Darwin was quite capable of the rankest prejudices, but this does not mean that he did not set in course the greatest break in humanity's conception of itself (as Ernst Mayr puts it in *One Long Argument*; for Darwin's painful break from natural theology see Dov Ospovat) as well as the effective dissolution of philosophy as a metaphysic of stasis (or so John Dewey boldly argued as do Lewontin and Levins in their brilliant analysis of evolution and ideology in *The Dialectical Biologist*). Darwin was of course a social thinker through and through (the boldest statements here are Robert Young's and Desmond and Moore's autobio which I have not read all the way through). Controversy has focused on the role Malthus' population principles played in Darwin's theory. I think Malthus' importance has been exaggerated, including by Darwin himself in his Autobiography.
Now for the relationship between Darwin and Spencer who coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest" and urged it on Darwin, I thik you are correct to emphasize tension and contradiction.
a. Darwin's 'natural selection' and Spencer's 'survival of the fittest' are quite different concepts. While Darwinian selection is a selection of variations, in a race, due to the advantages conferred on individuals, Spencer considers natural selection (or rather the survival of the fittest) merely to be a negative regulation that eliminates the unfit and maintains the norm; the norm itself can only change in a clear and massive manner for Spencer--that is, selection will only positively favour those characters that already appear as adaptations. Darwin however developed the idea of a gradual and opportunistic construction of adaptations on the basis of vritually undetectable advantages. See Jean Gayon, p. 66-7.
b. Spencer was to Darwin as Hegel to Marx. That is, Spencer posited survival of the fittest as but one manifestation of a priori principle of development as differentiation which he found operative everywhere. So in the Autobiography Darwin wrote: "After reading any of his books, I generally feel enthusiastic admiration for his transcedental talents..Nonetheless, I am not conscious of having profited in my own work from Spencer's writings. His deductive manner of treating every subject is wholly opposed to my own frame of mind." !!! p. 108.
Now there is not only a Darwin industry but a social darwinism sub industry. , S.D. has been defined in terms of use of 'natural selection' and 'struggle for existence' but some have thought that too narrow a def. Others have equated it with support of eugenics, yet Darwin expressed criticism of Galton and Gregg on this matter as well as implicitly rejecting the decadence world view and the typological thinking upon which eugenics has been based (see my post Darwin socialized on this and Gayon from whom I drew).
Recently in Social Darwinism in European and American Thought. Michael Hawkins has defined social darwinism as a discourse built around five leading ideas: *that biological laws govern all nature *that population presures generate a struggle for existence *that inheritable mental and physical traists confer advantages in the struggle *that selection and inheritance account for new species and the elimination of
others *that this determinism accounts for social and psychological as well as physical attributes of man.
But it seems to me to be such a protean term and its relation to Darwin's own writings as well as the deep structure of his theory so often unclear that it may be best to abandon the term.
D(alai)L(ama) noted:
>> people like Steven Pinker try to fashion an evolutionary "fact" out of all
According to Maynard Smith and Szathmary, Pinker attempts to analogize the evolution of language to that of the elephant's trunk--a complex adaptation, unique to elephants, which does not fossilize. The point being that few scientists question that the trunk evolved by natural selection while in the case of language much doubt is expressed though there is putatively no other sensible alternative. To make the theory work, Pinker turns to the theory of genetic assimilation learning.
>> The effort to assert that the way people act today reflects
>> their genes
>> and not our society is inherently normative.
Yes according to Garland Allen whom Angela has mentioned, we are now geneticizing and medicalizing behaviors in a way far more inclusive than in the past. Medicalization and geneticization are going hand in hand. A behavior or personality trait is first given a clinical name. This establishes its supposed scientific legitimacy. It also reifies the condition, that is, makes it sound like it is a single entity, arising from a single cause. It also establishes the mental framework for vewing the behavior or trait as a *disorder*. The next step is either simply to treat the condition therapeutically with drugs, or to scientize by claiming a genetic basis. In social and economic terms, the value of 'geneticization' is to locate the cause of hte condition unequivocally in the defective biology of the individual and his or her family line. Medicaal conditions can arise from an exteranlly induced cause. A genetic cause, however, lies within. Discussion are rampant today about whether insurance companies should be allowed to deny coverage to individuals or families with pre exsting genetic conditions such as cystic fibrosis or Huntington's chorea; or wether insurance can be made conditional on selective abortion, and a whole host of related ethical questiosn. What if this concpet could be exteneded to alcoholism, depression, criminality, risk taking?
See most recent piece by Garland Allen in Endeavour Vol 23, no. 1 1999 "Genetics, eugenics, and the medicalisation of social behavior"
yours, rakesh