O show de Darwin

Abstract

Foi a maior festa de aniversário da história. Só no dia 12 de fevereiro ou próximo dele -o aniversário de duzentos anos do nascimento de Charles Darwin, ou "Dia de Darwin" -houve mais de 750 eventos comemorativos em pelo menos 45 países, e no dia 24 de novembro ou em dias próximos houve outra enxurrada de celebrações para marcar o 150° aniversário da publicação de A origem das espécies por meio de seleção natural, ou A preservação de raças favorecidas na luta pela vida. Em Mysore (Índia) o Dia de Darwin foi celebrado por uma exposição "proclamando a importância do dia e a grandeza do cientista". Em Charlotte, na Carolina do Norte, houve apresentações de um musical, de um único artista, Charles Darwin: live & in concert (A irradiação adaptativa produziu a enorme baleia;/Suas mãos viraram guelras/E ela tem rabo de sereia). Em Harvard, as celebrações incluíram "bebidas grátis, bandas de rock interpretando canções tendo como tema a ciência, bolo, decoração e um golira dançarino" (estudantes de biologia se revezavam na fantasia de gorila). Voluntários, tanto estudantes como professores, circulavam pela universidade declamando o texto integral da Origem. ResumoAs comemorações dos 200 anos de nascimento de Charles Darwin revelaram menos sobre a figura histórica do cientista vitoriano do que sobre o lugar da ciência e do cientista na cultura moderna. O artigo explora os eventos do "Dia de Darwin" e a produção recente sobre o "pai da teoria da evolução" com a intenção de ligá-los à recepção contemporânea da obra (e da figura) de Charles Darwin.PaLaVraS-cHaVE: Charles Darwin; teoria da evolução; darwinismo; história da ciência moderna. AbstRActThe celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin' s birth were less about the historical figure of the Victorian scientist than about the place of science and the scientist in modern culture. The article explores the "Darwin Day" events and recent books on the "father of the theory of evolution" in order to relate them to the contemporary reception of Darwin' s life and work.

Does the Scientific Progress Dispense the Teaching of Biological Evolution?

“…This reborn intense Creationism has also been claimed by Shapin [11] who says that the biblical fundamentalism contrary to Darwinian biological evolution is stronger nowadays, in the early 21st century, than in Victorian times. Especially the existence of Young Earth Creationists, among people with some or little education would be greater today than at the time of Darwin.…”

“…Especially the existence of Young Earth Creationists, among people with some or little education would be greater today than at the time of Darwin. The same author [11] points out that in the Gallup poll of 2008, in the United States, only 14% of the population believed that human beings are the result of an evolution of millions of years without the participation of a God. Willemart and Marques [12] consider that there is a continuum among those who deny the theory of evolution, being the Young Earth Creationists the most extreme creationists that are present in considerable numbers in Brazil and in the United States.…”

Evolutionary Psychology and the Naturalization of Gender Inequality

“…(Wright, 2018) These comparisons are suggestive of the uses of evolutionary theory in Quillette. The same way that "Darwin Day 4 is less about a historical figure than an occasion for extending versions of scientific materialism and rationalism to ever new cultural domains" (Shapin, 2010), accusations of "blank slatism" are less about scientifically discussing the theoretical inscription of contemporary social sciences than an occasion for extending the evolutionary dominion and, through it, a particular conception of humans. Sociology stands as one of the favourite targets for this somewhat aggressive boundary-work: the word "sociology" and its derivatives appear 58 times in the corpus.…”

“…We are, of course, not the first to document the relationship between evolutionary ideas and conservative ideologies (Jackson and Rees, 2007;McKinnon, 2006;Meloni, 2016). Despite their overt criticism of religiosity and a secular reading of Darwinism (Shapin, 2010), Dorothy Nelkin (2010 acutely observed that evolutionary psychologists exhibited a religious impulse, regularly embracing the role of "missionaries bringing truth to the unenlightened", not least when "they claim their theories are guides to moral action and policy agendas". In this article, we add to this literature by asking how evolutionary ideas are leveraged to promote certain views of the social world (be they scientific, political, moral, ethical, etc.…”