BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
Charles Darwin created a theory on biological diversity through Natural Selection, which had nothing to do with races; he didn’t create Social Darwinism.
Natural Selection is only about biology and natural science, not about politics or society or race.
The term “social Darwinism” were used by various people in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and it first appeared in 1877, by Joseph Fisher, however he was talking about the legality of land tenures in Ireland, not as political sociology.
Other people were associated with this term, while Darwin was still alive, but none of them really associated with social/political that we commonly use this term today.
For instance, Herbert Spencer, a biologist, sociologist and philosopher, and Darwin’s contemporary, attempted to link biological theory with that of social change, and it was he, not Darwin, coined the phrase “Survival of the Fittest”. Spencer used this phrase in both biology and sociology, but Spencer wasn’t talking about the strong dominating the weak, or he wasn’t about about building a superior race or about racism.
“Survival of the Fittest” is also often misunderstood when it is used in biological contexts. For instance, fittest doesn’t mean being the “strongest” eliminating or dominating the weakest, that a common misconception. It also isn’t about being the smartest. Anything, organism that can adapt in the environment, and produce offspring and descendants, showed that species have found niche which to survive. To give, you a living and extant example, there are many insects, and among all these insects, are the various species of butterflies. They are still living today, have not gone extinct, and that mean they are the fittest. Does that mean the butterflies are the strongest or the smartest of all insects?
People sometimes misunderstand what the terms or phrases mean.
Just as people often misunderstood Evolution and Darwin’s Natural Selection.
You, BilliardsBall, are deliberately misrepresenting what Darwin say or write with what someone else’s works, and Darwin has never associated Social Darwinism with Natural Selection.
The term we currently used today, is actually link with American historian, Richard Hofstadter in 1944, which he used to talk about Nazi fascism, and Social Darwinism became associated with Nazi trying to promote the Germans as being superior, hence the superior race.
This type of Social Darwinism is what survive today, have nothing to do with Darwin’s Natural Selection.
Social Darwinism is a common tactic used by creationists to falsely blame Darwin and other biologists for the social racism.
Thinking logically isn’t any creationist’s forte or strength, that’s why they continually reused a rehashed propaganda.
Again you accuse me of thinking illogically, without having possession of the facts yourself!
"Darwin was, after all, a man of his time, class and society. True, he was committed to a monogenic, rather than the prevailing polygenic, view of human origins, but he still divided humanity into distinct races according to differences in skin, eye or hair colour. He was also convinced that evolution was progressive, and that the white races—especially the Europeans—were evolutionarily more advanced than the black races, thus establishing race differences and a racial hierarchy. Darwin's views on gender, too, were utterly conventional. He stated that the result of sexual selection is for men to be, “more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman [with] a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger [...] the formation of her skull is said to be intermediate between the child and the man” (Darwin 1871). Although female choice explains sexual selection, it is the males who evolve in order to meet the chosen criteria of strength and power; such nineteenth century differentiation between the sexes was crucial in providing an alleged biological basis for the superiority of the male."
Source: Darwin, race and gender