Re: Social Darwinism; was: So Long Judge Moore, We'll Miss You

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Boikat) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Posting via google glacier....
> 
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (ambrose searle) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > Carol Lee Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > > On 23 Nov 2003, ambrose searle wrote:
> > > 
> > > > > >    To be Darwin's Theory of Social Evolution, DARWIN HIMSELF had to
> > > > > > propose it.
>  
> > > > > >    What publication did Darwin do this in?
>  
> > > > > No such thing. It's called Social Darwinism, but it's a bastardization of
> > > > > Darwin's ideas in natural history in to social theory. It doesn't work
> > > > > there. Social Darwinism has nothing really to do with Darwin,
>  
> > > > Wrong. Dead Wrong.
> > > 
> > > I think you are the one who is dead wrong.
> > > 
> > >  > http://human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/paper60h.html
> > >  > http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od172/ls172.htm
> > >  > http://www.gennet.org/metro15.htm
> > >  > http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0111/opinion/wiker.html
> > >  > http://www.toolan.com/hitler/surplus.html#social
>  
> > >  > But most of all, see
> > > > http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_05.html
>  
> > > > Again, I reiterate: Darwin promoted SOCIAL DARWINISM. That's the fact.
> > > 
> > > I don't think so.
> > 
> > It can't get any clearer--
> > 
> > "With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those
> > that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised
> > men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of
> > elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the
> > sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost
> > skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is
> > reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a
> > weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the
> > weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who
> > has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this
> > must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon
> > a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of
> > a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any
> > one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."
> > 
> > http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_05.html
> > 
> > > You are making the same kind of mistakes made by D.James Kennedy.
> > > http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/alex_matulich/why_i_believe/4_cretin.html
> > 
> > Deal with Darwin's own words.
> > 
> 
> 
> Darwin was a product of his time and culture. Also, nobody has said
> that Darwin was right about everything.  Having said that, I ask you
> if what you quoted above is factually wrong, and if so, where and how?
>  In other words, true or false: Do cultures which live under hostile
> and "primitive" conditions have a higher mortality rate than those who
> live in more "modern" cultures? (Note, "race" does not have diddly
> squat to do with the question, it's "culture", which is not the same
> thing, though from reading some of Darwin's works, he did frequently
> appear to use the two interchangably at times.  But I digress...) 
> True or false: Is it not true, in *our* modern culture, we do our best
> to cure illnesses and prolong live?  (My father "lived" in a nursing
> home for almost ten years before he died of pneumonia, and there is no
> way he would have lived that long if he had lived and died in the 17th
> century)  Where, in the quoted material above, was Darwin doing
> anything more that *making an observation*?  Even in the last
> statement, is he factually "wrong"?
> 

I think you've made the point well. Darwin has simply made an
observation about the role of medicine in reducing selection
pressures. Unfortunately, he used terms like 'savage' and 'civilized
men' which have racist connotations today, but if you read the quote
carefully, you'll notice that his argument was that the 'savages' are
more likely to "exhibit a vigorous state of health" than the so-called
'civilized' peoples given that selection pressures are weakened among
among the latter. If anyone wanted to argue that Darwin believed in a
notion of racial superiority, then this quote could only be used to
argue that he believed the 'savages' were superior (i.e., that he had
a predjudice against his own race!). Likewise, if anyone wanted to
argue that Darwin advocated killing off the weak, then they must
confront the fact that Darwin himself was plagued with illness
throughout much of his life.

But all notions of superiority (like those adopted by Hitler) rest on
the ubiquitous misunderstanding that there is some objective sense in
which one race or species is more highly evolved than any other. Any
praise of the 'savage' for allowing the weak to die could only be
based on a value judgement that says a race that has less reliance on
medicine is better. We could judge with equal arbitrariness that a
race is superior if it protects its weaker individuals. In any case,
natural selection is blind to such value judgements.

In my opinion there *is* a problem with what Darwin said in the last
statement of this quote concerning the conclusion that access to
medicine leads to "degeneration". This would only be the case if
medicines *completely* removed all selection pressures against
individuals with genetically-related health problems, but it seems
more likely that medicines just reduce the selection pressures rather
than eliminate them entrirely, in which case selection would still act
to weed out problems - just more slowly.


> Boikat


H.

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