In the United States, the term " Darwinism " is often used by creationists as a pejorative term in reference to beliefs such as atheistic naturalism, but in the United Kingdom the term has no negative connotations, being freely used as a short hand for the body of theory dealing with evolution, and in particular, evolution by natural selection.

" Creationists use the term Darwinism, often pejoratively, to imply that the theory has been held as true only by Darwin and a core group of his followers, whom they cast as dogmatic and inflexible in their belief.

However, Darwinism is also used neutrally within the scientific community to distinguish modern evolutionary theories, sometimes called " NeoDarwinism ", from those first proposed by Darwin.

Darwinism also is used neutrally by historians to differentiate his theory from other evolutionary theories current around the same period.

) Philosopher Simon Blackburn wrote a rejoinder to Stove, though a subsequent essay by Stove's protegee James Franklin's suggested that Blackburn's response actually " confirms Stove's central thesis that Darwinism can ' explain ' anything.

He defends a theory known by some as Neural Darwinism.

Haitian intellectuals, led by Louis-Joseph Janvier and Anténor Firmin, engaged in a war of letters against a tide of racism and Social Darwinism that emerged during this period.

While these theories were espoused by Charles Darwin and many of his students, their application as applied in Social Darwinism and General Evolution characterized in the theories of Spencer and White, historicism was neither anti-selection, nor anti-evolution, as Darwin never attempted nor offered an explanation for cultural evolution.

Social Darwinism is a social theory which holds that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is a model, not only for the development of biological traits in a population, but also as an application for human social institutions — the existing social institutions being implicitly declared as normative.

An example of a naturalistic fallacy in this sense would be to conclude Social Darwinism from the theory of evolution by natural selection, and of the reverse naturalistic fallacy to argue that the amorality of survival of the fittest implies the theory of evolution is false.

Neural Darwinism, a large scale theory of brain function by Gerald Edelman, was initially published in 1978, in a book called The Mindful Brain ( MIT Press ).

Criticism of Neural " Darwinism " was made by Francis Crick who pointed to the absence of replication in the theory, a requirement for natural selection.

His first point is to argue that phyletic gradualism — understood in the sense that evolution proceeds at a single uniform rate of speed, called " constant speedism " by Dawkins — is a " caricature of Darwinism " and " does not really exist.

Darwin's attempts to find a translator in France fell through, and the translation by Clémence Royer published in 1862 added an introduction praising Darwin's ideas as an alternative to religious revelation and promoting ideas anticipating social Darwinism and eugenics, as well as numerous explanatory notes giving her own answers to doubts that Darwin expressed.

The term " social Darwinism " has rarely been used by advocates of the supposed ideologies or ideas ; instead it has almost always been used ( pejoratively ) by its opponents.

On the other hand, it does seem likely that Marr was influenced by Ernst Haeckel, a professor who popularized the notion of Social Darwinism among Germany's educated classes.

The prominence of determinism was influenced by the high profile of evolutionary biology, although it tended more to resemble the now-discredited Lamarckism rather than Darwinism.

Runco and Albert argue that creativity as the subject of proper study began seriously to emerge in the late 19th century with the increased interest in individual differences inspired by the arrival of Darwinism.

The official Chinese nationalistic view in the 1920s and 1930s was heavily influenced by modernism and social Darwinism, and included advocacy of the cultural assimilation of ethnic groups in the western and central provinces into the " culturally advanced " Han state, to become in name as well as in fact members of the Chinese nation.

German Geopolitik is characterized by the belief that life of States is similar to the one of human beings and animals, mainly shaped by scientific determinism and Social Darwinism.

A eugenicist who applied his social Darwinism to entire nations, Pearson saw " war " against " inferior races " as a logical implication of his scientific work on human measurement: " My view – and I think it may be called the scientific view of a nation ," he wrote, " is that of an organized whole, kept up to a high pitch of internal efficiency by insuring that its numbers are substantially recruited from the better stocks, and kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races.

* Calvin, William " Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection ", Science, 24 June 1988, accessed April 16, 2007 ( a review of Gerald Edelman's book Neural Darwinism )

The anti-evolution petition A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism spawned the National Center for Science Education's anti-petition Project Steve, which is named in Gould's honor.

Huxley wanted science to be secular, without religious interference, and his article in the April 1860 Westminster Review promoted scientific naturalism over natural theology, praising Darwin for " extending the domination of Science over regions of thought into which she has, as yet, hardly penetrated " and coining the term " Darwinism " as part of his efforts to secularise and professionalise science.

These concepts are a common theme in his books, including Darwin on Trial, Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, and The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism.

* Darwinism: Science or Philosophy ?.

It was originally created by the National Center for Science Education as a " tongue-in-cheek parody " of creationist attempts to collect a list of scientists who " doubt evolution ," such as the Answers in Genesis ' list of scientists who accept the biblical account of the Genesis creation narrative or the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism.

During the four-day drive A Scientific Support For Darwinism And For Public Schools Not To Teach Intelligent Design As Science gathered 7733 signatures of verifiable scientists.

* Is Darwinism Science?

* Evolution, Ideology, Darwinism and Science, Klin Wochenschr ( 1989 ), 67: 923-928, Klinische Wochen-schrift, Springer-Verlag, 1989

Benjamin Kidd's 1918 book Science of Power, claimed that there were historical and philosophical connections between Darwinism and German militarism.

The Discovery Institute, through its Center for Science and Culture, has formulated a number of campaigns to promote intelligent design, while discrediting evolutionary biology, which the Institute terms " Darwinism.

Sander Gliboff of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University has commented that, though Kammerer's conclusions proved false, his evidence was probably genuine and that he did not simply argue for Lamarckism and against Darwinism as those theories are now understood.

Darwinism: Science or Philosophy ?, July 1994, ISBN 0-9642104-0-1

* Darwinism and Language ( 1874 )

Social Darwinism was able to stave off the incipient socialist movement until well into the present century.

In the final analysis his contribution to American historiography was founded on almost intuitive insights into religion, economics, and Darwinism, the three factors which conditioned his search for a law of history.

In the early 1900s, after the rediscovery of Mendel's work, the gaps in understanding between genetics and evolutionary Darwinism led to vigorous debate among biometricians, such as Walter Weldon and Karl Pearson, and Mendelians, such as Charles Davenport, William Bateson and Wilhelm Johannsen.

Darwinism is a set of ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution.

The meaning of " Darwinism " has changed over time, and varies depending on context.

Many of the proponents of Darwinism at that time, including Huxley, had reservations about the significance of natural selection, and Darwin himself gave credence to what was later called Lamarckism.

During this period, which has been called " the eclipse of Darwinism ", scientists proposed various alternative evolutionary mechanisms which eventually proved untenable.

The development of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s, incorporating natural selection with population genetics and Mendelian genetics, revived Darwinism in an updated form.

For example, Phillip E. Johnson makes this accusation of atheism with reference to Charles Hodge's book What Is Darwinism ?.

For example, Darwinism may be used to refer to Darwin's proposed mechanism of natural selection, in comparison to more recent mechanisms such as genetic drift and gene flow.

In his 1995 book Darwinian Fairytales, Australian philosopher David Stove used the term " Darwinism " in a different sense than the above examples.

1885-1889 Darwinism.

While there is no scientific basis in Darwinism for the Darwin Awards, the stories are nevertheless entertaining, and can be thought of as an example of schadenfreude – deriving entertainment value out of the misfortune of others.

Although current trends in genetics have raised questions amongst critical academics concerning parallels between pre-war attitudes about eugenics and current " utilitarian " and social theories allegedly related to Darwinism, they are, in fact, only superficially related and somewhat contradictory to one another.

Theodor Bischoff ( 1807 – 1882 ), was a strong opponent of Darwinism.

Darwinism influenced the beliefs of the prominent educational psychologists.

Social Darwinism, which gained widespread acceptance, made no distinction between physical and social life, and viewed the human condition as being an unceasing struggle to achieve the survival of the fittest.

Social Darwinism challenged positivism's claim of deliberate and rational choice as the determining behaviour of humans, with social Darwinism focusing on heredity, race, and environment.