Talk:Social Darwinism

"Government intervention"
Computing and commuting and missed the edit summary: sorry. RV "socialism" as having the wrong-in fact nearly the opposite-meaning.--Old Moonraker (talk) 15:04, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

This article needs better clarification to differentiate between the individualist form of social Darwinism and the collectivist form of social Darwinism. Darwinian Collectivism or Reform Darwinism, rather than Social Darwinism or Darwinian Individualism, are more accurate terms for Hitler's Eugenics which is the planned state control of human breeding—a program that no proponent of laissez-faire could consistently endorse. I may tackle this later if nobody gets to it.Origins of the Myth of Social Darwinism: The Ambiguous Legacy of Richard Hofstadter’s Social Darwinism in American Thought  (2009), p, 37-51 and Mistaking Eugenics for Social Darwinism: Why Eugenics is Missing from the History of American Economics  (2005)--Trueliberal (talk) 17:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the links which look useful. As usual, "Darwinism" is misleading as it's a pejorative term for concepts that Darwin himself did not espouse or endorse. Planned state control of human breeding was taken up enthusiastically by people in several states of the U.S., and laws were passed accordingly, it's an interesting question as to whether these American Mendelian eugenicists were proponents of laissez-faire but clearly misleading to call them Darwinists. Not that we can expect them to have been consistent in their endorsements. . . dave souza, talk 10:53, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree very much with Trueliberal. None of the included ideologies: eugenics, racism, imperialism, fascism, or Nazism are "Darwinist" in either a technical or popular sense. Even "Collective Darwinism" and "Reform Darwinism" are not even remotely descriptive of Darwinism in any but ironic sense, in that Darwin's theory was of NATURAL selection, not artificial selectivity.-- Jane Q. Public (talk) 09:02, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Idiot's Guide
The Idiot's Guide to world history was written by a high school teacher without a PhD (says Amazon.com) and does not meet minimal standards in WP:RS (rule is "we only publish the opinions of reliable authors") -- please use some of the powerful books that are listed in the article. Rjensen (talk) 18:53, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Opening paragraph
The opening paragraph seems quite confusing, especially the first sentence. It seems to me that it should begin with a simple definition. Something like: 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.

As it is currently worded it almost sounds like the opposite is true. "Coined by those opposed to survival of the fittest" - ?? I get what you're going for, but that shouldn't be in the opening paragraph.Jasonnewyork (talk) 15:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree completely. Buss is neither a neutral observer or a specialist in social darwinism - quite the contrary in fact.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:31, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Bold text==Nazi atrocities== I have specified what "atrocities" are referred to in the lead since they were not so described before.Peterlewis (talk) 16:25, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
 * And I have removed it again - it doesn't need to specific in the lead but can be explained in detail below. Specifically you can't insert it into a sentence that is supported by a source that doesn't mention that particular issue. The source in fact states that even before WWII the term was generally pejorative, so you make it contradict itself when inserting it like that. Furthermore the Nazi atrocities are already mentioned in the first paragraph.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:28, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I can tell you that social darwinism is the oposite of nazism in the nazi system the state decides who lives or dies in social darwinism success or failure happens naturally acording to each individual and their work ethic or lack of one Irishfrisian (talk) 23:44, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That is a valid interpretation - but it ignores the fact that (negative) eugenics have generally been considered to be the active form of selection - a kind of "speeding up nature", in a similar way to how "breeding/artificial selection" is an active human directed kind of natural selection. Spencer did not believe that active efforts were required - he thought the cream would rise to the top automatically (or that it already had - explaining his own privileged position). Darwin's cousin Galton thought nature might need a little push so that we wouldn't have to wait so long for the plebes to die off by themselves. The Nazi Eugenics (an other programmes in the US and Europe) program drew on Galton. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:04, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm. From our Francis Galton article, he believed that a scheme of 'marks' for family merit should be defined, and early marriage between families of high rank be encouraged by provision of monetary incentives. He pointed out some of the tendencies in British society, such as the late marriages of eminent people, and the paucity of their children, which he thought were dysgenic. He advocated encouraging eugenic marriages by supplying able couples with incentives to have children. Doesn't sound much like Nazi eugenics which were based on Eugenics in the United States, and so were racist rather than class based. No evidence the Nazis drew on Galton. . dave souza, talk 10:00, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Referenc to 'naturalistic fallacy' is misleading
Just reading the last sentence in the introduction, I think that's poorly written. My understanding is:

- one *can* start with darwins theory and apply it to society to arrive at social darwinism, in a strictly technical, amoral context, but

- one *does not necessarily* have to arrive at social darwinism from this starting point (per the first reference), and quite distinctly:

- if one introduces the entire dimension of morality, then one cannot use darwinism as a moral justification for the consequences of social darwinism (hence the invocation of the naturalistic fallacy).

The problem is, a cursory reading of that might easily go like:

- scholars have said that social darwinism doesn't follow from darwin's theory, and - using darwin's theory to arrive at social darwinism is a naturalistic fallacy, and - (following the link to naturalistic fallacy) this is probably a 'formal fallacy', ergo, the link between social darwinism and darwin's theory has been formally shown to be false.

Now, that's a completely incorrect statement, but it's a bit too easy to misapprehend (I know, because that's exactly how I just read it, until I did a double take and read around it a bit). I think this needs to be much more clearly worded, either to make it clear that the reference to 'naturalistic fallacy' is only applicable if you introduce a 'moral' dimension to the equation, which is quite aside from a logical progression or commonality between the two concepts, or else and maybe better just to remove the reference to avoid muddying the waters for the casual reader.

thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.176.223.225 (talk) 21:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Vague terminology
The second paragraph is vague and misleading viz. -

In sociology it has been defined as a theory of social evolution which asserts that "There are underlying, and largely irresistible, forces acting in societies which are like the natural forces that operate in animal and plant communities. One can therefore formulate social laws similar to natural ones. These social forces are of such a kind as to produce evolutionary progress through the natural conflicts between social groups. The best-adapted and most successful social groups survive these conflicts, raising the evolutionary level of society generally (the 'survival of the fittest')."[5] 

What is the "the evolutionary level of society" and can it be "raised"?

--Craigmac41 (talk) 21:06, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

More vagueness?
Under the heading "Germany" this sentence appears: Social evolution theories in Germany gained large popularity in the 1860s and had a strong antiestablishment connotation first. I was going to clean this up to remove the trailing "first". But then realised I didn't know what exactly the author meant. Was it: "In the first place..." (i.e. "initially")? Or was it: "Firstly..." (i.e. "mainly")? 194.75.11.41 (talk) 16:17, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Darwin's theory is racist
The following sentence of Darwin in the article requires explanation, for the article to explain social darwinism, rather than promote it.

"Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature"

Here Darwin commits the essential social darwinist error to make matters of good and bad, into matters of fact. A measurable good (noble) nature, and a measurable bad nature.

Darwin does not subjectively acknowlege any spiritual domain, therefore he is forced to make all issues of the worth of people into issues of measurable facts. Darwin wrote a book about emotions in which he objectifies all emotions, discounting the idea that love and hate are only subjectively identified, and not measurable. Morality is derived from what is found to be hateful and loving, therefore for Darwin to identify love and hate as matters of fact, intstead of leaving them a matter of subjective opinion, is already committing the naturalistic fallacy. --Syamsu (talk) 19:20, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You seem to be committing the antisocial Darwinist error of soapboxing rather than providing reliable sources showing significant views on the topic. . dave souza, talk 20:36, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * p.s. Darwin's theory opposed racism: i.e. "after starting Darwin’s Sacred Cause about two years ago, we clinched the 'common descent' angle and pieced together how Darwin's research for the book that became The Origin of Species effectively combated the rising `scientific racism’ in America and Britain." There are nuances, but that's a significant scholarly view. . . dave souza, talk 21:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC)


 * To make value judgements of people in accordance with material characteristics, and then derived from natural selection theory. I believe Gould said this was the main point of social darwinism, and that this was wrong, the naturalistic fallacy. Darwin commits this naturalistic fallacy, right here in the social darwinism section, you do also commit that fallacy I gather. I shudder to think what will happen to the people you pseudoscientifically see as being hateful. You cannot possibly let this quote of Darwin stand there to increase social darwinism through wiki. --Syamsu (talk) 00:26, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You seem to not understand what Darwin is saying in that quote - he is saying that humans should always help each other, because if we don't we will no longer be the kinds of humans we ought to. He is making the opposite argument of social Darwinism in this quote. He does espouse viewpoints similar to Social Darwinism in some of his other works, but not in this quote. He also makes statements that we would think of as racist, but pretty much everyone did back then, and he was a lot less viciously racist than many other people writing at the time. There is nothing inherently racist or social Darwinist in Darwin's evolutionary theorty, and both racism and social Darwinism (not so named of course) existed before Darwin. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:01, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I know many modern social darwinists make the same kind of argument that Darwinism promotes cooperation. But the virulence is in making it a scientifically certain fact what love and hate consists of. When I normally say "you are a loving person", then I do that based on my self-confidence trusting my subjective opinion. When I say "it is a matter of scientific fact that you are a loving person", then that basically destroys my own subjective opinion, and replaces it with a scientific calculation, it destroys my character. So you see even scientific judgement about being loving are extremely destructive, let alone scientific pronouncements of hatefulness. Think this through carefully step by step, Darwin commits the naturalistic fallacy himself.--Syamsu (talk) 01:16, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that Darwin commits the naturalistic fallacy frequently (in Descent of Man) - but doing that is not the same as promoting social Darwinism (which is a set of ideas about how to structure a society based on evolutionary calculus). The problem you describe is more a problem inherent in the idea of objective science itself.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:53, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

@ Syamsu, what proposals do you have for improving the article? All you seem to have shown is that you judge people on their religious beliefs or views. . . dave souza, talk 07:12, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Obama and social darwinism
I added that Obama used this term to criticize Republicans and it was deleted as "not relevant". On what planet is the use of mostly forgotten 100-year-old term by a head of state not relevant? Obama's use of the term has generated a ton of press and brought this idea into the public eye in a way it hasn't been for a long time. To say that's not relevant is inherently ludicrous. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me  19:29, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Its recentism and has no impact or relvance for the general concept that a politician uses it as a pejorative. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:34, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I would say it does have relevance simply due to how rarely the term is used in modern day politics. The large number of news articles both explaining and arguing about what it means is testament to that. And I would say that a complete history of the term is incomplete without mentioning its recent resurgence, after a long absence from politics. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me  19:39, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think one mention qualifies as a resurgence.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:46, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Introduction
The introduction mentions 'Hawkins'. It seems that a more complete name or description should be used. It acts as if this has already happened.

Nantucketnoon (talk) 05:04, 10 April 2012 (UTC)


 * That came from the following rather incoherent wording discussing a debate which is not covered in the body of the article, and hence doesn't belong in the lead so I've moved it here for discussion:
 * No page numbers are given, and it doesn't seem to tally very well with a scan of the opening pages of the book by Hawkins on Google Books. If this is significant, it should be properly developed in the body of the article before being summarised in the lead. . dave souza, talk 05:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No page numbers are given, and it doesn't seem to tally very well with a scan of the opening pages of the book by Hawkins on Google Books. If this is significant, it should be properly developed in the body of the article before being summarised in the lead. . dave souza, talk 05:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Its Mike Hawkins. Social Darwinism in European and American Thought 1860 - 1945. I have it here on my desk and I will be teaching it over the summer. I must have forgotten to include it in the bibliography when I fixed the lead which earlier was based entirely on Bannister's outdated critique of Hofstadter. Dickens is "Peter Dickens, Social Darwinism, Open University Press, 2000" which is equally critical of Bannisters definition and usage of the concept.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:08, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I've reverted your edit which again removes criticisms of Bannister (if they are removed then remove bannister as well) and makes the untenable claim that Social Darwinism is only used after 1944. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The sources we have show that the term was rare, though in occasional use, before Richard Hofstadter  popularised the term in 1944. As suggested, I've removed Bannister from the lead as well. We can rephrase the opening, but should not give the impression that the term was in common use before that. Both books you mention are shown in secondary sources, but whatever their argument it's not shown in the body of the article where they belong. Once that's clarified any significant points they raise can be summarised in the lead. . dave souza, talk 12:21, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter since when it was in use - what matters is what it means now.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Now the article doesn't make any mention of the debate from Hoftstadter to Bannister to contemporary treatments like Hawkins and Dickens and Claeys. That is - it leaves out the most recent scholarship on the topic. These scholars correct for the error in earlier scholarship that equates the ideology of social darwinism with the word and has it that there can be no social darwinism before the word is in common usage. This is of course wrong and nonsensical - something must be there before it can be named - and the set of ideas now called social Darwinism existed and were common even before Darwin and they were also espoused by many social thinkers who did not explicitly use the Darwinian idiom. This is argued by both Hawkins and Dickens - who argue for a broader definition of social Darwinism than used by Bannister - one that includes all approaches that use biological reasoning to justify social policies. This is the most current definition of the term and also has the added virtue that it most closely resembles the ordinary language usage. The article is currently misrepresenting scholarly debate on the topic.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That sounds better, we should be clear that the term is modern but refers to earlier ideologies or ideas, many of which predated Darwin. The recent scholarship on the topic should be shown in the article itself, and to an appropriate extent should be summarised in the lead. Perhaps we can be clearer that Darwinism covered a multitude of ideas which informed social debate at the time, while the modern term social Darwinism has arisen from usage denigrating these ideas, and is often still derogatory. There's also the question of whether it applies to ideas of social cooperation and mutual aid. . dave souza, talk 15:29, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that makes sense. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:12, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that looks like a way forward. As a fun aside, the Grauniad provided an early example: "I have received in a Manchester Newspaper a rather a good squib, showing that I have proved 'might is right', & therefore that Napoleon is right & every cheating Tradesman is also right", from the Manchester Guardian, 20 April 1860, p. 4, article titled "National and individual rapacity vindicated by the law of nature",  . . dave souza, talk 19:59, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

WEIGHT
Coatracking citations together isn't an indication of a view being weighty or demonstrative in a field. In this case the individual creationist critiques are primary sources, and it is important to find the secondary source that notes that they are significant. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:30, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Social Darwinism as pejorative term
In the second paragraph, the last phrase, that leads to the 3rd reference in this time, says "because of the negative connotations of the theory of social Darwinism" and ends with "and the term is generally seen as pejorative". In the same sentence, the same idea is presented, so I think we could suppress one of these terms. I would rather take out the last one, "and the term is generally seen as pejorative", because it is only repeating what was already exposed. The text shall gain a little more coherence with this alteration. --Igor Dalmy (talk) 14:21, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Carnegie
The section on Carnegie is highly misleading. Yes, he was a philanthropist, but he was against almsgiving and raising wages for workers because of his social Darwinist ideas. Read the Gospel of Wealth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.109.220.2 (talk) 21:06, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Darwin
There are several studies (real scholarship, not creationists) that argue that Darwin did hold a view that was a kind of social darwinism, and that this was particularly prominent in later editions of Descent of Man, when Darwin had become more influenced by Herbert Spencer's ideas. Any discussion of this in the article should of course be done seriously and with delicacy and a good sense of balance. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:06, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
 * See e.g. Richard Weikart. 2009.Was Darwin or Spencer the father of laissez-faire social Darwinism? Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Volume 71, Issue 1, July 2009, Pages 20–28.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:09, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Richard Weikart. 1993. The Origins of Social Darwinism in Germany, 1859-1895 Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Jul., 1993), pp. 469-488 ("Scholars are sharply divided over whether Darwin was a Social Darwinist or not, largely because of the ambiguity of his position in  this book .)
 * Richard Weikart. 1995. A Recently Discovered Darwin Letter on Social Darwinism. Isis, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 609-611
 * Gregory Claeys. 2000. The "Survival of the Fittest" and the Origins of Social Darwinism. Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp. 223-240 ("r. Instead it was the product of a debate in the 1860s, in which Darwin accepted the application of natural selection to humanity by other  writers and incorporated it into his own views, with others following suit, craft- ing a language of exclusion which was internally directed at class antagonism  and externally to racial conflict." "In the mid- 860s Darwin himself became in effect a Social Darwinist, and  came increasingly to hope that the optimal outcome of human natural selection  would be the triumph of "the intellectual and moral" races over the "lower and  more degraded ones." It must be stressed that this was not the inevitable outcome of the logic of the Origin of Species nor the only path Darwin might have  trod but the specific result of his reaction to a variety of critics and fellow philosophers. In this sense too, then, "Social Darwinism" was not as such "Darwinian" but the result of Darwin's acceptance of other interpretations of evolutionary theory, some of which were incorporated into the Descent of Man.")User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:20, 27 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I did not realize that Weikart is connected to the Discovery Institute. Nonetheless, I don't think this makes his research less valid, especially not when used carefully, to simply state that there is debate about Darwin's views on Social evolution. other scholars such as Mike Hawkins and Richard Claeys have come to very similar conclusions. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:30, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Unclear definition
Although I don't know what social Darwinism is, this article currently couldn't be less clear on what it is. It opens:
 * Social Darwinism is an ideology of society that seeks to apply biological concepts of Darwinism or of evolutionary theory to sociology and politics, often with the assumption that conflict between groups in society leads to social progress as superior groups outcompete inferior ones.

And immediately continues:
 * The name social Darwinism is a modern name given to the various theories of society [...], which, it is alleged, sought to apply biological concepts to sociology and politics.

The second paragraph seems to repeat the first but putting its validity into doubt. The only other defining part I see is:
 * Social Darwinism is generally understood to use the concepts of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves.

Let's take that as granted, but then how is it understood ungenerally?

After the lead, I found:
 * As social Darwinism has many definitions, it is hard for some to be either for or against it; some of the definitions oppose the others.

So what are these many definitions? If social Darwinism has many definitions, why don't we start by warning about that, rather than going into the controversies on its history and then the strong and weak aspects of a hardly defined topic? --Chealer (talk) 04:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The essential point, which has been removed from the first paragraph of the lead, is that "social Darwinism" is a pejorative used to denote immoral ideologies, supposedly based on struggle for survival or "might makes right". Per Leonard, "American historiography largely understands “social Darwinism” not as the influence of Darwinian ideas upon social science but as an indictment. Indeed, the indictment is so broadly written that even social Darwinism’s traditional exemplars, Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner, are accused of views they did not hold." There may be an academic definition somewhere, but clearly it's contested. The first paragraph at present lacks any citations. I suggest Bowler pp. 298–299: "There is no single form of social Darwinism, only a complex of often contradictory ideologies exploiting the model of the survival of the fittest in different ways", [a model often based on Lamarckism rather than Darwinian evolutionism], "The term social Darwinism was introduced only in the late nineteenth century and was used from the start in a pejorative context. To call someone a social Darwinist was to insult them by implying that they had abandoned all moral standards to make success the only criterion for what is good." . . dave souza, talk 18:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Dave, that is because it is not true. Pace leonard, the usage is not just pejorative - it does describe the application of Darwinian logics to the social sciences. It is of course not any single well defined concept but used to describe any application of Darwinian logics to describing society and social processes. Hawkins describes this quite well and establish a definition that has been used by others after him e.g. Claeys and Weikart. Bannister's argument is not currently considered to be valid by most people writing about social darwinism as far as I can tell.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Maunus, part of the problem is that the opening paragraph of the lead implies that it is "an ideology", we should clarify that it is "not any single well defined concept". Your argument that it is not true that usage is primarily pejorative is original research set against Bowler's published expert overview of the relevant sciences, and your argument fails for at least two reasons:
 * 1) Bowler is aware of Hawkins, and cites his book as "a more recent exposition" of "the view that late-nineteenth-century social thought was dominated by the Darwinian metaphor of the struggle for existence" as classically set out by Hofstadter. His evaluation clearly differs from yours.
 * 2) Richard Weikart himself is a clear example of pejorative use of the term, in line with the intelligent design creationist devotion to "Defeating Darwinism" as published and publicised in 1991, at a time when he was working on his doctorate. His CV shows Research Fellowships from the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture from 1997 to 2001, and he is listed as a fellow of that organisation which provided "crucial funding and much encouragement" for From Darwin to Hitler. Bowler in his 2009 foreword writes "Because of Weikart's own beliefs, the debate over his book feeds into the more general modern controversies over creationism and the intelligent design movement now becoming active throughout the world. Every effort is being made to discredit Darwinism both by questioning its scientific credentials and by claiming that it has harmful moral and social implications." . . dave souza, talk 05:52, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

A definition
Unsurprisingly, Weikart gives a favourable review to Social Darwinism in European and American Thought 1860-1945 by Mike Hawkins. Bearing in mind that there are competing definitions, Weikart summarises it thus; "He defines Social Darwinism as a world view containing the following five beliefs: 1) biological laws govern all of nature, including humans, 2) Malthusian population pressure produces a struggle for existence, 3) physical and mental traits providing an advantage to individuals or species would spread, 4) selection and inheritance would produce new species and eliminate others, and 5) natural laws (including the four above) extend to human social existence, including morality and religion. Those embracing these fundamental points are Social Darwinists, whether they are militarists or pacifists, laissez-faire proponents or socialists." There are obvious inaccuracies in this as science, not least the misinterpretation of scientific laws and the idea that selection and inheritance are producing new species of humans, directly contrary to Darwin's work. Is it worth summarising it as one view? . . dave souza, talk 07:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)


 * p.s. according to our article, "It attempts to give a firm definition to what Darwinism was and is." Can someone find that definition? Darwinism has of course meant several very different things at different times and in different contexts. . . dave souza, talk 07:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Communism/socialism
Shouldn't communism and Marxist socialism ideology also included? Although in theory communism is opposes social darwinism as makes the assumption that individuals will work towards a common good at the expense of individual benefit. In reality this shift means that "Darwinian collectivism" takes place to stratify population.

85.115.110.103 (talk) 19:35, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Adolf Eichmann on social Darwinism
Robert C. Williams, in The Historian's Toolbox: A Student's Guide to the Theory and Craft of History, 3rd Ed. (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2012), p. 57, quotes Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They say It? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000) as they discuss the Wansee Protocol:
 * Eichmann explains that a natural selection (naturliche Auslese) in the Darwinian sense will make these Jews the most resistant (to death by exhaustion), meaning they will be the fittest--the youngest, healthiest, smartest, etc. Should this population of naturally selected Jews survive, they might (Eichmann fears) "become the germ-cell of a new Jewish revival." History, Eichmann points out, supports this theory of social Darwinism.

Seems there should be some mention of this in section 8.3.Yopienso (talk) 22:36, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Biased, tendencious statements and lack of neutrality in the lede.
I want to express my disagreement with the lede of the article. First of all, from the beginning, the article is written in a defensive style. With statements like "creationists have often maintained that social Darwinism..." it first misrepresents the study of the topic with the idea that criticism of Social Darwinism is something that merely has to be associated with creationists who disagree with the Darwin's theory of evolution (creationists vs. evolutionists). It is known that agnostics like Stephen Jay Gould, Rudolf Virchow and a numer of other irreligious authors and sociologists, including evolutionists, have directly recognized the link between Darwin's theory and Social Darwinism. This is the case of Maurice Duverger,

Second, the statement "Social Darwinism owed more to Herbert Spencer's ideas, '---together with genetics and a Protestant Nonconfirmist tradition with roots in Hobbes and Malthus, than to Charles Darwin's research" This totally mispresents the alleged definition of a social theory, on the basis of religious implications (in the end, it gives the idea of Christians vs. agnostics/atheists). Why Malthus' and Hobbes' alleged religious tradition is mentioned, and not Spencer's, Leonard Darwin's, and Pearson's?, (for instance). It is evidently biased and highly misleading anyone who wants to study seriously this topic. Whosoever wrote it, was tendenciously defending Darwin from the beginning, and pretending to blame instead "genetics" and "Protestant nonconformism". This is totally wrong! Come on! The reasoning implied is that Social Darwinists have their origin in "protestant nonconformim" which is ridiculous. When you say "protestant nonconformists", you are including, in general, reformed Christians, puritans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Methodists, all of which were people who strictly speaking had absolutely nothing to do with social darwinism, since, first of all, they were not involved in scientific theories, and believed in the Bible. Any honest student of history, regardless of their religious position, can see the irrelevance and dirty tendency of mixing these things.

I understand Malthus' influence on Darwin, and therefore, on Social Darwinism, but Malthus and Hobbes were not, by any means, leaders of "Protestant nonconformism" and the last of these was even accused of atheism. It was neither "genetics" in general, since in the first half on the 20th centhruy genetics was in diapers. As history shows the fallacies of the biased arguments, I though it would be necessary to correct this, but my edition was reverted. I just ask you to please understand it, and admit that the reference is just a biased opinion, without supported arguments, coming from an anti-religious and anti-protestant site.

There is not a concensus or majoritarian viewpoint to says that "most scholars ... maintain that social Darwinism is not a necessary consequence of the principles of biological evolution." This by no means is encyclopedically neutral. It is favouring an opinion. But, first of all there is not a unified opinion, and MANY are the authors that think just the opposite, i.e. that Darwin's theory of evolution was the major source of social darwinism. I think that, therefore, there should be a balance in the style. Evoking the need for neutrality in wikipedia articles, I propose a statement which would express the truth; that usually, Darwin's supporters and advocates state that social Darwinism is not a necessary consequence of the principles of biological evolution, or Darwin's theory, though Darwin's detractors and critics often mantain the opposite.--Goose friend (talk) 01:59, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I fully agree. Reading this article for the first time, it immediately came off as one that is biased towards defending and justifying Darwinism. The section about Nazi Germany starts off with 2 paragraphs that are neutral in tone and informative. It is then followed by a paragraphs which is a mess; it introduces "claims" and criticism to those claims, for an argument that is not at all apparent. The first 2 paragraphs already show the link between the Nazi ideology and Darwinism; why do the following paragraphs then try to deny the existence of this very link?


 * The 4th and 5th paragraph are also only loosely connected to the subject of the section, in that the former is not even about Nazi Germany and the latter expands on a miss-view of what the Nazi ideology would be built on if not Darwinism. This section would be greatly improved by removing the whole 'supposed argument', and instead expanding on links (or the lack thereof) between the Nazi ideology and Darwinism, or adding details, examples or nuances.

Social Darwinism has nothing to do with either socialism, racism, capitalism, nazism or any other bad word that the author mentioned in the introduction. It’s just out there even if you shut your eyes and plug your ears. Chkalova67 (talk) 14:44, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Hobbes
Reference to Hobbes' views is incorrect, for he believed in Stoicism as much as Darwin or "the judicious Hooker" and clearly felt mankind should come together to survive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.241.26.8 (talk) 13:48, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

WHO "claims to apply biological concepts" to economics and poltics?
The summary of what I recall from the history of this subject is that it's no more a serious "application of biological concepts" to economics and politics than "savage capitalism" is an endeavor seeking to apply notions of predation zoology or anthropology of jungle-dwellers to capitalism. Actually, the influence would have been more the other way around, according to some (Desmond and Moore?), with the socioeconomic mores of the time of Darwin influencing his views of natural phenomena. With Herbert Spencer himself being credited with the phrase "survival of the fittest", not borrowing it from Darwin's biology. In the present-day zeitgeist it also seems to be a considerably extremish-left term, which often paints what seems to be a harsher picture of individuals such as Spencer himself and Malthus, in biased readings that could just as well have added Jonathan Swift to the mix as a real advocate of the cannibalism of poor children. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.68.95.91 (talk) 01:37, 18 August 2016 (UTC)


 * indeed, the topic is usually presented in the opposite manner - that social darwinism comes mostly from 18th century liberal economics and was an (exceedingly poor) application of capitalism to biology. what you actually had was a bunch of economists that thought they could write the rules of biology using homo economicus style logic, and it's mostly been overturned by actual experiment.

Social darwinism and creationism
The article has creationism prominently in the lede, but doesn't deal with it in the further text. I would prefer to have a separate section in the text or erase it completely. The role of Haeckel is not being described properly - he was crucial in propagating Darwin's biological evolution in Germany, but added a specific racist and as well neoreligeous flavor (the monism movement) to it. We doi not have to care what biologists believe evolution should mean, we need e.g. historians and sociologists explaining the impact on such interpretations on society. For theology, Friedrich Wilhelm Graf's 2011 lecture at the Bavarian academy of science: Kreationismus. Sechs Kapitel aus der Religionsgeschichte der Moderne (Creationism, six chapters from modern history of religion) provides some hints as well. Polentarion Talk 09:44, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Discrimination Portal
Why is this part of a series on discrimination? Social darwinism is as anti-discriminatory as can be, judging only based on your own ability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leon1122334455 (talk • contribs) 22:06, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

The Term Social Darwinism Nearly Non-Existent in 19th century
For proof, look at Google's Ngram Viewer: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Social+Darwinism&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CSocial%20Darwinism%3B%2Cc0 This is a chart of occurrences of the term in print in all of the printed works in Google's database; the graph shows the relative frequency of the term in print since the year 1800. As you can see, the term was almost unused before around 1920, dipped in the 1930's, then rose steadily from about 1940 to the 1980's. In short, no one in the 19th century used the term "social darwinism". It is primarily a 20th century term, applied to ideological and economic ideas that the left wants to denigrate. --RJBowman (talk) 01:57, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that SD is a term akin to "trickle down economics", a derogatory term coined by detractors of an economic view. It's even anachronic, AFAIK, with Darwinism itself being posterior and having been perhaps more influenced by it than vice-versa. It would be interesting to have direct quotations of the "main supporters" of SD making their points, supporting the claim they applied darwinism, or proto-darwinism to society/economics, rather than not having nature as a source or analogy. In some instances the article seems to loosely conflate more general ideas of social evolution (such as those addressed by socialists, mentioned as the first historical instances, drawing conclusions that are the opposite of social darwinism -- Stanford's Encyclopedia o Philosophy even calls it "socialist darwinism"), as well as human biological evolution and genetics (or eugenics, its "application"), with SD, when SD does not necessarily entails eugenics, being a more strictly economic thing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.234.133.71 (talk) 05:29, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

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Can't we make this simpler...and clearer?
The article seems to have got itself lost in the fine arguments of who said what and when and what did they mean? That problem is difficult enough to solve but it seems to miss the point.

The problem is not what Social Darwinism means to philosophers but what it has come to mean in society. As a phrase it is important because it approximately describes the position taken by certain segments of society who promote, chiefly among themselves, the idea that the rich are society's fittest and it is their destiny to help gradually eliminate the drag on 'progress' created by the poor. They further often attach the word 'Darwinism' or the phrase 'natural selection' to this, not because they have carefully examined that link, but because they simply wish their actions to be justified as science.

Someone pointed this out above (referring to Obama's use of the term) and was roundly criticized. But it is precisely this current colloquial usage of this term that is important, not all the philosophical background.

The term "Social Darwinism" is seldom used by such the powerful either because they have never heard of this term, but do believe, through their crude understanding of Darwinism, that their beliefs are supported by science. The more sophisticated (but not necessarily more exact in their reasoning) know that it is associated with Hitler's eugenics and while they may quietly hold similar views would never admit to it because of the optics.

The point here is that these individual abuse logic and science to justify their ruthless promotion of political and social goals that unjustifiably strengthen their own position, and disempower the already disadvantaged. Note that my opposition, and likely the opposition of those who use the term 'Social Darwinism' derogatively, is not the indignation of someone simply opposed to 'social injustice'; it is the crude hijacking of 'science' to justify those ends. The same people use similar arguments to justify religious beliefs that are a similar self-serving distortion of actual religious teachings.

An article like this, that woffles on and on about what the philosophers said is absolutely necessary...in a philosophical journal, but completely misses the point in an encyclopedia article. --50.64.40.229 (talk) 02:20, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

the section tying nazism to darwinism should simply be deleted
the sources cited in the article are dubious, at best. these are creationists and other types of religionists being cited, here.

but, any attempts to link darwinism with nazism should be aware that the premise is based on a category error - darwinism is about natural selection, and nazism is about artificial selection. no darwinian of any type would propose any sort of artificial selection to "better the species"; the whole point of evolutionary theory is that this happens naturally.

because nazism was about trying to direct the outcome of evolution, it was inherently anti-darwinian. it was not "collectivist" or "reformist" - it just simply wasn't darwinian at all.

this is an edit, but i'll expand on the point a little.

this is what darwinism says: if the germans are superior to the jews and the slavs, they will be more successful in their ability to reproduce and therefore leave more offspring. the germans will inherit the east merely via outreproducing their competitors - they will be naturally selected for their good traits.

but, this is what nazism says: while the germans are obviously superior to the jews and slavs, their obvious superiority is not leading to their genetic dominance. rather, these other races are breeding at higher rates, and need to be stopped from doing so by government action, in order to allow the superior germans to breed their good traits more effectively.

in a darwinian sense, nazism not only rejects natural selection in favour of artificial selection but attempts to attack those groups that it perceives as being naturally selected - jews and slavs - in favour of the weaker group, the germans. the propaganda may have used nationalistic and supremacist language, but the actual policy was about protecting the weak, in order to get the birth rate up - like a zoologist trying to save a rare strain of endangered rhino.

there's lots of influences on nazism that you can trace to lots of places, but darwin is not one of them; they were almost perfectly anti-darwinian, in behaviour. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.190.59.46 (talk • contribs) 13:23, November 23, 2019 (UTC)

Category:Protoscience
Why is this in that category? Did it turn into science? Does someone expect it to do that soon? --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:09, 9 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Good questions. Looks like it has since been removed from this category. Generalrelative (talk) 16:38, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Major problems - this article seems to egregiously fail WP:NPOV
I'm planning to do some work on this article. The lede is loaded with WP:UNDUE truthy claims about morality. In no particular order, these are what I think the biggest problems to address right now are:


 * Egregious amounts of WP:WEASEL. Social Darwinism is an ideology, not a science. It's much less interested in what is than what ought. The things that it usually claims ought are often absolutely apalling, but I think it is extremely misleading to repeatedly make wildly WP:UNDUE claims about "truth" when social darwinism doesn't generally argue much in the way of fact. I'm planning to remove or better source the vast majority of claims made about what is true, and be much more specific about what it means to be true. We can explain all the reasons that it isn't popular without making unencyclopedic and misleading claims of fact.
 * Organisation problems. The article structure right now is incredibly cluttered with tons of different sections and implementations. I want to hammer these out.
 * Poor clarity on scientific claims. If we are to declare that scientists agree social darwinism is false, we should be specific about which specific positive claims are false. At the moment, it's rather confusing to have a lede that talks about *motive*, and then promptly claims the motive is not factual. It's unclear what this means.

BrigadierG (talk) 04:27, 26 January 2022 (UTC)


 * This sounds like a good plan. I will say though that the basic pseudoscientific claim of social Darwinism is pretty straightforward: that society (or the species or the "race" or whatever) will inevitably degrade in the absence of survival-of-the-fittest style social policies. If you have any trouble locating reliable secondary sources that say exactly this, I'll be happy to help. Generalrelative (talk) 04:53, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * As I stated before, the above sounds like a good plan. However, in practice, the edits that you put into place do not appear to accord with policies and guidelines, notably WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE. Instead, you appear to be attempting to rehabilitate Social Darwinism, a worldview which is rightly considered by mainstream sources to reside on the trash-heap of pseudoscientific embarrassments. I am highly dubious that you will succeed in establishing consensus for such changes, but you are welcome to try. Generalrelative (talk) 00:41, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd appreciate more than a WP:VAGUEWAVE on exactly how you think I've violated WP:NPOV or WP:FRINGE. The scientific claims of social darwinism are bunk, but it's not coherent to call a moral theory pseudoscientific. On that basis I think it's worth separating the two. We had a similar problem on the Metaverse article where mixed references to fictional and real-world implementations of metaverses led to poor article clarity. I think there needs to be clarification about this. I'm not a proponent of social darwinism and I'm not here to try and backdoor it into acceptability. BrigadierG (talk) 00:49, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid all you get is a vague hand-wave when you ask a vague question. I've explained to you in a general way why I see your edits as contrary to policy and guidelines. And indeed, I explained to you in my initial comment what I take to be the basic pseudoscientific claim of social Darwinism. Feel free to bring up specific changes for discussion if you'd like. Generalrelative (talk) 02:09, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * And as I've stated for now the third time, the problem is that calling a moral theory pseudoscientific doesn't make any sense. Just because you think social darwinism belongs on the trash heap isn't a justification for keeping unsourced claims about the truthiness of a moral theory. I don't think I'm being vague at all here, I would really appreciate an explanation of this in particular. BrigadierG (talk) 05:45, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, I suppose the main hitch is that you haven’t persuaded me of your premise, that social Darwinism is a moral theory and not a worldview, or that the two need to be kept strictly separate in the article. You seem to be very confident of this premise, so it ought to be easy for you to provide reliable, mainstream sources saying precisely that. I'll be happy to consider them. Perhaps then we can discuss what you mean by unsourced claims about truthiness. Generalrelative (talk) 07:53, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * p.23 of Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860-1945 by Mike Hawkins is a good start. It's not that social Darwinism is not a worldview, it is that it is separately a worldview and a moral theory. In pretty much every book I could find on the subject, the contents page divides the political and ethical ramifications. BrigadierG (talk) 22:17, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I applaud the attempt. However the source doesn't quite say that, does it? Rather, it says: The distinction between world view and ideology is important to my argument in two ways. First, as I shall argue below, it enables the discursive nature and functions of Social Darwinism to be grasped. Second, it provides the basis for an understanding of the intellectual context in which Social Darwinism appeared. The distinction is thus methodological rather than ontological, which is quite different from your claim that social Darwinism "is separately a worldview and a moral theory". Indeed, on p. 21, the author makes clear that his methodological distinction between world view and ideology does not map precisely onto the traditional distinction between the empirical and the normative: The ideological aspect of a theory thus contains both descriptive and evaluative features which often makes difficult the separation of the empirical and the normative claims that are being made. So if your broader argument is that social Darwinism cannot be pseudoscientific because it is a moral theory and moral theories do not make empirical claims, this is not the source you're looking for. And even if this book did say precisely what you’d like it to say, it would still be a WP:PRIMARY intervention in the scholarly literature, rather than a WP:SECONDARY or WP:TERTIARY review of what mainstream scholars think. Only the latter two can serve to establish the overall tone and balance of our treatment of the topic. And since numerous such sources do describe social Darwinism as "discredited"  or "pseudoscientific"  (just a sample of what’s out there, in addition to the four sources currently cited where we use the term in the article), there would be a high burden of proof you’d need to meet in order to show that these sources do not in fact represent the scholarly mainstream. Generalrelative (talk) 00:46, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

RfC
How should we address the difference between the moral theory of social darwinism (that the weak deserve to be weakened further) and its extremely dubious scientific claims (racial intelligence, social collapse, etc)? Requesting comment on this to help drive consensus. BrigadierG (talk) 01:07, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

"Criticism and controversy" section needs to be split
As it is, it mixes people criticising "social darwinism" itself and people criticising "social darwinism" as a useful concept together. Eldomtom2 (talk) 22:04, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

The CUP joke
If you asked Enver Pasha that "are you a social darwinist?", he would first hesitate and then answer "no I am muslim of Hanafi-Maturidi school, Alhamdulillah".

Please don't do that. You seem ridiculous. 188.119.60.2 (talk) 00:48, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Contested edit
IP 79.31.103.194 is invited to discuss their preferred wording here rather than edit warring. Generalrelative (talk) 23:24, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Lacking information on debate over whether or not "social darwinism" was actually a thing that existed, and if so what it was
The article generally presents social darwinism as a concept that is uncontroversially accepted as having existed by historians. This is not the case. The "Criticism of Social Darwinism as a category" section should be greatly expanded. Eldomtom2 (talk) 19:45, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

"Biological scientists"
Biological scientists, however, confirm the importance of genetic component explanations to aspects of social class

Can anybody check what those papers actually say? I cannot access them, and the sentence seems suspicious. Why call biologists "biological scientists", for instance? Who are they? --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:58, 14 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Turns out there was no there there. "References" simply redirected to Scopus homepage. Generalrelative (talk) 03:52, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Young Turks section
My claim is that the sources are one sided and do not contain any perspective on Young Turks' side. Have you read Kevorkian article? It is not supported with historical evidences and his claims do not match with the true numbers or incidents. Just because he is an author writing about this subject does not mean he is an expert and his arguments are based on truth. His claims must be examined but, as I have said, there is no read across chance since Turkish view is neglected. Furthermore, the section does not use a tentative language even though it claims that it explains a whole period and a whole generation. I believe that such a subject would require more than 6 sources and 1 paragraph B0RI$00 (talk) 22:16, 24 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Well, we follow what reliable sources say, and present them according to WP:DUE weight, rather than simply voicing "both sides". And Raymond Kévorkian is considered a subject-matter expert not merely because he writes about the period in question but because his scholarship is generally held in very high regard by other historians. As to your claim about number of the sources, 6 is actually quite a lot (and in fact there are 7 citations there), though the short paragraph could certainly be expanded. Generalrelative (talk) 01:07, 25 June 2024 (UTC)