Karina+Week+5

Reading the article, “Evolution, Progress and natural laws” and the website by the American Museum of Natural History on Darwin made me recall the use (and misuse) of Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection in the growing industrial era (1850s – 1920s) especially in the United States. “Yet some have used the theory to justify a particular view of human social, political or economic conditions.” (American Museum of Natural History website) This social “theory” is called social Darwinism and is based on the belief that there is a social struggle for survival and competition for limited resources. The most ruthless and wealthy are the most successful and are thus “better” than the other, less successful people. “Based largely on notions of competition and natural selection, Social Darwinist theories generally hold that the powerful in society are innately better than the weak and that success is proof of their superiority.” (American Museum of Natural History website) Some of the ideas of natural selection (in its misuse as social Darwinism) were tied to the rise of European anti-Semitism and especially present in Nazi Germany’s propaganda and ideology as justification for its actions, mainly with the use of the term “survival of the fittest”. This phrase was actually not one that Darwin himself had ever used, but was made popular by political theorist Herbert Spencer. For Spencer, this idea provided justification for governments abandoning the poor because they were less superior. This phrase also led to proponents rationalizing social inequalities, racism, and even the benefits of Marxism and capitalist economies. “New Imperialism”, a scramble by European powers for control of Africa and Asia, was advocated by those with strong social Darwinist views, as can be seen the poem “The White Man’s Burden” by Rudyard Kipling in 1899. This poem shows very apparent racism as it encourages the “educated” Englishman to educate the heathens of Africa in Christianity from their states as “half-devil and half-child.” However, this is a blatant misuse of Darwin’s scientific theory because it is applied to economic, political and social matters. The argument used by social Darwinists is often used by opponents of evolution to discredit Darwin by trying to tie the theory of natural selection to the Holocaust and other atrocities. This is not an argument or even part of an argument because the validity of a scientific theory does not depend on how people misuse it by applying it to completely different areas. For many, Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection threatens their belief in a Creator who designed the world exactly how it is, where nothing changes. “For example, the possibility of geological, social, economic, technological and intellectual change or progress seemed to challenge the orthodox Genesis-inspired steady-state system created by God.” (John van Wyhe) These two contrasting views of the origins of life on earth has lead to a “revised” explanation by some religious theorists called “Intelligent Design”, meaning that God created the world and then started evolution and guided the modifications to species. They attempt to fuse a purely scientific theory with a religious explanation that lacks sufficient evidence, mainly because they believe that some things in nature are far too complex (the eye for example) to have evolved, or “just randomly happened” as some are fond of saying. For me, I find that the understanding of Darwin’s theories is very important both to educate people on what evolution means i.e. that human and apes evolved from a distant common ancestor //not// from apes themselves, and to avoid the misuse of the theory of natural selection in the application to social, economic and political situations.