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Evolution is Not the Same as Social Darwinism

Started by Kylyssa, February 13, 2009, 10:48:47 PM

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Kylyssa

This one is near and dear to my heart.  I get disgusted every time people equate Social Darwinism with Evolution so I thought this would be a timely post - Evolution is Not the Same as Social Darwinism.

If you so choose, you may "Reddit up" here.  And again, many thanks to Mr. Chancy for your kind support.

pedricero matao

Very good (though short) article.
This one's great:
Quoteimplying that the Theory of Evolution caused the Holocaust and created communism
That reminds me of a The Simpsons episode where in a film they said something like "watch out, the nazi communists are coming after us".
Man it's so good when you can just mix up all the "bad" things and blame only one community/idea/individual for all of that.

IMHO the cause of all of this is the same misinterpretation of the theory of evolution that leads to things like that famous cartoon where Darwin was represented as being half ape or something.

Just take an easy to remember phrase: "survival of the fittest" then put it in the blender, add prejudices and scientific ignorance and you get it.
Reminds me about what happened (and happens even today) with Einstein's theory of relativity "all is relative"
So people (such as some priests without deep scientific knowledge) took it as a relativism-ic (not relativistic) stance and got mad because "this is an excuse for evil and immorality"


As a curiosity, two notable examples i got to know from my country about the confusion between darwinism and social darwinism.

Read one guy (in theory a philosopher) argue that "television is a darwinist invention cos there only appear those who are most beautiful, hence darwinism is discriminatory"
This one is EVEN better. Well actually is about the theory of relativity. A professor (university professor) said something like "the theory of relativity has to be abolished because it is antidemocratic: it states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, that being discriminatory to other speeds with the same rights"

Believe or not this is real. And weird. And the creepiest thing was that those came from people who are supposedly educated.  :shock:

Should we (evolutionists) try to explain to all those people how they screwed up in their reasoning? this leads to frustration sometimes

EDIT: ps: may i ask what is the reddit thing about?

Kylyssa

The Reddit thing is a social bookmarking site.  Ranking high on Reddit earns a page more views.  And since I earn money based on the views  my posts receive, it is a good thing.  :D

liveyoungdiefast

I just had this argument with a creationist friend! He immediately started railing on about Hitler and social darwinism, and I basically said "Social darwinism is a radical right theory that Darwin never advocated." But you know, people are dense.

Squid

It was Herbert Spencer who was the social Darwinist guy, and the guy who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest".  I bet anyone who rambles on about Evolution and Nazis has not even attempted to read anything by Spencer, Darwin or Hitler.  Many people believe what they want not what is true.