Darwinism is a term used for various processes related to the ideas of Charles Darwin, particularly concerning evolution and natural selection. Darwinism in this sense is not synonymous with evolution, but rather with evolution by natural selection. Modern biology suggests a number of other mechanisms involved in evolution which were unknown to Darwin, such as genetic drift.
To say that Darwinism is often used by biologists is an understatement that verges on bathos; Darwinian random variation and subsequent selection is occasionally used by mathematicians to describe evolutionary processes that resemble the evolution of life, such as the development of software with genetic algorithms. The 19th century term "survival of the fittest" coined by Herbert Spencer was a misapplication of Darwin's views. Spencer and others developed "evolutionary" views of society, termed "Social Darwinism," which eventually discredited many of the extensions of Darwin's ideas in nonscientific contexts, such as philosophy and the social sciences. When used in this way, the concept of Darwinism was divorced from the details of biological evolution, which have become clear starting almost a century after the publication of Origin of Species, 1859.
A Darwinian process requires the following conditions:
Self-replication: Some number of entities must be capable of producing copies of themselves, and those copies must also be capable of reproduction.
Variation: There must be a range of different traits in the population of entities, and there must be a mechanism for introducing new variations into the population.
Inheritance: There must be a way to combine the different variations in producing new individuals.
Selection: Inherited traits must somehow affect the ability of the entities to reproduce themselves, either by survival, or natural selection, or by ability to produce offspring by finding partners, or sexual selection.
Darwinism asserts that any system given these four conditions, by whatever means, evolution is likely to occur. That is, over time, the entities will accumulate complex traits that favor their reproduction.
Most obviously, this can refer to biological evolution. However, it has other potential spheres, the best known of which is the meme, a concept of inheritance and modifcation of ideas introduced by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene.
To say that Darwinism is often used by biologists is an understatement that verges on bathos; Darwinian random variation and subsequent selection is occasionally used by mathematicians to describe evolutionary processes that resemble the evolution of life, such as the development of software with genetic algorithms.
What we now call "Social Darwinism" was, in its day, synonymous with "Darwinism" — the application of Darwinian principles of "struggle" to society, usually in support of anti-philanthropic political agendas.
Taking the software as the replicator and the whole system as the interactor, it could be seen as a Darwinian system, however, the code does not change randomly, but is directionally changed or rewritten from scratch; also systems do not reproduce.
Darwinian theory holds that varieties become species, which are modified until they can be considered genera, which become families, etc., through the process of natural selection.
Darwinian authors have failed to provide a logical and empirical bridge between these two fundamental but irreconcilable biological processes C one of the most profound unresolved problems in biology.
Darwinian mechanisms become a major force in the organic world primarily after the fires of macro-development begin to burn low, specifically in the past 250 million years, and provide adaptive embellishments that enhance the survivability of species.
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