Disambiguation Links – Evolution (S/F)
The meaning of “Darwinism” has changed over time and depends on context. The term was coined Thomas Henry Huxley in April of 1860 to generally describe evolutionary concepts. Many proponents at the time had reservations about the significance of natural selection; Charles Darwin himself credited what would later be called Lamarckism, the idea that an organism passes characteristics that it acquired during its life on to its offspring, or “soft inheritance.” While the term is still used among scientific authors in reference to modern evolutionary theory, it has been argued that the use of the term today is inappropriate and Darwin only had a vague and inaccurate understanding of heredity, and naturally knew nothing about genetic drift because such theories postdated him.
