPOV. :((((( That is their duty. Hence, they have a lot of things contrary to your Pubmed. :(

For example, that definition that you complain about represents the POV of law. The POV of law is the POV of law--not the POV of Pubmed.  :(( By law evolutionism equals evolution. That is not Biology. That is law. If you are interested, you can read the Peloza case. In the Peloza case, the Judges disagreed about what the religion in speech was. But all three Justices agreed that evolution and evolutionism are synonymous. And to quote Circuit Judges FLETCHER, POOLE and THOMPSON:

"Peloza uses the words "evolution" and "evolutionism" interchangeably in the complaint. This is not wrong or imprecise for, indeed, they are synonyms.(3)"
3. See Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary (G. & C. Merriam Co. Springfield, MA. 1969). p.789 ("evolutionism: 1: a theory of evolution (as in philosophy, biology, or sociology) - See Darwinism 2: adherence to or belief in evolution esp. of living beings").

And yes! Tell me again. The law is flawed. The dictionary is flawed. Flawed. Flawed. Flawed. They all are flawed.  :(( Are we agreed? ---Rednblu | Talk 05:02, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, just to be clear, Pubmed doesn't have a POV. It's just a citations database.

PubMed, a service of the National Library of Medicine, includes over 15 million citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950's. These citations are from MEDLINE and additional life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.

These citations also include a large number of books. Ok well, evolution is biomedical, so ok, everything written about evolution back to 1950 which is known to the National Library of Medicine is in there. That's supposed to be practically everything written on the subject. I get 149551 hits for evolution.

Think of pubmed as a kind of google search in offline texts. :)

So think of it as applying the google pubmed test to the dictionary text.

So ok, I can't see the revision history for websters, nor can I access their Talk: pages. Else I'd have put a note there pointing out "def 1. fails pubmed test, any reasons to keep?". Or I'd have to look up their VFD procedures:

  • "non-notable, fails pubmed test,delete"

They don't have that option at Websters. Wikipedia peer review rules ;-)

The judges just probably read websters, I suppose.

Anyway, so now we checked a database to see if evolutionism is in common usage in the sense claimed, and it's not. That's all there is to it, no more no less. Unless you can claim that databases like google or pubmed are inherently POV or something, but I don't think that's going to fly.

Kim Bruning 12:04, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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<<Well, just to be clear, Pubmed doesn't have a POV. It's just a citations database.>>

Well that statement is one POV--in my opinion. :)) And that statement is not NPOV in the eyes of any court. Hence, no court would look to Pubmed unless they wanted a Pubmed POV. Do you think we have clarified the difference between our POVs here enough to draft a formal Wikipedia opinion survey to decide what is NPOV here? As I see it, the question to be decided is something like the following.

Question to be decided. Does Wikipedia NPOV require cited paraphrases of definitions in standard English dictionaries, such as Websters and Oxford English Dictionary, alongside definitions from standard science sources?

Do you have any suggestions to make the above question more clear or more accurate? ---Rednblu | Talk 18:09, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So you are claiming that databases such as pubmed and google DO have a POV? Ok very briefly then. Why? Which POVs do these databases have? How about alta vista, or yahoo, or the library of congress system, or etc? What kind of pov would an electronic or dead tree search engine have? Kim Bruning 19:20, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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I would be glad to explore your search engine questions on a TalkPage  :)) if I have time. :(( Do you have any suggestions for structuring the formal Wikipedia opinion survey to decide what is NPOV here? The following is my latest draft of the question to be decided.

Question to be decided. Where dictionary definitions disagree with scientific opinion, does Wikipedia NPOV policy require cited paraphrases of selected definitions in standard English dictionaries, such as Websters and Oxford English Dictionary, alongside definitions from standard science sources? ---Rednblu | Talk 20:02, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The question isn't really relevant right now :-) First let's figure out why you think search systems are POV? Kim Bruning 21:16, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Effect of the Recent Adjustment of the Evolutionism Page

Why is that page discussing usage of a word? Isnt that the purpose of entries in Wiktionary (and disambiguation pages) instead?

I don't see why sections on "Sampling of use of Evolutionism" and the like should constitute a valid encyclopedia article.

What remains afterward is

  • one or two paragraphs about the use of the term by creationists
this could be moved to the Creation vs. evolution debate page
  • a few quotes about evidence for evolution used by darwin
this could be moved to Evolution
  • a dictionary etymology
this should be moved to the Wiktionary
  • discussion of one or two theories of albiogenesis etc. before Evolution
this should be moved to a new article

Who agrees?

[edit] No link to evolutionism

Shouldn't one of the meanings of "evolutionism" point to the article evolutionism? --Hob Gadling 15:47, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Concordance

I wondered if people were interested in useage in the vernacular. I ran a quick linguistic concordance in the BNC corpus and found a usage sampling:

 3485309: s true to say that &bquo; <evolutionism> &equo; is considered una
 3485413: hen they object to &bquo; <evolutionism> &equo; in_general . The 
 3486128: their rejection of &bquo; <evolutionism> &equo; at its face value
 3565597: m against Lukács ' <evolutionism> ( to the effect that dif
28734287: ism of Comte , the social <evolutionism> of Herbert Spencer ( 182
28990892: ragmatism , rationalism , <evolutionism> and nationalism of the V
28991245: ent logic of empiricism , <evolutionism> , compromise and defence
41394354: the turning point between <evolutionism> and functionalism and pr
59445265: challenge less by denying <evolutionism> than by arguing that the
59628280: raries . Concentration on <evolutionism> has led historians to ig
59628551: spite Darwin 's efforts , <evolutionism> was at_first absorbed in
59628715:  pre-Darwinian debates on <evolutionism> took place in the medica
59629041: religious implications of <evolutionism> were symptomatic of the 
59629085: gical battles . Darwinian <evolutionism> is an example of a theor
59631211: from being a new threat , <evolutionism> was something that the c
59636127: towards a limited kind of <evolutionism> ( see below ) , but he c
59640875: me an outspoken critic of <evolutionism> . Louis Agassiz , then t
59641393: rmine the plausibility of <evolutionism> . They wanted progress ,
59641487: erve as an alternative to <evolutionism> . One possibility extend
59645096: d the scientific world to <evolutionism> despite an almost univer
59646010:  enough to convert him to <evolutionism> . Here the critical deve
59647998:  converted most people to <evolutionism> . Darwin 's theory was c
59648608: arded as an old-fashioned <evolutionism> . A wave of enthusiasm f
59648704: equo; . Outside science , <evolutionism> replaced natural theolog
59649420: ted in the liberal social <evolutionism> of the philosopher Herbe
59653912: erialistic implications , <evolutionism> eventually became a cent
59653983: n converting the world to <evolutionism> , but historians have be
59654600: verted the whole world to <evolutionism> — but this was pos
59654638: its own interpretation of <evolutionism> . To confuse matters for
59654704: s no monolithic Victorian <evolutionism> , only a confusing mixtu
59654816: e scientific community to <evolutionism> . Darwin succeeded where
59654925: in converted the world to <evolutionism> despite the fact that hi
59655132: ories . The transition to <evolutionism> must be seen as a social
59655271: e variety of responses to <evolutionism> in different countries .
59655379: o a Lamarckian version of <evolutionism> in the 1880s . These wid
59655403: explain the popularity of <evolutionism> in_terms_of the self-evi
59655645: ey had been suspicious of <evolutionism> because he could see no 
59656056: ess , and used biological <evolutionism> to argue that Nature its
59656405: ative thinkers to the new <evolutionism> . But most religious thi
59656474:  non-Darwinian version of <evolutionism> . They sought alternativ
59656506: nti-Darwinian versions of <evolutionism> flourished in the later 
59656575: st Louis Agassiz accepted <evolutionism> , but rejected natural s
59657231: etation is correct , then <evolutionism> may have played a role i
59657480: ophy of Spencer 's cosmic <evolutionism> . If evolution were the 
59657743: smissed as an opponent of <evolutionism> , Owen can thus be seen 
59658087: s . But other versions of <evolutionism> encouraged the belief th
59658136: wledged as the founder of <evolutionism> , but his theory of natu
59658172:  to a basic acceptance of <evolutionism> , biologists ' attention

Hopefully this provides some data for you guys. If you want more information (I've got lots more where this came from) drop me a line on my talk page. I found this page through Random Article and am unlikely to watch it. If this wasn't helpful - just ignore it. Cmouse 06:12, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This DAB was not needed

I just redirected this article to Evolutionism and I'll explain my reasons now: I arrived here because it was tagged for disambiguation-cleanup. At a first glance, I seemed like the classical case of a DAB getting inflated with more and more explanations for individual entries, and more and more links for each entry. So I started to read each entry, to see how to cut it short and which link (just one per entry) to preserve. But the first entry was covered by the main article; and the second entry was the same case; and every other entry was also covered in the main article.

In the end, there was no entry at all in this DAB that wasn't covered in Evolutionism. So, this DAB was serving as an index, or as an expanded TOC-table of contents, but THIS DAB WAS NOT SERVING AS A DAB.

A DAB purports to guide someone who types an ambiguous term, towards the most appropriate article. In the case of someone typing "evolutionism", no article exists other than Evolutionism so satisfy that person's expectations or, if it exists, it is already well referenced within Evolutionism. Let me be more specific, entry by entry:

  • Looking for creationism? You'd not be typing its opposite "evolutionism"!
  • Looking for evolution? You'd not be typing a derivative, less common, word!
  • Looking for Lewis Henry Morgan, Linear Progress, biological/sociological determinism, Arthur Lovejoy, the Judaism perspective? If you are looking for any of these subjects and yet you typed 'evolutionism', then you will be better reading what Evolutionism has to say on them (you can look at its TOC, where every one of these subjects is pointed out), instead of jumping straight away from evolutionism.

I believe I've made my point and have proved that NONE of the content that was on this DAB was of any merit. Thank you. --maf 04:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)