Darwin

There's an opinion piece over at the NYT today arguing that we should abolish terms based on Darwin's name (Darwinism, Darwinian, etc.). The points made are largely good; mostly that use of terms based on Darwin's name narrows discussions and gives skeptics a 19th century target to attack rather than 21st century data. My only objection is that if my memory is correct it's almost always people who are attacking 21st century science who invoke Darwin's name. In my experience the people who are trying to undermine modern scientific theories/data are the ones who invoke Darwin's name most frequently. The people who would be most likely to be convinced by this piece, and who support the scientific community's evolving understanding of nature, are the ones most likely to already use more accurate terminology. Link.