TV special trashes social Darwinism: But was it really Darwinism?
| August 15, 2006 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
Apparently, Coral Ridge Hour, hosted by Dr. D. James Kennedy, is hosting a special called Darwin’s Deadly Legacy, on the legacy of social Darwinism (= sterilizing or murdering people who are thought to be unfit, sometimes called eugenics). There is a whole history there, ably recounted in a sober way by Richard Weikart’s From Darwin to Hitler.
I think it quite worthwhile that Coral Ridge would want to explore the legacy of social Darwinism, on the “never again” principle. However, some cautions are also well advised.
Strictly speaking, the social Darwinists were completely off the wall in their understanding of Darwinism, as agnostic Australian philosopher David Stove points out.
For example, Darwin himself disapproved, apparently, of vaccination because it preserved weak people:
Consider, for example, the following paragraph from The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, (second edition, 1874).
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poorlaws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. (p. 9, quoting Darwin, c. (1874) The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (2nd edition) John Murray, London, Vol. I, pp. 205-6.)
Now, in writing as he did in this specific instance, Darwin was being a true Darwinist (though according to Stove’s Darwinian Fairytales, he often wasn’t).
That is, if you believe that natural selection is the main force that creates diversity and adaptation in the world, you should not interfere via eugenics. After all, the prison sociopath’s selfish genes are probably much better adapted to sheer survival and continuance than are those of the musical genius. The prison socio may well produce eight children on his “trailer weekends,” whom he compels other men to support. The musical genius, by contrast, may produce one or two at best, but very often none.
Yet most human beings who have ever lived would prefer to forego the evolutionary benefits of the sociopath’s selfish genes. Whenever they can, they execute him or keep him locked up, and offer awards, prizes, and fan clubs to the musical genius instead. That approach to human survival seems quite sound to me – but it is hardly Darwinism.
Here’s where the social Darwinists went wrong: They took from Darwinism the lack of respect for the human being as anything other than a brainy ape. But they still wanted to smuggle into Darwinian philosophy at least some respect for human culture and decency, because they were not willing to give all that up. So they developed the worst possible solution: Instead of helping the halt, the lame, and the blind, as well as bumpkins and dullards, because God loves them (the traditional view) OR letting nature take its course (the only reasonable Darwinian view), the social Darwinist came up with a new view that was far worse than either: A system for mass riddance of people who fail a cultural or medical standard.
If they were true Darwinists, they would have just done nothing instead of done murder, for the same reason that Darwin saw a danger in vaccinations.
So we need to be clear here: Social Darwinism is very bad. But, strictly speaking, it is not Darwinism. No human being can live with what Darwinism entails, which is why it so quickly morphed into a bastard social Darwinism.
Neither Darwin nor most of his loyal followers clearly saw the problem because they could not live with the consequences of their own theory. The confusion continues: After the Nazi eugenic horror was fully revealed, people decided to get rid of social Darwinism, but assumed that it was Darwinism in some sense. They couldn’t have lived with Darwiism either, but they did not realize that.ÂÂ
Then we reacted by vilifying the Nazis – which is 100 percent fine with me, as far as it goes – but, as Richard Weikart points out, we must see clearly the origin of the problem or we have no assurance that we won’t repeat it: Darwinism cannot provide a reasonable account of the human being.
45 Responses to TV special trashes social Darwinism: But was it really Darwinism?
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I agree with Dr. Davison that the arts, etc… were prescribed to a great degree. The capacity was coded into the genome.
I think John’s view is certainly plausible, but I have no idea how it could be demonstrated as fact. I would say that such beliefs will remain in the realm of the metaphysical for some time to come. As I have said before I make a design inference too, but I consider that to be a metaphysical belief based on science but not part of it.
Scott
I feel it was not only the capacity but the arts themselves, the paintings, the musical compositions, the books, all of mankind’s conventions and presumed inventions. In short, the whole enchilada, the bitter and the sweet, may have been prescribed. That is one of several reasons I believe there must have been at least two Creators, one benevolent, the other malevolent. Such an assumption makes the world, past and present, understandable for me.
“All great truths begin as blasphemies.”
George Bernard Shaw.
Is that blasphemous enough? If it isn’t, I will try to do better next time!
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution udemonstrable.”
John,
First, let me say that I feel some admiration for someone who’s defending orthogenesis in the 21st century. I guess the emergence of information theory has given new life to some of the old rivals to Darwinism? And I can sympathize with the difficulties you’ve had trying to present your views, since by now “Darwinism” and “evolutionism” are largely treated as synonyms.
Second, it seems that the defense, in the version presented above, depends on a progressivist or at least teleological interpretation of history. But that’s not entirely borne out by the paleontological and archeological record. New species of insects, fish, and amphibians evolved alongside mamals, primates, and hominids. The ray-finned fish, especially the teleosts, diversified after amphibians split off. Among primates, monkeys underwent a major adaptive radiation after the apes went their separate way. And turning from paleontology to history, many cultures have remained at a hunter/gatherer or subsistence-agricultural mode.
I’ll admit that my theory of history has been influenced by Gould’s Wonderful Life and Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. (Perhaps that will make my biases more evident.)
In any event, the theory of history presented above really does strike me as both anthropocentric and Eurocentric, and that strikes me a serious problem — because that means that a lot of interesting patterns and phenomena aren’t explained adequately, they don’t fit the Procrustean bed. If this isn’t a problem as far as you’re concerned, I’d like to hear more as to why.
A lot of artists and thinkers have experienced what JAD is talking about.
They talk about discovering a song and unwrapping it from its possibilities, or about ideas coming to them from outside themselves.
One famous and cliched example is that of Paul McCartney rolling out of bed one morning and playing a song he remembered hearing. For days he played it for anyone who would listen, asking if they could place the source. When nobody could he determined that the music for Yesterday had come to him in his sleep.
This is the same way that ideas came to Edison during his naps. And Emerson felt we all had access to the common mind, where all the thoughts and feelings could be gathered. Michelangelo said that his statue David was already in the marble and that he merely had to knock away the excess stone. LAwrence Olivier gave a greta performance one night and afterward was visibly upset. When asked why he said that he had no idea where that performance had come from nor how to ever do it again.
My typos, of course, are from computer gremlins.
Thank you Charlie. I like that!
Carlos
Robert Broom was very much aware of the ups and downs of the evolutionary sequence yet he also insisted that there had been a Plan, a word he capitalized and, as far as I know, his only reference to a higher power. He explained in one of his books, and I can’t find it right now, that the reason for all the various ages with all their bizarre plants and animals was to maintain the balance of nature so the evolutionary process could continue. I like that too of course. It is only natural for me to be anthropocentric since I have openly challenged the establishment to document a younger mammal than Homo sapiens or for that matter a younger genus than Homo. Robert Broom claimed that a new genus had not appeared in two million years. So did Julian Huxley as I have fully documented in my Manifesto and elsewhere in hard copy. I regard a universe with man as the ultimate product as indicated by the fossil record so I can hardly regard anthropocentricity as a defect in my reasoning. Quite the contrary, I feel it supports a goal-directed evolution. I am not the first to present an anthropic view of the universe in any event. It is even known as the “Anthropic Principle” by folks like Hugh Ross. I like that too as it remains in concert with the PEH, although I hesitate to identify it with the Christian ethic as some insist on doing. Christianity is a wonderful ethic but it should not influence our science. Indeed, insistence that it does has caused many problems.
I hope I can quote Einstein wthout fear of bannishment or deletion.
“The main sourse of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and science lies in the concept of a personal God.”
Alice Calaprice, The New Quotable Einstein, page 203
I hope that further explains my position.
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
John A. Davison
John,
Well, there certainly are species younger than Homo sapiens. I don’t know about genera. But, from a neo-Darwinian perspective, genera aren’t real — they have a merely nominal existence, ways of classifying species. The species alone are real, as populations of reproductively isolated organisms. So that’s one answer, perhaps not the most satisfying one.
I interpret your quoting of Einstein as an indication that you don’t think that the concept of a personal God has any scientific status. Is that a fair interpretation of your view?
Oh but genera are very real indeed. The bionomial system of Linnaeus is the most sound taxonomic system imaginable. Genera, whether plant or animal, are categories in which the members share a number of commmon characters. What separates them from true species is only the sterility of their hybrids assuming they can succesfully mate. To deny the reality of the genus is unthinkable to any taxonomist I know. It is the most convincing evidence imaginable for a highly regulated reproductive continuity with change (evolution). In a Darwinian world there would be no taxa whatsover. It would be nothing but a giant morphological and physiological blur of animals and plants with no evidnece for any relationship whatsoever.
Which mammalian species are younger than Homo sapiens and which genus younger than Homo? Saying so does not make it so. That is another of my many unanswered challenges to the Darwinian fable. You will be the first to prove I am wrong which I am always prepared to admit.
Where did you get the notion that genus has no meaning from a neoDarwinian point of view? Who are these people? Come to think of it, you may be right, because nothing makes any sense from a neoDarwinian point of view. It is the biggest and most long lasting hoax in the history of science.
My feelings about a personal God are like Einstein’s – agnostic. I see no need for a personal God and I see no evidence for one so I can hardly regard it as having scientific value. I also know of not a single scientific achievement that ever involved a personal God. Does anyone? Nevertheless, I am definitely a creationist but not of a sectarian variety. I, again with Einstein, don’t believe in an after life and am even looking forward to the end of this one, one of the very few virtues of growing old.
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
John A. Davison
John,
Firstly, I didn’t say that there are any mammalian species younger than Homo sapiens — only that there are species younger than we are. I was thinking of the cichlid radiation in Lake Victoria, which has been dated to a few thousand years ago.
Regarding species and genera: here I’m speaking for myself, not for any other evolutionist. Recall, for a moment, the scholastic distinction between the real and the nominal. A real distinction is one that tracks how things are. A nominal distinction is a classification that we introduce as a bit of clarification and tidying-up.
Under a neo-Darwinian picture, species are real, as a distribution of features over a reproductively isolated population. A species is reproductively isolated if any of the following conditions apply: (a) it does not mate with members of any other species; (b) it mates with members of other species, but fertilization does not occur; (c) cross-specific mating and fertilization occur, but the offspring are non-viable; (d) the offspring are viable but sterile.
But as for higher taxa — these, it seems to me, are terms that we introduce in order to better understand the similarities and differences between species.
Linnaeus, I would assume, thought of these as “real” — as picking out, or referring to, How the World Really Is. But I don’t think that it’s possible to retain a realist interpretation of higher taxa under the terms of the neo-Darwinian picture.
By the way: I do think that Spinozism and Darwinism are incompatible. I feel the appeal of both. In this respect you are more consistent than I am.
Carlos
I know what you didn’t say but I felt compelled to explain I was referring to mammals and cichlids are not mammals. Most of those cichlids are now extinct by the way so we really don’t even know what their relationships are or were to each other do we? The Darwinians have been very careful never to test their convictions and when Dobzhansky did and discovered selection was impotent they promptly forgot about it. The history of Darwinism is its most devastating testimony. Its critics are not permitted to exist. My several papers have elicited not a single response in the professional literature except one shortly after I published my original evolutionary paper in 1984. That was only as a letter to the editor to which I responded in the same journal – the Journal of Theoretical Biology. I am not alone in being ignored. Try to find references to the books by Otto Schindewolf, Richard B. Goldschmidt, Leo Berg, Reginald C. Punnett, Robert Broom. Pierre Grasse, Soren Lovtrup and Henry Fairfield Osborn, each a distinguished leader in his field, all convinced evolutionists, and not one a Darwinian by the wildest stretch of the imagination.
The whole business is a manifestaion of how man regards himself in the universe. The Darwinians are convinced we are accidents. My God, Gould actually put that in words -”Intelligence was an evolutionary accident.” He even wrote a book with the title “Full House!” It is hard to believe isn’t it?
I am convinced this is a genetic predisposition just as has been out preferences for political parties, brands of beer, tooth paste, clothing, pets, jewelry and mates. Those have already been established. The question we should be asking is what HASN’T been “prescribed” if I may be so bold: not much in my opinion.
We are all victims just as Einstein claimed and I won’t quote him again here. I am certain it grows tiresome, even unacceptable, to those genetically predisposed not to accept the convictions of one whom I regard as the greatest and most penetrating intellect of all time. Some of us have been luckier than others and I am certain that every person sees himself as one of the lucky ones!
A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
John A. Davison
John: why do you feel “lucky” to have been prescribed to be one of the few to realize that you have no free will? I myself have apparently been prescribed to be completely steeped in the delusion of my own freedom. I love it. Its so empowering and fills life with such purpose! I bet you are secretly jealous that those *&%#$@! creator/s put you into the “he gets to get it” group…:)
Tinabrewer
Unfortunately I am uncertain about what you are trying to say. Perhaps you should be more specific.
I have quoted Einstein. What is OK with big Al is just fine with me.
I am not jealous of anything, never have been, and I laugh at your suggestion. I am immune to such innuendo and will remain so to the end. I at least know what I am not which is a hypocrit! I hope others have the same self confidence.
“All great truths begin as blasphemies.”
George Bernard Shaw
My heresies are published and I have yet to recant anything I ever committed to hard copy.
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
John A. Davison
John: I just like chatting with you now and then. What I was trying to say, and which I did a poor job of saying, was that if there is some set of creators, who decided how everything would turn out from the beginning, and no one has free will, then it is actually lucky, in my opinion, to be one of the ones who is UNaware of this miserable state of affairs. I was just wondering how you could possibly consider yourself lucky to know about the chains which bind you.(?)
As I keep saying:
“We are all victims.” determined “by forces over which we have no control.”
Does anyone think that J.S. Bach had any control over his genius? He was “prescribed” to be to music what Gauss and so many others were to mathematics. They all only discovered what was always there.
A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”