Thank you, semiloon, for pointing out the article's problematic useage of the term "Darwinian."

I dislike the term "Darwinian," because

a) it fuels the common misunderstanding that Darwin was the first to hit upon the idea of evolution, when in fact other naturalists had done so. (Darwin cites many of them at the beginning of On The Orgin of Species.) What Darwin hit upon were numerous lines of evidence for evolution and the recognition of natural selection's role in it.

b) it fuels the politically-motivated rhetoric and misleading argumentation of Creationists (biblical or Koran literalists) that evolution is a philosophy and not a fully-established scientific theory--like the germ theory of disease or the general theory of relativity--based on overwhelming evidence and accepted as fact. Creationists use the term "Darwinist" in the same accusatory way they would use the term "Buddhist" or "Satanist," as if accepting what Darwin discovered is an act of selecting a preference among "-isms." In the mind of the Creationist, it's not unlike spitefully, sinfully chosing to be gay.

"Darwinian" doesn't have as established of a definition as it should, perhaps. In the US, it's now so tainted by politics that it should be avoided altogether. If I had to define it for use in the US, I'd say it denotes someone who accepted Darwin's basic premises in the 1800's as he explained them in Origin of Species...and that included some ideas he got wrong (such as heredity being a "blending" process). Once the field of genetics opened up, the theory of evolution expanded beyond Darwin's thinking. I think I wish the term could be defined to basically mean ideas in "Origins" and pre-genetics defenders of Darwin's ideas. I.e., I wish it were a completely historically contextual term.