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Monday, June 27, 2011

Social Darwinism

I just read an article in the Georgia Straight newspaper with Tim Flannery, who has been called the "rock star of modern science."

The article states "Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has been perverted by right-wing, free-market thinkers to suggest that people are inherently selfish." Whereas, the truth is that "Interconnectedness and interdependence mean that human beings prosper by working cooperatively."

It also goes on to state that in part "social Darwinism gave rise to everything from Nazis to eugenics to neoclassical economics . . . It gave rise to a whole lot of very negative, right-wing perceptions, which are in part justified on this belief, this mistaken belief."

Darwin's theories are in reference to the biology of all species, not sociologically within a specific species. Social survival of the fittest is a perversion of Darwin's thoughts. We are designed to work together.

I've felt this for some time, but it's nice to have it validated by a scientist because scientists are the new priesthood; science is the new religion. Apparently science is where our values are coming from today. The black robe has been traded in for the white lab coat.

1 comment:

  1. Like, like, like. In fact, even Darwin would have CLEARLY agreed. Eugenics was invented by a relative of Darwin right after he died. Which means that for exactly as long as we've had a reliably predictive overall pan-biological framework, we've had this dangerous idea floating around. It's jumping to sociopathic conclusions, and working backwards from there. It's an insult to Darwin to force his name onto this awful idea. It was the fear of such things that kept him from publishing "On the Origin of Species" for so damn long.

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