Musket: Ok, I abbreviated, so I'll try and expand things out a bit. Evolution as a concept has been around for a very long time - in the simplest form of creatures changing over time according to how they breed it is probably as old as farming. But what was needed on top of that was an explanation of how, why and what the consequences could be. There were numerous explainations over time until Darwin gave his version, so people who don't stop and think about it often conflate evolution and Darwin's-explanation-of-evolution. So when pete says people in the distant past weren't evolutionists it is important to distiguish between evolution-as-understood-before-Darwin and evolution-as-understood-post-Darwin (and indeed evolution-post-our-understanding-of-genetics).

And I squeezed all that into the word 'Darwinist'. Humpty-Dumpty would be proud [but I may have to pay the word extra! :) ]