Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who believes that evolution occurs chiefly as a result of natural selection.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who advocates a theory of selection.
  • Pertaining to or according to the theories or principles of selectionists.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Darwin knew he had a problem here, and the original idea to play a trick on the idea of selectionist explanation is a clever piece of legerdemain, that has grown since into a new scientific shibboleth, an artifice of logic, and one that has never been verified properly in practice, and which certainly fails any empirical test as we examine the reality of religion in world history.

    Darwiniana 2008

  • Because "selectionist" thinking is so verboten in American intellectual life today, the chattering classes have no practice in thinking critically about selectionist theories, as opposed to demonizing them as Thoughtcrime.

    It Takes a Selectionist to Catch a Selectionist Steve Sailer 2005

  • Because "selectionist" thinking is so verboten in American intellectual life today, the chattering classes have no practice in thinking critically about selectionist theories, as opposed to demonizing them as Thoughtcrime.

    Archive 2005-05-08 Steve Sailer 2005

  • In fact fabricating selectionist stories are totally useless in such cases to elucidating such functions.

    De Facto Intelligent Design in Biology 2010

  • The baseline of infinite size was a generous assumption for the selectionist side, so the case of a finite population makes the argument I put forward even stronger.

    The Weasel Thread 2009

  • Derision of a traditionalist segment of the public for not immediately jumping into line with standard selectionist narratives (however far-fetched they may be), is not the answer here.

    A New Book 2010

  • Derision of a traditionalist segment of the public for not immediately jumping into line with standard selectionist narratives (however far-fetched they may be), is not the answer here.

    British Rebels 2009

  • The argument in this paper is completely group selectionist but neither the term nor the concept is invoked.

    David Sloan Wilson: Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection VII: If You Make A Mess, Should You Clean It Up? 2009

  • If you think that diseases evolve to avoid killing their hosts, that animals evolve to manage their population size, that ecosystems evolve to efficiently recycle nutrients, that nature left undisturbed achieves a harmonious balance, that earth's entire biota qualifies as a single organism (the Gaia hypothesis), or that human society can be compared to a single organism, including technology leading to a single global brain, then you are a naïve group selectionist.

    David Sloan Wilson: Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection III: Na��ve Group Selectionism 2009

  • Can you imagine that a devout selectionist Darwinian advocate like Huxley managed somehow to undermine everything he still devoutly believed in a single paragraph devastating to the Darwinian model?

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2009

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