The Evolution of Evolution

Social Darwinism and Eugenics, through the times.

How it all started

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, eminent as a collector and geologist, who proposed and provided scientific evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection. The fact that evolution occurs became accepted by the scientific community and the general public in his lifetime, while his theory of natural selection came to be widely seen as the primary explanation of the process of evolution in the 1930s, and now forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory. (wikipedia) Darwin however didn't invent the evolutionary world view as it existed before him, he simply brought something new to the old philosophy in the form of a plausible mechanism called "natural selection." In his Origin of Species, Darwin proposed natural selection as the mechanism by which all life could have descended from a common ancestor.

Before Darwin:

Scala Natura

Before Darwin, during the days of philosophical geniuses, people have realized that not all organisms are equal or on the same level. In other words it was apparent that a slug could have gone through the same evolutionary process as humans or goats. In order to be able to classify animals, a hierarchy was created that ranked every living organism bottom up with pond scum at the bottom and the Gods themselves at the top. This hierarchy from nothingness through imperfect creatures on Earth to heavenly perfection was invoked. (Social Darwinism, Eugenics, and other misapplic)

Scala Natura or the ladder of nature was an idea introduced by Aristotle, in which the natural world is interpreted in terms of the principle of plenitude, with formless matter right at the bottom, then rocks, plants, lower animals, higher animals, man, and finally spiritual and divine beings. This hierarchical view of the world persisted through the middle ages and up until the scientific revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it was replaced by a sort of monotheistic dualism, that is there is the material world or creation, and there is God in his heaven.

The ladder is based upon the pre-Darwinian Scala Natura, founded by Aristotle in a time when species were thought to be static essences created individually by God. The Scala Natura organised both living and inanimate objects on a ladder, with Humans, or sometimes supernatural beings at the top. After Linnaeus(Carl von Linne) founded taxonomy and classification, it was left to Charles Darwin in the 19th century to introduce the theory of evolution and hence make possible phylogenetic reconstruction; that is, the evolutionary relationships and history of the various groups of organisms through geological time (millions of years). That's where things really get interesting, because life as a dynamic process is much more fascinating than life as a static series of unchanging types.(

Laissez-faire Economics and Biology-

It is argued by some that Charles Darwin's ideas about natural selection were influenced by Adam Smiths writings on Economics due to some striking similarityies in their concepts and ideas.  

Smith's central idea in his laissez-faire economics was that if you remove all regulation from an economy and leave everyone to maximise their own personal wealth, then the wider public interest will be served. In other words when an individual works for his own gain, said Smith, "he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention" This is interesting in that it suggests that rather than being forced to promote the public good from above, as in planned economies, an individuals search for personal gain will lead to public good.

How is this similar to biology... well when individuals try to maximise the number of genes they pass on to future generations this has lead to the creation of an array of biological diversity. Before Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859, Scientists were not slow in catching on to the idea of evolution, but it took them much longer to accept the mechanisms underlying natural selection. The classical explanations of group selection, for example, where an individual produces fewer young for the good of the species, were not abandoned by many biologists until the early 1960s. These mechanisms can be thought of as the biological equivalent of planned economies. Biologists are now used to thinking about individuals struggling for advantage.

The Darwinian worldview was critical, not only in influencing the development of Nazism and communism, but also in the rise of the ruthless capitalists that flourished in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Morris and Morris, 1996). A key aspect of this brand of capitalism was its extreme individualism which indicated that other persons count for little, and that it is both natural and proper to exploit "weaker" companies.

Darwin's theory of evolution:

The Premise

Darwin's Theory of Evolution is the theory that all life is related and descended from a common ancestor. In other words birds and bananas, fishes and flowers are all related in one way or another. Darwin's general theory presumes that complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time due to random genetic mutations - that occur within the genetic code of an organism - that are preserved because they facilitate survival(natural selection). These mutations are then passed on from generation to generation until the end result is a completely different and new organism.(Darwin's theory of evolution, a theory in crisis)

Natural Selection

Now there have been many discoveries and talk of evolutionary development before Darwin's theory arose like the descent of man from animal, however, what makes Darwin's theory more credible is the inclusion of the mechanism he calls 'natural selection.' Natural selection is basically the process by which the genetic mutations that aid survival of organisms are inherited by offspring. This goes on from generation to generation till those disadvantaged organism (those without this mutation) gradually die out leaving only the advantaged members of the society.

Evolution of Darwins Theory:

Herbert Spencer- (social evolution) Spencer thought of evolution as involving much more than biology. For him, evolution pervaded the inorganic as well as the organic realm. His voluminous work also treated "superorganic evolution" (which we today would term social evolution), and evolution of "superorganic products" (what we call cultural evolution).

· Eugenics and Galton -

· Intelligence Quotient- William Stern theory claimed that core intelligence was innate. Many psychologists in America and England supported that conclusion.

· Darwinism-

Darwin’s theories and writings, combined with Gregor Mendel’s genetics (the “modern synthesis”), form the basis of all modern biology.[133] However, Darwin’s fame and popularity led to his name being associated with ideas and movements which at times had only an indirect relation to his writings, and sometimes went directly against his express comments.(wikipedia)

Origins:

   * Social Darwinism: Social Darwinism is a belief, popular in the late Victorian era in England, America, and elsewhere, which states that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die. The theory was chiefly expounded by Herbert Spencer, whose ethical philosophies always held an elitist view and received a boost from the application of Darwinian ideas such as adaptation and natural selection.
   * Social Darwinism in USA
   * Social Darwinism in UK

Well known evolutionarists and their contributions:

· William Paley

· Charles Darwin

· Gregor Mendel (1823-1884) On Mendel Discovered the theory of heredity

   * Charles Lyell (1797-1875)-- Uniformitarianism rather than Catastrophism: geological formations required   many millennia to develop.
     Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)--independently proposed evolutionary mechanism.
   * Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)-- major publicizer of evolution, epiphenomenologist

Early Animal Psychology

   * George Romanes (1848-1894)) anecdotal stories of animal intelligence, a comparative psychology Anecdotal methods.
   * C. Lloyd Morgan (1852-1936) Morgan's canon, limit interpretations of behavior to as simple mental processes as is compatible with the data.
   * Jacques Loeb (1859-1924) tropisms--movements have elementary physico-chemical explanations.
   * Willard Small (1870-1943) maze learning of laboratory rat.
   * Ivan Sechenov (1829-1905) Thoughts are reflexes of the brain. Inhibitory and excitatory reflexive action.

· Francis Galton (1822-1911) Promulgated Darwin's individual differences idea.

· Karl Pearson (1857-1936) invented the correlation coefficient. Many psychologists use this measure as a component in their research and theory.

Eugenics in different locations:

· US:

o Introduction

o Implementation

o flaws

· UK

o Introduction

o Implementation

o flaws

· Canada

o Introduction

o Implementation

o flaws

· Japan

o Introduction

o Implementation

o flaws

· Australia

o Introduction

o Implementation

o flaws

· Sweden

o Introduction

o Implementation

o flaws

Evolution of Darwin's theory through the years and its misapplications: Before we look at the evolution of Darwin's theory, we must first look at a time line of events for the development of evolution theory.

Time line

   * 322 BCE Aristotle introduces the concept of the Great Chain of Being.
   * 1640 Descartes, 1663 Spinoza, and 1680 Leibniz rely on this concept of progressive perfection as sufficient proof of the existence of God.
   * 1776 Adam Smith publishes On the Wealth of Nations
   * 1857 Herbert Spencer begins publishing sociologic / economic works on Progress and Social Evolution. He was to be greatly influenced by his later reading of Darwin.
   * 1859 Darwin publishes first edition of On the Origin of Species
   * 1860 Karl Marx, in a letter to Frederich Engels, cites Darwin's tome as "the book which contains the basis in natural history for our views." Marx was later to attempt to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin, but the latter declined the honor.
   * 1872 Walter Bagehot publishes Physics and Politics, perhaps the first clear statement that nations "evolved" from intergroup struggles.
   * 1869 Sir Francis Galton begins (Hereditary Genius) a series of works laying the foundations for the Eugenics movement.
   * 1909 Alfred Binet lays the foundations for standardized intelligence testing.
   * 1911 Friedrich von Bernhardi fashioned an evolutionary argument for Germany and the Next War. This interpretation was sufficient to drive not one but two great wars.
   * 1917 The great Army Alpha and Beta intelligence tests are administered to a wide group of recruits. The data so collected will be misanalized for years.
   * 1924 Immigration Restriction Act. fixed new immigrants at quotas of 2% of those nations' representation in the 1890 census. Why 1890? Southern and Eastern Europeans didn't begin to emigrate to this country until after that date.
   * 1927 Carrie Buck is sterilized by the state of Virginia, on account of being feebleminded.
   * 1928 Carrie's sister Doris is also sterilized.
   * 1930s Eugenics movement largely ran out of steam with the Great Depression.
   * 1972 Virginia stops involuntary sterilization of the feebleminded and antisocial.
   * 1979 Arthur Jensen's Bias in Mental Testing attempts to make the case for racial differences in intelligence quotient.
   * 1994 Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray publish The Bell Curve

Source

http://www.ouuf.org/Sermons/SocialDarwinism.html

http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/eh4.shtml

http://www.progressivehumanism.com/undevltn.html

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/evolution/mg15420776.100

http://www.cas.buffalo.edu/classes/psy/segal/4212001/evolution.htm

http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin