Evolution, Science and Biology

Into the 21st century, biologists in laboratories were observing the evolution of bacteria. In the 1880s, Charles Darwin had written largely about pigeons and also about barnacles and earth worms. Into the 21st century some of Darwin's ideas about species development have remained fundamental to the study of evolutionary biology, but scientists have found fault with points in his vast body of recorded thought.

Scientists describe Darwin as having provided us with a big hypothesis with erroneous elements, and they claim that Darwin's work should not be confused with today's scientific work in biological evolution.

The biologist Olivia Judson, writes that the field of evolutionary biology "as a whole has been transformed" by the study of genetics and DNA and by computers. She writes that the fusion of genetics with natural selection "has enormously expanded our understanding of how natural selection can work." Judson writes that she would "like to abolish the insidious terms Darwinism, Darwinist and Darwinian" because these give a flawed impression of a field that has moved beyond Charles Darwin. ^note69

Natural selection is fundamental to the evolutionism rejected by those called creationists. Biologists view natural selection as: (1) a newly inherited trait giving an organism its opportunity to survive and successfully reproduce and (2) the new trait becomes more common in a population over successive generations.

Sources

"Let's Get Rid of Darwinism," by Olivia Judson, New York Times, 2008

"Darwinism," Wikipedia

"Darwinism," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,