FAQs

Darwin, Evolution, and Science:

 A fact is something that can be proven empirically and shown to be correct. For example, the observed phenomenon of an apple falling from a tree to the ground is a fact. In science, facts can be objectively and verifiably measured.

Hypotheses and theories are statements that describe the relationships among groups of facts. In everyday language the terms hypothesis and theory imply speculation or a guess, but in scientific usage the meaning is nearly the opposite; they express the results of logic, evidence, and understanding.

A hypothesis is a tentative but testable explanation describing the causal relationships among a limited set of facts, otherwise known as observations or data. For example, “All objects with mass attract each other, therefore a small object will be attracted towards a large object,” is a hypothesis about why a small object, the apple, falls toward a large object, the Earth. Good hypotheses provide insight into how they can be tested and proved false as well as be accepted. This is the principle of falsification.

A theory covers a much wider range of conditions than a single hypothesis. A theory may embody several hypotheses and describe a set of interacting relationships among many observations. Theories have been rigorously tested and have withstood much investigation according to the principle of falsification, as is the case with Newton’s Theory of Gravity. When data suggest a theory is in error it is modified or overturned.  Any currently accepted theory is scientists’ current best understanding of nature.

 What is Social Darwinism? 

 Social Darwinism is not a product of evolutionary theory at all. Rather, it has its roots in the economic and political thought of nineteenth-century Western Europe, especially in the earlier work of population theorist Thomas Malthus and political theorist Herbert Spencer, as well as in the eugenic theories of Charles Darwin’s cousin and contemporary Francis Galton. The catch-phrase “survival of the fittest,” often associated with Darwin, was in fact coined by Herbert Spencer. The term "Social Darwinism" was first used in the1860's and '70s by political theorists as they allied their existing thoughts with the new scientific theory proposed by Darwin. Social Darwinism holds that competition (among individuals, groups, societies, or nations) does and should drive human social evolution. In its early forms it embraced unregulated and unconstrained laissez-faire capitalism. In its later forms it argued that in order to gain competitive advantage societies should encourage reproduction by those considered to be the strong, the intelligent, and the healthy, and discourage reproduction by those considered to be the intellectually compromised, the ill, the weak, and by other groups deemed not to reflect the social ideal.  Philosophers criticize Social Darwinism for committing the naturalistic fallacy (the idea that what "is" in nature implies what "ought" to be in human society). Political and social theorists charge Social Darwinism with promoting unjust, violent social movements, including racism, colonialism, eugenics, and Nazism, among others.

Darwin himself was opposed to the idea that human society should or could be improved by selective breeding. Admitting that the vaccinations for diseases such as smallpox that save the lives of the physically weak are “highly injurious to the race of man” in one sense, he nonetheless insisted that the sympathy that inspires us to care for the ill is of greater importance to humanity than mere physical perfection: “Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.”** Darwin also considered how sympathy and the desire to care for others could evolve.

**Darwin, C.R. The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. 2nd ed. rev. London: John Muray 1882, 134.

Religion and Society:

Creationists, narrowly defined, hold the additional belief that God created animal and plant species and human beings just as they are today. Hence, strict creationists argue against evolution. Young Earth creationists add that the story of creation told in the first chapter of the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible is a literal account of creation and that the age of the earth can be calculated from dates and time spans given in the Hebrew Bible.

Consequently, strict creationists are wary of the conclusions of evolutionary biology and paleontology.

However, ID makes an additional claim that the existence of an intelligent designer can be proven scientifically. Thus, ID parts company with religious traditions that hold that belief in the existence of a god of evolution is a matter of faith and not of a scientific proof. It also parts company with scientists who argue that there is no experiment or test that could prove the existence of an intelligent designer.

On one hand ID embraces a form of evolutionary theory and accepts a kind of scientific method. But on the other, it disagrees fundamentally with most scientists and most religionists about the purposes and limits of scientific inquiry.

ID arose in response to the 1987 Supreme Court Ruling, Edwards v. Aguillard, which declared that the teaching of “biblical creationism” as science in the schools violated the constitutional separation of church and state. The term was first published in 1989 in the high-school biology textbook, Of Pandas and People, in order to avoid specifying the nature or identity of a designer. The Discovery Institute, a non-profit educational foundation, has promoted ID actively in recent years.