Category Archives: Darwinism

Social Darwinism

I. Introduction

Social Darwinism, term coined in the late 19th century to describe the idea that humans, like animals and plants, compete in a struggle for existence in which natural selection results in "survival of the fittest." Social Darwinists base their beliefs on theories of evolution developed by British naturalist Charles Darwin. Some social Darwinists argue that governments should not interfere with human competition by attempting to regulate the economy or cure social ills such as poverty. Instead, they advocate a laissez-faire political and economic system that favors competition and self-interest in social and business affairs. Social Darwinists typically deny that they advocate a "law of the jungle." But most propose arguments that justify imbalances of power between individuals, races, and nations because they consider some people more fit to survive than others.

The term social Darwinist is applied loosely to anyone who interprets human society primarily in terms of biology, struggle, competition, or natural law (a philosophy based on what are considered the permanent characteristics of human nature). Social Darwinism characterizes a variety of past and present social policies and theories, from attempts to reduce the power of government to theories exploring the biological causes of human behavior. Many people believe that the concept of social Darwinism explains the philosophical rationalization behind racism, imperialism, and capitalism. The term has negative implications for most people because they consider it a rejection of compassion and social responsibility.

II. Origins

Social Darwinism originated in Britain during the second half of the 19th century. Darwin did not address human evolution in his most famous study, On the Origin of Species (1859), which focused on the evolution of plants and animals. He applied his theories of natural selection specifically to people in The Descent of Man (1871), a work that critics interpreted as justifying cruel social policies at home and imperialism abroad. The Englishman most associated with early social Darwinism, however, was sociologist Herbert Spencer. Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" to describe the outcome of competition between social groups. In Social Statics (1850) and other works, Spencer argued that through competition social evolution would automatically produce prosperity and personal liberty unparalleled in human history.

In the United States, Spencer gained considerable support among intellectuals and some businessmen, including steel manufacturer Andrew Carnegie, who served as Spencer's host during his visit to the United States in 1883. The most prominent American social Darwinist of the 1880s was William Graham Sumner, who on several occasions told audiences that there was no alternative to the "survival of the fittest" theory. Critics of social Darwinism seized on these comments to argue that Sumner advocated a "dog-eat-dog" philosophy of human behavior that justified oppressive social policies. Some later historians have argued that Sumner's critics took his statements out of context and misrepresented his views.

III. Hereditarianism

Studies of heredity contributed another variety of social Darwinism in the late 19th century. In Hereditary Genius (1869), Sir Francis Galton, a British scientist and Darwin's cousin, argued that biological inheritance is far more important than environment in determining character and intelligence. This theory, known as hereditarianism, met considerable resistance, especially in the United States. Sociologists and biologists who criticized hereditarianism believed that changes in the environment could produce physical changes in the individual that would be passed on to future generations, a theory proposed by French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in the early 19th century. After 1890, hereditarianism gained increasing support, due in part to the work of German biologist August Weismann. Weismann reemphasized the role of natural selection by arguing that a person's characteristics are determined genetically at conception.

IV. The Struggle School

Toward the end of the 19th century, another strain of social Darwinism was developed by supporters of the struggle school of sociology. English journalist Walter Bagehot expressed the fundamental ideas of the struggle school in Physics and Politics (1872), a book that describes the historical evolution of social groups into nations. Bagehot argued that these nations evolved principally by succeeding in conflicts with other groups. For many political scientists, sociologists, and military strategists, this strain of social Darwinism justified overseas expansion by nations (imperialism) during the 1890s. In the United States, historian John Fiske and naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan drew from the principles of social Darwinism to advocate foreign expansion and the creation of a strong military.

V. Reform Darwinism

After 1890, social reformers used Darwinism to advocate a stronger role for government and the introduction of various social policies. This movement became known as reform Darwinism. Reform Darwinists argued that human beings need new ideas and institutions as they adapt to changing conditions. For example, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. reasoned that the Constitution of the United States should be reinterpreted in light of changing circumstances in American society.

Some reformers used the principles of evolution to justify sexist and racist ideas that undercut their professed belief in equality. For example, the most extreme type of reform Darwinism was eugenics, a term coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883 from the Greek word egenv, meaning well-born. Eugenists claimed that particular racial or social groupsusually wealthy Anglo-Saxonswere "naturally" superior to other groups. They proposed to control human heredity by passing laws that forbid marriage between races or that restrict breeding for various social "misfits" such as criminals or the mentally ill.

VI. Social Darwinism in the 20th Century

Although social Darwinism was highly influential at the beginning of the 20th century, it rapidly lost popularity and support after World War I (1914-1918). During the 1920s and 1930s many political observers blamed it for contributing to German militarism and the rise of Nazism (see National Socialism). During this same period, advances in anthropology also discredited social Darwinism. German American anthropologist Franz Boas and American anthropologists Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict showed that human culture sets people apart from animals. By shifting the emphasis away from biology and onto culture, these anthropologists undermined social Darwinism's biological foundations. Eugenics was discredited by a better understanding of genetics and eventually disgraced by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's use of eugenic arguments to create a "master race." During World War II (1939-1945), the Nazis killed several million Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and members of other groups, believing them inferior to an idealized Aryan race.

Social theories based on biology gained renewed support after 1953, when American biologist James Watson and British biologist Francis Crick successfully described the structure of the DNA molecule, the building block of all life. During the 1960s anthropologists interested in the influence of DNA on human behavior produced studies of the biological basis of aggression, territoriality, mate selection, and other behavior common to people and animals. Books on this theme, such as Desmond Morris's Naked Ape (1967) and Lionel Tiger's Men in Groups (1969), became best-sellers. In the early 1970s American psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein revived the social Darwinist argument that intelligence is mostly determined by biology rather than by environmental influences.

During the 1960s, British biologist W. D. Hamilton and American biologist Robert L. Trivers produced separate studies showing that the self-sacrificing behavior of some members of a group serves the genetic well-being of the group as a whole. American biologist Edward O. Wilson drew on these theories in Sociobiology: the New Synthesis (1975), where he argued that genetics exerts a greater influence on human behavior than scientists had previously believed. Wilson claimed that human behavior cannot be understood without taking both biology and culture into account. Wilson's views became the foundations of a new sciencesociobiologyand were later popularized in such studies as Richard Dawkins'The Selfish Gene (1976). Wilson's critics have alleged that sociobiology is simply another version of social Darwinism. They claim that it downplays the role of culture in human societies and justifies poverty and warfare in the name of natural selection. Such criticism has led to a decline in the influence of sociobiology and other forms of social Darwinism.

Contributed By:

Robert C. Bannister, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.

Professor of History, Swarthmore College. Author of Social Darwinism: Science and Myth and On Liberty, Society, and Politics: The Essential Essays of William Graham Sumner.

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Social Darwinism - University of Colorado Boulder

Summary: Evolution does not have moral consequences, and does not make cosmic purpose impossible.

number of critics see the use of selection theory in other than biological contexts as forcing malign political and moral commitments. A prime example of this is sociobiology, which is supposed to result in such things as eugenics, racism, and the death of the welfare state. Sociobiology, and the more recent evolutionary psychology movement, seeks to explain human behaviour in terms of the adaptations of human evolution. Gould especially has been vitriolic in his attacks on sociobiological explanations. It is thought by some to result in a completely selfish ethic known as rational egoism.

Another such view is "Social Darwinism", which holds that social policy should allow the weak and unfit to fail and die, and that this is not only good policy but morally right. The only real connection between Darwinism and Social Darwinism is the name. The real source of Social Darwinism is Herbert Spencer and the tradition going back to Hobbes via Malthus, not Darwin's own writings, though Darwin gained some inspiration on the effects of population growth from Malthus.

The claims made by Social Darwinists and their heirs suffer from the ethical fallacy known as "the naturalistic fallacy" (no connection to naturalism in explanations and the study of knowledge mentioned above). This is the inference from what may be the case to the conclusion that it is therefore right. However, while it is certainly true that, for example, some families are prone to suffer diabetes, as mine is, there is no licence to conclude that they should not be treated, any more than the fact that a child has a broken arm from a bicycle accident implies that the child should have a broken arm. David Hume long ago showed that "is" does not imply "ought".

In fact, diverse political and religious opinions characterise social musings based upon evolutionary biology. For example, the 19th century Russian anarchist aristocrat Pyotr Kropotkin wrote a book called Mutual Aid [1902, cf Gould 1992] in which he argued that evolution results more in cooperation than it does in harsh competition. His views are echoed in recent use of games theory to show that, in some cases at least, cooperation is a stable strategy for certain populations to adopt [Axelrod 1984].

Evolutionary theory doesn't exclude Purpose from Life, although it does remove the need for purposive design from a lot of the living realm (ie, all but the genetically engineered bit of the living realm). This apparent confusion is resolved if we ask of evolutionary theory two questions: one, is there a design evident in the structure of living organisms? Two, is there a universal purpose to life in general? Science answers No to the first question. Design is not directly evident in living things, although there is a marvellous complexity and adaptivity of life to its environment. To the second question, science of any kind answers: Insufficient Information. That kind of answer you get elsewhere - from a personal commitment or religious belief in some revelation.

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Evolution and Philosophy: Social Darwinism

Darwinism is a term that is generally considered synonymous with the theory of natural selection. This theory, which was developed by Charles Darwin, holds that natural selection is the directive or creative force of evolution.

The term "Darwinism" also has been applied to the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin in general, rather than just the theory of natural selection. It may also refer specifically to the role of Charles Darwin as opposed to others in the history of evolutionary thoughtparticularly contrasting Darwin's results with those of earlier theories, such as Lamarckism, or with more modern versions, such as the modern evolutionary synthesis.

According to Ernst Mayr (1991), how the term "Darwinism" has been and is used depends on who is using it and the time period. On the other hand, Harvard evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould, himself a popular writer on evolution, maintains that although the popular literature often equates Darwinism with evolution itself, the scientific community generally agrees that the term "should be restricted to the worldview encompassed by the theory of natural selection" (Gould 1982). That is, the term should be limited to the philosophical concept of Darwin's theory regarding the mechanism for evolutionary change.

Since the time of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), Darwinism has confronted challenges from both the scientific and religious communities. Among persistent scientific challenges are the lack of evidences for natural selection as the causal agent of macroevolutionary change; the issue of whether evidences on the microevolutionary level can be extrapolated to the macroevolutionary level; and the surprisingly rapid rate of speciation and prolonged stasis seen in the fossil record (see macroevolution). For religious adherents, the central role accorded "chance" in the evolution of new designs via natural selection is not proved and runs counter to the concept of a creator God. (See Challenges to Darwinism.)

The theory of natural selection is one of two major evolutionary theories advanced by Darwin, the other being the theory of descent with modification. The theory of descent with modification deals with the pattern of evolution: groups of organisms are related with one another, sharing common ancestors from which they have descended. The theory of natural selection (or "theory of modification through natural selection") deals with the process or mechanism of evolution: how the evolutionary change occurred in order to arrive at the pattern.

Natural selection is the mechanism whereby populations of individuals with favorable traits reproduce more than individuals that lack such beneficial traits, and populations of individuals with deleterious traits reproduce less than individuals without such harmful traits. Over time, this results in a trend toward individuals with traits more conducive to their survival and reproduction. According to this theory, natural selection is the directive or creative force of evolution, creating new species and new designs, rather than just a force for weeding out unfit organisms.

In a modern definition of the term, a Darwinian process requires the following schema:

If the entity or organism survives to reproduce, the process restarts. Sometimes, in stricter formulations, it is required that variation and selection act on different entities, variation on the replicator (genotype) and selection on the interactor (phenotype).

Darwinism asserts that in any system given these conditions, by whatever means, evolution is likely to occur. That is, over time, the entities will accumulate complex traits that favor their reproduction. This is called Universal Darwinism, a term coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1972 book Selfish Gene.

Some scientists, including Darwin, maintain that natural selection only works on the level of the organism. Others, such as Gould, believe in hierarchical levels of selectionthat natural selection can work both on individuals or groups of individuals, such that some populations or species may have favorable traits that promote their survival and reproduction over other species or populations. Richard Dawkins maintained that natural selection worked on the level of the gene, although this has been generally discredited in scientific circles.

On the microevolutionary level (change within species), there are evidences that natural selection can produce evolutionary change. For example, changes in gene frequencies can be observed in populations of fruit flies exposed to selective pressures in the laboratory environment. Likewise, systematic changes in various phenotypes within a species, such as color changes in moths, can be observed in field studies. However, evidence that natural selection is the directive force of change in terms of the origination of new designs (such as the development of feathers) or major transitions between higher taxa (such as the evolution of land-dwelling vertebrates from fish) is not observable. Evidence for such macroevolutionary change is limited to extrapolation from changes on the microevolutionary level. A number of top evolutionists, including Gould, challenge the validity of making such extrapolations.

In Darwin's day, there was no rigid definition of the term "Darwinism," and it was used by proponents and opponents of Darwin's biological theory alike to mean whatever they wanted it to in a larger context. In the nineteenth-century context in which Darwin's Origin of Species was first received, "Darwinism" came to stand for an entire range of evolutionary (and often revolutionary) philosophies about both biology and society.

One of the more prominent approaches was that summed up in the phrase "survival of the fittest" by the philosopher Herbert Spencer. This was later taken to be emblematic of Darwinism, even though Spencer's own understanding of evolution was more Lamarckian than Darwinian, and predated the publication of Darwin's theory.

What we now call "Social Darwinism" was, in its day, synonymous with one use of the word "Darwinism"the application of Darwinian principles of "struggle" to society, usually in support of anti-philanthropic political agendas. Another interpretation, one notably favored by Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, was that Darwinism implied that natural selection was apparently no longer working on "civilized" people, thus it was possible for "inferior" strains of people (who would normally be filtered out of the gene pool) to overwhelm the "superior" strains, and corrective measures would have to be undertakenthe foundation of eugenics.

Many of the ideas called "Darwinism" had only a rough resemblance to the theory of Charles Darwin. For example, Ernst Haeckel developed what was known as Darwinisms in Germany; though it should be noted that his ideas was not centered around natural selection at all.

To distinguish themselves from the very loose meaning of Darwinism prevalent in the nineteenth century, those who advocated evolution by natural selection after the death of Darwin became known as neo-Darwinists. The term "neo-Darwinism" itself was coined by George John Romanes in 1896 to designate the Darwinism proposed by August Weismann and Alfred Russel Wallace, in which the exclusivity of natural selection was promoted and the inheritance of acquired characteristics (Larmarckism) was rejected (Mayr 2001; Gould 2002). At that time, near the end of the nineteenth century, there was a strong debate between the neo-Larmarckians and the neo-Darwinians.

The term neo-Darwinism was not terribly
popular in the scientific community until after the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s, when the term became synonymous with the synthesis. The modern meaning of neo-Darwinism is not "genealogically linked" to the earlier definition (Gould 2002).

It is felt by some that the term "Darwinism" is sometimes used by creationists as a somewhat derogatory term for "evolutionary biology," in that casting of evolution as an "ism"a doctrine or beliefstrengthens calls for "equal time" for other beliefs, such as creationism or intelligent design. However, top evolutionary scientists, such as Gould and Mayr, have used the term repeatedly, without any derogatory connotations.

In addition to the difficulty of getting evidence for natural selection being the causal agent of change on macroevolutionary levels, as noted above, there are fundamental challenges to the theory of natural selection itself. These come from both the scientific and religious communities.

Such challenges to the theory of natural selection are not a new development. Unlike the theory of descent with modification, which was accepted by the scientific community during Darwin's time and for which substantial evidences have been marshaled, the theory of natural selection was not widely accepted until the mid-1900s and remains controversial even today.

In some cases, key arguments against natural selection being the main or sole agent of evolutionary change come from evolutionary scientists. One concern for example, is whether the origin of new designs and evolutionary trends (macroevolution) can be explained adequately as an extrapolation of changes in gene frequencies within populations (microevolution) (Luria, Gould, and Singer 1981). (See macroevolution for an overview of such critiques, including complications relating to the rate of observed macroevolutionary changes.)

Symbiogenesis, the theory that holds that evolutionary change is initiated by a long-term symbiosis of dissimilar organisms, offers a scientific challenge to the source of variation and reduces the primacy of natural selection as the agent of major evolutionary change. Margulis and Sagan (2002) hold that random mutation is greatly overemphasized as the source of hereditary variation in standard Neo-Darwinistic doctrine. Rather, they maintain, the major source of transmitted variation actually comes from the acquisition of genomesin other words, entire sets of genes, in the form of whole organisms, are acquired and incorporated by other organisms. This long-term biological fusion of organisms, beginning as symbiosis, is held to be the agent of species evolution.

Historically, the strongest opposition to Darwinism, in the sense of being a synonym for the theory of natural selection, has come from those advocating religious viewpoints. In essence, the chance component involved in the creation of new designs, which is inherent in the theory of natural selection, runs counter to the concept of a Supreme Being who has designed and created humans and all phyla. Chance (stochastic processes, randomness) is centrally involved in the theory of natural selection. As noted by eminent evolutionist Ernst Mayr (2001, pp. 120, 228, 281), chance plays an important role in two steps. First, the production of genetic variation "is almost exclusively a chance phenomena." Secondly, chance plays an important role even in "the process of the elimination of less fit individuals," and particularly during periods of mass extinction.

This element of chance counters the view that the development of new evolutionary designs, including humans, was a progressive, purposeful creation by a Creator God. Rather than the end result, according to the theory of natural selection, human beings were an accident, the end of a long, chance-filled process involving adaptations to local environments. There is no higher purpose, no progressive development, just materialistic forces at work. The observed harmony in the world becomes an artifact of such adaptations of organisms to each other and to the local environment. Such views are squarely at odds with many religious interpretations.

A key point of contention between the worldview is, therefore, the issue of variabilityits origin and selection. For a Darwinist, random genetic mutation provides a mechanism of introducing novel variability, and natural selection acts on the variability. For those believing in a creator God, the introduced variability is not random, but directed by the Creator, although natural selection may act on the variability, more in the manner of removing unfit organisms than in any creative role. Some role may also be accorded differential selection, such as mass extinctions. Neither of these worldviewsrandom variation and the purposeless, non-progressive role of natural selection, or purposeful, progressive variationare conclusively proved or unproved by scientific methodology, and both are theoretically possible.

There are some scientists who feel that the importance accorded to genes in natural selection may be overstated. According to Jonathan Wells, genetic expression in developing embryos is impacted by morphology as well, such as membranes and cytoskeletal structure. DNA is seen as providing the means for coding of the proteins, but not necessarily the development of the embryo, the instructions of which must reside elsewhere. It is possible that the importance of sexual reproduction and genetic recombination in introducing variability also may be understated.

The history of conflict between Darwinism and religion often has been exacerbated by confusion and dogmatism on both sides. Evolutionary arguments often are set up against the straw man of a dogmatic, biblical fundamentalism in which God created each species separately and the earth is only 6,000 years old. Thus, an either-or dichotomy is created, in which one believes either in the theory of natural selection or an earth only thousands of years old. However, young-earth creationism is only a small subset of the diversity of religious belief, and theistic, teleological explanations of the origin of species may be much more sophisticated and aligned with scientific findings. On the other hand, evolutionary adherents have sometimes presented an equally dogmatic front, refusing to acknowledge well thought out challenges to the theory of natural selection, or allowing for the possibility of alternative, theistic presentations.

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Darwinism - New World Encyclopedia

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Dennett briefly touched on some of the political and social ramifications of Darwin's theories in the final chapter of Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Other philosophers and thinkers have also adapted Darwin's evolutionary ideas, in order to apply them in a societal or cultural context.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] :: 6 Works Cited 801 words (2.3 pages) Better Essays [preview] Darwins Theory of Natural Selection and Social Darwinism - While he was on the voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle, a man named Charles Darwin viewed the relationship of plants and animals all over the world. He observed organisms on islands off the coast of South America and those on the mainland. His observations showed that these organisms were related, but not identical. This led Darwin into believing that over time, organisms must adapt to suit their environment. He explained his theories thoroughly in his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] 564 words (1.6 pages) Better Essays [preview] Darwins Theory of Natural Selection and Social Darwinism - In 1859, a biologist named Charles Darwin postulated a scientific theory, which stated that all living organisms evolved through a process of natural selection. According to Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin claimed that the offspring of a particular species gradually evolved themselves genetically to resist the changes in the environment (573). The theory contended that the organisms could adapt to the changes in the environment through the survival of the fittest. Though this theory is regarded as a breakthrough in the field of biological evolution, it is interesting to explore how this seemingly scientific theory has been suitably modified, and intellectually applied to both negative... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] :: 7 Works Cited 1187 words (3.4 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Social Darwinism: Herbert Spencer and The Catholic Church - Herbert Spencer was the most important Social Darwinist of the 19th Century. He was the first to begin thinking about evolutionist long before Darwin came out with his book on the "Origins of Species". He had many theories such as that everything evolves from one basic creature and then breaks off into more diverse species (Haberman (Hab.), 171). His theory was that social, political, and intellectual movements were caused by the development from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] :: 3 Works Cited 475 words (1.4 pages) Unrated Essays [preview] Socialism More Beneficial than Social Darwinism - The ideas of Social Darwinism and Socialism were first theorized by those in the age of industrialization, when the gap between the social classes was continuing to grow. Social Darwinism is a philosophy that was taken off of the theory of Darwinism in two aspects that were applied to society. One, survival of the fittest. Those who succeeded in life were the ones who were fit, in addition, those who failed were left to be weeded out, Secondly, the idea of natural selection as applied to society.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] 698 words (2 pages) Better Essays [preview] What is Social Darwinism? - ... On the other hand, the individuals that do not have these traits, live shorter lives and die with less or no offspring. Indeed, most giraffes used to have short necks, but some had longer necks and when there was a shortage of food that they could reach with their short necks, the ones with short necks died off, and the ones with long necks survived and reproduced, and eventually, all of the giraffes had long necks. Another difference between Darwin and Lamarck is that Darwin claimed that evolution does not happen according to any predetermined plan (for example, the course of evolution is affected by climatic changes).... [tags: Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species] :: 8 Works Cited 1257 words (3.6 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Jude the Obscure and Social Darwinism - Jude the Obscure and Social Darwinism Jude the Obscure is indeed a lesson in cruelty and despair; the inevitable by-products of Social Darwinism. The main characters of the book are controlled by fate's "compelling arm of extraordinary muscular power"(1), weakly resisting the influence of their own sexuality, and of society and nature around them. Jude's world is one in which only the fittest survive, and he is clearly not equipped to number amongst the fittest. In keeping with the strong Darwinian undercurrents that run through the book, a kind of "natural selection" ensures that Jude's offspring do not survive to procreate either.... [tags: Jude Obscure] :: 2 Works Cited 922 words (2.6 pages) Better Essays [preview] Social Darwinism: Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner - Social Darwinism is term that is used for application of biological concepts of Charles Darwin to sociology and political science. The goal of this paper is to introduce two most known social Darwinists Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner. Herbert Spencer is sometimes named as the founder of social Darwinism. However, labeling him as such is problematic. Spencer came with his concepts and with the term survival of the fittest before he got to know Darwins. His ideas are based on the theory of Lamarckian inheritance by French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.... [tags: biological concepts, evolutionary theories] :: 13 Works Cited 1402 words (4 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] The Political Implications of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection - In 1859 biologist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species which laid out Darwin's theory of natural selection. Natural selection stated that an organism which possessed advantageous traits that allowed it to survive and reproduce easier than became more prevalent in the proceeding generations, eventually resulting in a differentiation of species. This is the basis of evolution and is a constantly ongoing process. Organisms that did not possess the advantageous traits were doomed to genetic extinction.... [tags: Social Darwinism] 864 words (2.5 pages) Better Essays [preview] Darwinism in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - Few people argue that Great Expectations, one of Dickenss later novels, is a Darwinian work. Goldie Morgentaler, in her essay Meditating on the Low: A Darwinian Reading of Great Expectations, is one of those few. She argues primarily that Darwins Origin of the Species was a major topic of discussion in Dickenss circle at the time he wrote Great Expectations, and that Great Expectations marks the first time that Dickens jettisons heredity as a determining factor in the formation of the self (Morgentaler, 708).... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] :: 2 Works Cited 1548 words (4.4 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] The Working Poor by D. Shipler - The Working Poor The objective of this essay is to illuminate my overall reaction to the reading of The Working Poor conveying what I do not like while highlighting a sociological perspective, in addition to explaining if the reading is applicable to my own life experience. Taking notice, the subject at hand was very sobering alluding even if we ourselves have not been partakers of living in the obscurity of prosperity between poverty and wellbeing, certainly we have encountered someone that has become a victim to it.... [tags: social darwinism, poverty, disparity] :: 1 Works Cited 1081 words (3.1 pages) Strong Essays [preview] The Great Industrial Revolution - The Industrial Revolution was a time in history when society was completely transformed. Beginning in the early 18th century, the Industrial Revolution had a significant impact on peoples lives and surely impacted how society functioned. The Industrial Revolution was a dramatic change from an agricultural to an industrial society. Changes in society were seen through the various new inventions to make life easier: the newly introduced factory system, many scientific and technological advancements, and many more aspects.... [tags: social darwinism,factory system,medicine] :: 5 Works Cited 1080 words (3.1 pages) Strong Essays [preview] My Personal Leadership Style - Peter Senge, in his book, The Fifth Discipline, argued that there is interconnectedness, a relationship, between all forces of matter that act and react upon each other. Not only do they act and react on each other, but act across time and space. These relationships, built upon an exchange of information past and present, transform interrelated processes that act upon us and create our state of being. A social-psycho Darwinian evolution, if you will. This state of being is our reality. In reading and assessing Senge, many thoughts and ideas relating to my personal leadership style began sprouting like beanstalks.... [tags: Leadership Style Social Darwinism] 1160 words (3.3 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Nazi Use of Darwinism - After the Great War in the nineteenth century, European nations had a difficult time finding economic stability. Germany took full responsibility for starting World War I and by signing the Treaty of Versailles, Germany agreed to give up huge portions of territory and pay reparation to victorious allies. The harsh principles which were outlined by the Treaty of Versailles made economic stability in Germany difficult to achieve and caused Germany to suffer from inflation and the Great Depression.... [tags: History, Politics, The Treaty of Versailles] 1504 words (4.3 pages) Better Essays [preview] Social Reconstructinism: An Effective Philosophy - According to Sadker and Zittleman social reconstructinism encourages, schools, teachers, and students to focus their studies and energies on alleviating pervasive social inequalities and, as the name implies, reconstruct society into a new and more just social order. Social Reconstructionist is mainly founded on a student-centered classroom. It also encourages students to get out and help out in the community. Teachers can alter their curriculum around their classes needs. The purpose of social reconstructinism is to reconstruct society.... [tags: teacher, students, social inequitites] :: 5 Works Cited 1285 words (3.7 pages) Strong Essays [preview] William Graham Sumner Social Darwinist - William Graham Sumner Social Darwinist Sumner was the follower of Darwins ideas and Herbert Spencers, Social Darwinism. He is considered to be vigorous and influential social Darwinist in America. He was a professor at Yale College. He developed the concepts of Folkways, diffusion, and ethnocentrism. He is not as big as Spencer but his ideas were bold enough to be recognized. He played three important roles in the development of American thought, he was a great Puritan preacher, an exponent of the Classical pessimism of Ricardo and Malthus, and an assimilator and popularizer of evolution.... [tags: Sociology ] :: 2 Works Cited 1237 words (3.5 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Evolution and The Island of Doctor Moreau - There are a lot of misconceptions about Darwin's theory of evolution. One of the biggest is that he called the theory by that name. Albrecht von Haller used the word "evolution" in 1744 to mean "to unroll," so the word was around in Darwin's time, but Darwin never used it in the sense we use it today. It was added later by others, including Herbert Spencer, who is responsible for the theory we call Social Darwinism. This theory is misnamed; it is not based on Darwin's work, but Spencer's. Darwin did not come up with his theory out of nowhere.... [tags: Darwin Spencer Darwinism Research Papers] :: 5 Works Cited 1421 words (4.1 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] The Father of Science Fiction: Herbert George Wells - Biographical Summary Herbert George Wells was an English author from the 19th century who was born in London, England. H.G. Wells was born on September 21st, 1866 in the county of Kent. He was the youngest child of four in his family and was called Bertie from a young age. Wells wrote in many genres including politics, history, social commentary and contemporary novels. He is best known for his work in the Science Fiction genre, sometimes referred to as The Father of Science Fiction. His father, Joseph Wells was a shopkeeper and played cricket professionally at the time H.G.... [tags: biography, darwinism, Dr. Moreau] :: 7 Works Cited 1549 words (4.4 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Race As A Social Construct - The concept of race is an ancient construction through which a single society models all of mankind around the ideal man. This idealism evolved from prejudice and ignorance of another culture and the inability to view another human as equal. The establishment of race and racism can be seen from as early as the Middle Ages through the present. The social construction of racism and the feeling of superiority to people of other ethnicities, have been distinguishably present in European societies as well as America throughout the last several centuries.... [tags: Racism Essays] :: 4 Works Cited 1076 words (3.1 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Eugenics: Solving Social Problems? - The melting pot was a movement to solve social problems of the population with the use of technology. Eugenics is the use of science to solve social problems. It is defined as the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits.... [tags: Scientific Research ] :: 9 Works Cited 1201 words (3.4 pages) Strong Essays [preview] The Effect British Colonialism Had on The Indian Way of Life - You are powerless to do anything. Foreigners control everything in your country, everything. From taxes right down to social structure, the colonial rulers have the upper hand in everything, while you, a true native of the country, are subjected to tyranny and oppression. None of us would want to be a citizen of such a country, but that was exactly the fate of millions of natives in many countries across the world during the Age of Imperialism. Imperialism is defined as the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination. (Imperialism Wikipedia, the fr... [tags: Britain, Social Darwinsm, Greed, Ethnocentrism] 1259 words (3.6 pages) Better Essays [preview] Hegemonic Hypocrisy: A Victim of Social Scriptorium - With the passage at hand, Dr. Ella Shohat discusses about the case of being an Arab Jew, a historical paradox, as one of many social elisions. Unlike the idea of intersectionality, binarism leaves little place for complex identities (Shohat, 2). As an American, Jew, and Arab, she speaks of the disparities amidst a war involving all three cultural topographies. Albeit she speaks from a subjective standpoint, she does not mention the issue of racial hygiene, class, geographic divisions, and gender.... [tags: Understanding "Them vs. Us"] :: 3 Works Cited 1181 words (3.4 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Economic and Social Values of Marxism to Communism - When it comes to human morale, people can be vain and disapproving of themselves as well as nurturing and passionate of beliefs and ideas. It is these emotions that toy with the psyche to determine the best possible solution for everything around. Unfortunately, this can be used as a weapon to convince, brainwash and terrorize the minds of millions, if not more. When it comes to systems of control and government, people have their own individual views and beliefs. It is through these views and beliefs that people can relate to and support in order to set the foundation of a leadership or command authority system.... [tags: Political Science] :: 4 Works Cited 2344 words (6.7 pages) Term Papers [preview] Mcteague As A Social Commentary - Written in 1899, Frank Norris novel, McTeague serves as a view of societal factions of his time period. Norris illustrates the stratification of society in this San Francisco community by using the concept of Social Darwinism. He gives detailed accounts of the inner workings of society along with the emotions of the time. Through his characters, Norris shows the separation of classes and the greed that grew abundantly during the late 19th century. He also gives a grim picture of survival in his depiction of the theory of natural selection.... [tags: essays research papers] 808 words (2.3 pages) Better Essays [preview] "The Time Machine": A Social Critique of Victorian England - H G Wells was cynical of the Victorian class system and thoroughly disapproved of the way people were segregated, according to their wealth. Wells disagreed with Englands capitalist views, as he himself was a socialist. His novel The Time Machine is primarily a social critique of Victorian England projected into the distant future. He has taken segregation to its extremes and shows how far human evolution will go if capitalism continues unhindered. On travelling to the future he finds that this new world is not what he expected, as he feels vulnerable and naked in a strange world. (Page 26) This panic then quickly transforms into frenzy as he then meets the Eloi who were all that he despi... [tags: Literary Review] 1735 words (5 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Residential Segregation and Social Justice - Despite increased diversity across the country, Americas neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Residential segregation, particularly between African-Americans and whites, persists in metropolitan areas where minorities make up a large share of the population. This paper will examine residential segregation imposed upon African-Americans and the enormous costs it bears. Furthermore, the role of government will be discussed as having an important role in carrying out efforts towards residential desegregation.... [tags: Papers] :: 7 Works Cited 1903 words (5.4 pages) Term Papers [preview] Quality of life Increases in Correlation to Social Unrest in 19th Century Europe - In the late 19th to early 20th century intellectual trends of the upper end of society differed vastly from the mindset of the general populace, with the mindset of social unrest largely trending towards the intellectuals of society. Due to the social welfare movements that were nascent in the late 19th century the standard of living for the mass populace in Europe did improve, which essentially meant said populace did not participate in the social unrest that was born in the minds of the society who disagreed with certain forms of social change.... [tags: European History ] :: 3 Works Cited 1307 words (3.7 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Middlemarch: The Web of Affinities, by Gillian Beer - In Middlemarch: The Web of Affinities, Gillian Beer traces the influence that Darwin had on the work of George Elliot. In her analysis of Darwins metaphor of the inextricable web of affinities, Beer quotes the central notions inherent in The Origin of the Species, as well as its implications for Eliots writing. Darwin writes that we it is possible for us to see, distinctly, the manner in which all living and extinct beings are able to be linked together in one extensive classification, and the manner in which the many components of each category is bound up together.... [tags: Literary Analysis, Darwinism] 806 words (2.3 pages) Unrated Essays [preview] The Dangers of Social Conformity Exposed in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - The Dangers of Social Conformity Exposed in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie depicts the coming of age of six adolescent girls in Edinburgh, Scotland during the 1930's. The story brings us into the classroom of Miss Jean Brodie, a fascist school teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, and gives close encounter with the social and political climate in Europe during the era surrounding the second World War. Spark's novel is a narrative relating to us the complexities of politics and of social conformity, as well as of non-conformity.... [tags: Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Essays] :: 5 Works Cited 1961 words (5.6 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Moral and Social Decline in Three Victorian Texts - A degenerate decadent Victorian society is constructed within Dorian Gray , wealth and image are given more importance than morals. The novels only lapse into first person narrative within which Wilde comments on Civilised society, he argues that insincerity is necessary to conduct oneself in society. This correlates to the idea of performing and wearing a fake mask in order to fit into society. The phrase manners are of more importance than morals exemplifies the fake surface nature of society, Dorian is accepted back into society due to his handsome appearance on the surface, despite his lack of moral code and acts of debauchery.... [tags: Society, Degenerate] :: 5 Works Cited 864 words (2.5 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Education and Womens Social Roles - Education and Womens Social Roles The expectations held by a society define the roles of its members. While many factors influence the parts individuals play in their cultures and communities, education has always been the crucial element in the establishment of social roles. Education was the catalyst which changed women's roles in society from what they were in the late 1800s to what they are now. In the latter years of the nineteenth century, women's roles in American society underwent gradual but definite growth, spurred on by a rapidly changing society.... [tags: Exploratory Essays Research Papers] :: 4 Works Cited 1916 words (5.5 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Aspects of Racism - Today we live in a multicultural society, which means a nation is made out of several ethnic groups, with different cultures. But why was there xenophobia and racial hatred between peoples and why does it still exist. What really is "foreign", and what effect does it have on young people and young adults. And the most important question is: What is racism. I will in the course of my essay examine these issues. Firstly, I would like to define the term racism generally and talk about its characteristics: Racism is an ideology that uses real or fictitious differences between two ethnic groups for the benefit of the Prosecutor and for the detriment of the victims.... [tags: prejudice, racial profiling, social commentary] 2364 words (6.8 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Income Inequality - Income inequality has affected American citizens ever since the American Dream came to existence. The American Dream is centered around the concept of working hard and earning enough money to support a family, own a home, send children to college, and invest for retirement. Economic gains in income are one of the only possible ways to achieve enough wealth to fulfill the dream. Unfortunately, many people cannot achieve this dream due to low income. Income inequality refers to the uneven distribution of income and wealth between the social classes of American citizens.... [tags: the american dream, social norms] :: 5 Works Cited 939 words (2.7 pages) Better Essays [preview] I Sit and Look Out by Walt Whitman - Every historical period has its own hero of the time. It can be an active businessman or a sensitive aristocrat that fits the time best. 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On the other hand, the ideas of creation science is derived from the conviction of most Abrahemic religions that God created the universe-including humans and other living things-all at once in the relatively recent past.... [tags: Science Creationism Darwinism Papers] :: 4 Works Cited 1971 words (5.6 pages) FREE Essays [view] Social Anxiety Disorder and Social Phobia - A lot of individuals who have social phobia are labeled as shy rather than having a disorder. This is mostly because a lot of people dont know or dont understand what social phobia is. To those people its something that you can either grow out of or get over, but its not that simple. There is a lot more to social phobia than most people think and to the individual who has social phobia it can be a very detrimental disorder. What is Social Phobia. Social phobia is a disorder characterized by excessive fear of being exposed to the scrutiny of other people that leads to avoidance of social situations in which the person is called on to perform (Carlson, 2009, p.... [tags: Social Phobia] :: 13 Works Cited 2923 words (8.4 pages) Research Papers [preview] Social Networks and Social Networking Sites - Introduction The world has evolved into a technologically savvy and dependent society with the Internet readily available to many. Convenience and connection are vital to individuals, especially within the United States. Social networking sites have progressed to fit the demanding desires of todays technological era (Albarran 118). The progression from the first social networking sites, such as Friendster or instant messaging, to the sites used today, such as Facebook and Twitter, has made a significant impact on society.... [tags: Facebook, Social Media, Twitter] :: 17 Works Cited 3619 words (10.3 pages) Research Papers [preview] Role of the Social Media in Social Movements - Introduction The number of revolutions in the last 3 decades has increased, and seems to keep increasing. Civil unrest and protests brought many victims including civil and political figures throughout the world. In the era where technology is at the peak of its success, especially in communication technologies, mankind suffers from lack of communication. Problem is not caused by the technology itself, the problem is in human nature. I will continue with an analogy. Man invented the knife, which is very useful tool in our daily lives.... [tags: Social Media Essays] :: 8 Works Cited 3253 words (9.3 pages) Research Papers [preview] History of Social Divisions in Society and the Role of the Social Worker - Power and powerlessness go hand in hand as to have one the other must exist. As society is not egalitarian and never shall be, there will always be inequalities. These inequalities can be on both personal and structural levels. To enable us to understand power and social work we must firstly understand the theoretical explanation of the distribution of power, privilege, prestige and powerlessness within western society by looking at social divisions, class and their positions within society. Marx was interested in the theories of economic development, he believed that economy was dominated by agriculture and power was held by the aristocratic landowner, in the period when manufacture was the... [tags: social work] :: 2 Works Cited 1519 words (4.3 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Facebook and Social Networking - Facebook is rapidly attracting multitudes of visitors every month instigating a shift in communication. This change consequently presents that societies are choosing to become part of the popular Facebook culture for various reasons, such as its renowned opportunities for keeping in touch with current social circles, reunifying long lost family and friends and broadening prospects of finding new companions. Facebook removes some of the barriers that may limit our regularity of communication with people, upholding the geographic differences, social class, busy lifestyles and economic factors that may usually discourage us from regular contact.... [tags: Social Capital, Social Network] :: 6 Works Cited 945 words (2.7 pages) Better Essays [preview] Social Implications of Facebook - Facebook is currently largest social networking site in the world based on monthly unique visitors attracting 130 million unique visitors every day (Alexa Inc. 2012). The sites popularity exploded in 2007 and it bypassed its social networking rival, MySpace, in April 2008 (Phillips 2007). Over the last few years Facebook has impacted peoples social lives in various ways. With its availability on modern smart phones, Facebook enables users to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and peers wherever they are in the world as long as they have internet access.... [tags: Social Networking, Social Network] :: 7 Works Cited 1433 words (4.1 pages) Unrated Essays [preview] Social Inequality of Health - The United States reportedly spends over $8,000 per person on healthcare annually. This amount is two-and-a-half times greater than any other developed country in the world (Kane, 2012). However, this is not reflected statistically in the morbidity and mortality rates of its citizens. Many may ask why and what are we missing. To answer these questions, one may need to look no further than their own town and community. In 2013, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported health disparities as a causative factor for the unchanging morbidity and mortality rates in the United States.... [tags: social issues, social determinants] :: 13 Works Cited 1439 words (4.1 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] The Irish Model of Social Partnership - The Irish model of social Partnership has received little more that lip service in the Caribbean. Evaluate the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of this concept in the Caribbean. What is Social Partnership Social partnership refers to cooperation among government, the private business sector and labour on strategies to address immediate and long-term economic and social challenges. Such strategies can include controls on wages and prices, as well as tax reform. Social partnerships are, therefore, overarching in their aim to provide stability for national growth and development.... [tags: Social Partnership] :: 9 Works Cited 2075 words (5.9 pages) Term Papers [preview] The Work of a Social Worker - All of us are born for a reason, but all of us dont discover why. Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. Its what you do for others, said Danny Thomas, founder of St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital (Danny). That concept inspires people every day to do better for others. Some are so passionate about helping individuals they decide to make a career out of it. Social work is one of the most renowned occupations when it comes to helping people. The path to becoming a social worker is very difficult, in both getting a degree and choosing an occupation.... [tags: Social Work ] :: 3 Works Cited 1248 words (3.6 pages) Strong Essays [preview] The Impact of Online Social Networks - Twitter, Skype, Facebook these are just a few of the online social networks we utilize day to day, which has made connecting to others easier than before. A social network is a structure made up of individuals or organizations that are tied by one or more specific types of relationships such as friendships. Although traditionally operated with person to person contact, it is now more popular online through social media networks such as Facebook and Skype. There are millions of persons with wide ranges of personalities who are looking to develop new friendships or to simply become a part of a group in order to share information on these websites.... [tags: Social Networking ] :: 6 Works Cited 987 words (2.8 pages) Unrated Essays [preview] THE IMPLICATIONS OF INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKS - The conclusion from the research of this paper indicates that social networks sites are here to stay. Social network sites need to convey a sense of responsibility. Based on the increasing level of social sites engaging in ecommerce, communication and socialization, the need of privacy protection is passed on to individuals. What this research paper has demonstrated is that there are implications users need to be aware of before signing up and placing their profile on these social network sites.... [tags: Social Networks] :: 16 Works Cited 837 words (2.4 pages) Better Essays [preview] The Growth of Social Networking Sites - The participants and audience for SNSs is growing rapidly. Statistics published become quickly out dated and it is interesting to observe both the international and national trends of Internet usage generally over the years, as well as those specific to the use of Social Networking Sites. Access to technology has become an integral part of education, socialisation and industry related requirements, and accordingly Internet usage is evolving and growing rapidly. A survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statics in 2003 found that in the 12 months prior to April 2003, 95% of Australian children, aged between five and fourteen years had used a computer.... [tags: Social Networking ] 1497 words (4.3 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Social Mobility in the United States - Does social mobility in our contemporary American society really exist. Is it possible for someone from the deepest depths of poverty to become successful, and ascend into the upper echelons of society. Could the American Dream still be attained in these times where we see the stratification of contemporary American society based on their wealth and social class so vehemently pointed out and perhaps emphasized to a certain degree. Or perhaps, could Charles Sackrey, Geoffrey Schneider, and Janet Knoedler (authors of Introduction to Political Economy) be right about the American Dream being a "particularly deceitful myth?" This is a topic which has been debated over a long period of time betwe... [tags: social issues, social class, capitalism] :: 4 Works Cited 1859 words (5.3 pages) Term Papers [preview] The Evolution of Social Behavior - A defining feature of mankind is the ability to organize, and socialize with the immediate environment, which can either be the natural environment, social groups and organizations. While this feature largely relates to mans propensity to make the best of most situations, such as living communally to offer greater protection to society members; it also relates to the innate nature of mans curiosity. Yeats and Yeats (2007) observe that curiosity in man fuels the need to learn, and investigate, and can only be satisfied .... [tags: Social Evolution] :: 40 Works Cited 1452 words (4.1 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Cultural Sensitivity in Social Work - It is imperative that social workers become knowledgeable about their clients cultures and are culturally sensitive. In learning about their clients cultures, social workers need to be aware of how powerful and significant culture is in relating to clients behavior, values, and beliefs. Becoming culturally competent requires the ability to integrate awareness, knowledge, and skills while maintaining a positive working relationship with the client (Sue and Zane, 1987). Today, the concerns regarding cultural competency continue to accentuate the importance of preparing social workers for a diversified society.... [tags: Social Work] 1537 words (4.4 pages) Better Essays [preview] Social Protection in Developing Countries - The global crisis has sharply underscored the need to strengthen social protection institutions in developing countries, and especially in low income countries. Before the onset of the crisis in November 2008, a growing body of research had accumulated proving a comprehensive knowledge base demonstrating that social protection programmes are effective instruments in reducing poverty and enhancing human development. In the decade prior to the onset of the crisis a large number among the new social protection programmes had emerged in the South with a specific focus on children.... [tags: Social Issues] 982 words (2.8 pages) Better Essays [preview] Dangers of Social Networking Sites - Is the current craze of these ubiquitous social networking sites becoming too much to handle. Some say yes, others might disagree. Social networking was created to connect friends and family together. Now, many predators use sites such as Facebook or Myspace to find their prey. This is the source of what parents are stressing about to their children. 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What is Darwinism? Joel Hanes

n One Long Argument, Ernst Mayr (evolutionary biologist, and originator of the Biological Species Concept) summarizes Darwin's theories, and traces the history of their acceptance by the world scientific community.

In the Preface , he begins:

In Chapter Four, "Ideological Opposition to Darwin's Five Theories", Mayr summarizes "Darwin's Theory", or "Darwinism", thus:

... The term "Darwinism", ... has numerous meanings depending on who has used the term and at what period. A better understanding of the meaning of this term is only one reason to call attention to the composite nature of Darwin's evolutionary thought.

... One particulary cogent reason why Darwinism cannot be a single monolithic theory is that organic evolution consists of two essentially independent processes, as we have seen: transformation in time, and diversification in ecological and geographical space. The two processes require a minimum of two entirely independent and very different theories.

... I consider it necessary to dissect Darwin's conceptual framework of evolution into a number of major theories that formed the basis of his evolutionary thinking. For the sake of convenience, I have partitioned Darwin's evolutionary paradigm into five theories, but of course others might prefer a different division. The selected theories are by no means all of Darwin's evolutionary theories; others were, for instance, sexual selection, pangenesis, effect of use and disuse, and character divergence. However when later authors referred to Darwin's theory thay invariably had a combination of some of the following five theories in mind:

Let's look at some of the implications of Mayr's analysis.

At first blush, (4) Gradualism seems like it might conflict with Gould & Eldredge's "punctuated equilibrium" theory; but on closer examination, not so.

Here [thanks to Robert Low] are two relevant quotes from On the Origin of Species:

"Varieties are often at first local...rendering the discovery of intermediate links less likely. Local varieties will not spread into other and distant regions until they are considerably modified and improved; and when they do spread, if discovered in a geological formation, they will appear as if suddenly created there, and will simply be classed as new species."

Darwin did not claim that evolutionary change is slow and continuous -- only that it does not proceed by "jumps" in a single generation (what Mayr calls "saltational" change). That is, despite the distortions of some anti-evolutionists, Darwin explictly did not think that evolution proceeds by the production of "hopeful monsters" -- Darwin himself never proposed that a fully-dinosaur parent gave birth to fully-bird progeny. Rather, the change took place in a series of intermediate, perhaps nearly insensible, steps in successive generations. Note that change over a thousand generations of any species appears as "sudden" or "abrupt" change in the fossil record, because a thousand generations is such an infinitesimally small fraction of Earth's history.

(5) Natural selection, doesn't account for some of the kinds of variation that we see in species -- particularly non-adaptive traits -- but you'll notice that Darwin didn't claim that natural selection explained all traits, merely the adaptive ones.

After Darwin, some biologists distorted the theory of natural selection into the doctrine of "strict adaptionism", in which every feature of every organism was held to be produced by natural selection (and thus some explanation of why the feature is adaptive was required.) But Darwin didn't say that all selection is natural (adaptive) selection -- only that natural selection is the source of some change, and can explain why adaptive change occurs. Modern biologists have proposed other mechanisms for change -- neutral selection, genetic drift, the "founder effect", etc. -- and Darwin himself thought that sexual selection could be important. None of these contradict the idea of natural selection; as additional mechanisms for genetic change over time, they augment it.

Here [thanks to Ken Smith] is a quote from the final chapter of the sixth edition of On the Origin of Species:

This has been of no avail.

Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.

Mayr recaps the history of Darwinist theories, and addresses the claims that Darwinism has been disproved or superseded in Chapter Ten: "New Frontiers in Evolutionary Biology".

...

Opponents of the [modern evolutionary] synthesis consistently confound three schools of Darwinism:

Darwinism is not a simple theory that is either true or false but is rather a highly complex research program that is being continuously modified and improved. This was true before the [modern evolutionary] synthesis, and it continues to be true after the synthesis. Table 2 lists many of the significant stages in the modification of Darwinism that one might recognize. Yet recognizing such seemingly discontinuous periods is in many respects an artificial enterprise. ... each of these periods was heterogeneous to some extent, owing to the diversity in the thinking of different evolutionists. Most critics who have attempted to refute the evolutionary synthesis have failed to recognize this diversity of views and thus have succeeded in refuting only the reductionist fringe of the Darwinism camp.

...

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, Charles Darwin, First Edition 1859. Sixth Edition 1872.

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Will mutations produce wings like in angels, in a human being? If you wanted to develop a race of angels, would it be possible to select for a pair of wings? TheodosiusDobzhansky I could try! PeterMedawar (1) Charles Darwin championed the theory of common descent and evolution by natural selection among descendants with slight variations on the ancestors' features. The concept of natural selection springs from artificial selection, a procedure breeders use to enhance desired characteristics such as stamina, color, size, yield, and so forth, in animals and plants. Darwin thought that a similar process happens in nature. There is nothing to disagree with here. Natural selection can bring about evolution in a fashion similar to artificial selection. But animal breeders and plant breeders have always known that artificial selection has limits. Wholly new characteristics never emerge from artificial selection; they will never breed a dog with antlers. The same kind of limit applies to all natural selection operating on the available genetic material. Genetics Neo-Darwinism is an attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics, which says that organisms do not change with time, with Darwinism, which claims they do. Lynn Margulis (2) Darwin actually knew very little about genetics. The great pioneer of that field was Gregor Mendel, whose work was contemporary with Darwin's. Now the theory of evolution incorporates Mendel's genetics into Darwin's framework; the combined theory was called "neo-Darwinism." (Recently, that cumbersome term is being replaced by the simpler "Darwinism".)

According to this paradigm, evolution is driven by chance. Chance mutations affect one or a few nucleotides of DNA per occurrence. Bigger changes come from recombination, a genetic process in which longer strands of DNA are swapped, transferred, or doubled. These two processes, mutation and recombination, create new meaning in DNA by lucky accidents. According to the prevailing paradigm, this is the mechanism behind evolution.

One problem with this story is that it is implausible. It is analogous to saying that a great work of literature such as Moby Dick could emerge from lesser preexisting books, if there were enough typos and swapping of paragraphs along the way. The trouble is, when this process is actually attempted with text, it never succeeds. Only with guidance can random processes lead to meaningful sentences or paragraphs. But plausibility in the current paradigm of evolution is apparently unnecessary. We are told by Richard Dawkins, "The general lesson we should learn is never to use human judgment in assessing such matters" (3).

Ordinary people are under the impression that there are examples in nature which prove that chance mutation and recombination can create new meaning in genetic code new genes. Yet the alleged examples of the phenomenon do not actually exemplify it. Consider the ability of bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics. Salvador Luria and Max Delbrck proved in 1943 that the resistant bacteria descended from preexisting strains; the genes for the resistance were already available in the gene pool. Although some have disputed this interpretation of their experiments, it is now well established. And today we know that bacteria often acquire whole new genes conferring resistance to antibiotics; the genes are imported on "resistance plasmids" (3.5).

Another example of similar "evolution" in eukaryotic cells is described in Renato Dulbecco's The Design of Life. This time the genes for the new characteristic are already present in the organism (4):

The study of this phenomenon has uncovered an amazing organization in the parasite's DNA. Radioactive probes ... have revealed that a hundred or more genes are devoted to coat variation, each gene specifying one kind of coat molecule.... Only one is active at a time.

The moth that has evolved to blend in with the sooty walls and treetrunks of modern industrial cities is another example of evolution in our time. Again, the genes for darker coloring in the moth were already available in the gene pool. Yes, there are a few documented examples in which a simple mutation in a bacterium brings about antibiotic resistance, but in these cases it does so by reducing or eliminating the affected gene's function, not by creating a new function. Among viruses, mutations can even alter a coating protein and thereby temporarily disguise the virus (4.5). But again, no new function is created. Such mutations could not drive the evolutionary progress we observe in the fossil record.

Of course, there are many examples of genes that have mutated slightly in the course of evolution without losing their original functions. And other examples, fewer in number, apparently indicate that genes may mutate slightly and acquire different but closely related functions. The globin family of genes are in this category. And in a third category, a handful of examples may indicate that a gene mutates slightly and acquires a wholly new function. These finally seem to be examples in which mutations create new meaning, but we are not sure this third account is accurate. The number of changed essential nucleotides in new genes that supposedly arose this way is still in the dozens at least, whereas the number of possible genes that would differ from a given average-size gene by only half-a-dozen essential nucleotides is enormous, on the order of 10^14. Blindly traversing even this short distance in sequence space so large requires incredible luck.

(Genetics and Fitness Landscapes) Epistasis and the Structure of Fitness Landscapes... by Franois Blanquart and Thomas Bataillon, doi:10.1534/genetics.115.182691, Genetics, 01 Jun 2016. Fisher's model was ...often unable to explain the full structure of fitness landscapes. 01 Jun 2016: ...The mutation event giving rise to industrial melanism in Britain was the insertion of a ...transposable element.... Toward a prospective molecular evolution by Xionglei He, Li Liu, doi:10.1126/science.aaf7543, Science, 13 May 2016. Two studies ...characterize the in vivo fitness landscape of two RNA genes. ...Although the number of mutants they examined is still a small fraction of all possible variants of the genes, most of the possible genotypes that differ from the wild-type by one or two point mutations were characterized. Thus, a high-quality local fitness landscape of a gene has been constructed. The fitness landscape of a tRNA gene by Chuan Li et al., doi:10.1126/science.aae0568, Science, online 14 Apr 2016. Approximately 1% of single point mutations in the gene are beneficial, while 42% are deleterious. 4 Sep 2015: ...Thousands of transcripts ...which are likely to have originated de novo.... 4 Jan 2016. Catarina Gadelha et al., "Membrane domains and flag
ellar pocket boundaries are influenced by the cytoskeleton in African trypanosomes" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0909289106, p17425-17430 v106, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 13 Oct 2009. Parasite breaks its own DNA to avoid detection, The Rockefeller University, 15 Apr 2009. 28 Aug 2007: Varying environments can speed up evolution. [mentions Fitness Landscapes.] Thanat Chookajorn et al., "Epigenetic memory at malaria virulence genes" [abstract], 10.1073/pnas.0609084103, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 5 Jan 2007. "The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum can switch its variant surface proteins ...to evade the host immune response. ...The gene family is enormous with a virtually unlimited number of members. ...Control of var gene transcription and antigenic variation is associated with a chromatin memory...." 26 Sep 2005: Common bacteria share an infinite gene pool?! 16 Feb 2005: Fitness Landscapes. 2003, May 11: Computer model evolves complex functions? [mentions Fitness Landscapes.] 2003, March 25: Here Be Dragons, by David W. Koerner and Simon Levay. [mentions Fitness Landscapes.] ...African trypanosome source of scientific insight, The Rockefeller University, 25 Nov 2002.

The April 15, 1997 issue of Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA contains a report with strong evidence sequence similarities linking two genes with different functions in a common Antarctic fish. One gene codes for trypsinogen, an enzyme produced in the pancreas. The other codes for a protein called antifreeze glycoprotein (AFGP) that keeps the fish's blood from freezing.

The related sequences are so similar that the biologists, from the University of Illinois, Urbana, date the divergence of the sequences as only five to 14 million years ago. This timing coincides with the independently estimated time when the Antarctic Ocean was frozen. "Selective pressure" would have favored the creation of an antifreeze gene then. The report makes a strong case that the antifreeze gene evolved from the trypsinogen gene by a series of steps including whole gene duplication; the deletion, insertion, duplication, and amplification of smaller sequences; and a frameshift mutation.

It is possible to estimate the likelihood of creating a new gene this way. One could estimate the actual rate at which the steps listed above occur in the fish germline cells and the fish population at the time when the Antarctic Ocean was freezing. From there one could straightforwardly calculate the approximate number of trials of new genes that could have occurred, during a reasonable time window, to produce an antifreeze protein gene in the fish. One could also estimate the number of different actual genes that would code for antifreeze proteins. Other work by the same authors in the same issue (8) makes this estimation seem possible. Finally, a mathematician could, with little trouble, count the number of possible different genes that could be created from the trypsinogen gene and other possible precursor genes by the steps listed above. These estimates would enable one to calculate the probability that an antifreeze gene would be found by trial and error in the time available.

The last estimate, however, turns out to be lethal to our chances. The number of possible different genes that could be created by only a handful of steps from the list above is enormous. For example, consider a gene of 2,500 nucleotides, allowing a 75% error rate (625 essential nucleotides.) The number of possible different genes that could be created by deleting a single essential nucleotide and inserting it elsewhere in the same gene, five successive times, is 10^28. When sequences for insertion into the target gene can be any length, and can come from any of thousands of other genes, the possibilities quickly approach the theoretical maximum in this example 4^625 or about 10^370. So the proposed mechanism does not increase the probability of arriving at a wholly new gene by chance. It's still monkeys writing Shakespeare, only now they have word processors with "cut and paste" functions.

The authors are aware of this problem and postulate other roles for genetic intermediates between the two genes. However, they seem to realize that this speculation is inadequate, because they conclude [the second article] by saying, "The selection of an appropriate permutation of three codons... was likely shaped by the structural specificity required for antifreeze ice interaction to take place." This sounds like teleology.

After the careful analysis by Chen et al., one might understand if a neo-Darwinists lost patience at this point in the discussion and simply asserted that it must have happened as they describe. Any reasonable person would admit that genetic sequences may gradually diverge over time, as in the antifreeze gene example. Cosmic Ancestry does not dispute that genetic sequences can gradually diverge over time, and that genetic recombination occurs. But for the discovery of lengthy new sequences with new meaning, the math in the example still doesn't work. And a model for this process in text, without guidance, will not succeed.

If the antifreeze gene was composed by the process Chen et al. describe, perhaps antifreeze activity is so non-specific that "almost any gene will do," as considered above. But if the precise antifreeze sequence was required (allowing only normal error tolerance), the composition process would have to have been guided somehow. Neo-Darwinism allows guidance by a chain of hypothetical intermediate steps (but not by teleology). Cosmic Ancestry would explain such guidance only by other instructions already in the genome; however, this concept is undeveloped.

(Antifreeze Protein Genes) Thomas J. Neara et al., "Ancient climate change, antifreeze, and the evolutionary diversification of Antarctic fishes" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.111516910, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 13 Feb 2012. Cheng Deng et al., "Evolution of an antifreeze protein by neofunctionalization under escape from adaptive conflict" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1007883107, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 29 Nov 2010. "We found that an SAS gene, having both sialic acid synthase and rudimentary ice-binding activities, became duplicated." 12 Nov 2006: The Making of the Fittest, by geneticist Sean B. Carroll, W. W. Norton, 2006. Evolutionary Scrap-heap Challenge..., a Reply forwarded by Stan Franklin, 17 Apr 2006. 7 May 2004: Ultraconserved elements. 2003, November 20: In mammals, CNGs are more numerous and better conserved than genes a hint of possible other instructions already in the genome. 1999, October 21: A blood protein arose from a digestive enzyme.

Evidence from fossi
ls does not bear out Darwin's theory of gradual change. Instead, species remain relatively unchanged for long periods, and then suddenly, new kinds arise. Many bacteria today have apparently changed very little since they first appeared. Some archaebacterial species appear to be as old as life on Earth; they haven't evolved very far in almost four billion years. We know that bacteria were the only inhabitants of the earth until about 1.7 billion years ago. Apparently, no major evolutionary developments (multicellularity, cell specialization, etc.) happened among the bacteria for the first two billion years of life more than half of the time life has existed on Earth.

By contrast, the entire Cambrian Explosion of about 570 million years ago took only five to nine million years (11). All kinds of multicelled creatures, in astonishing variety, seemed to come at once out of nowhere (12). On the cover of Time we read this synopsis of the Cambrian Explosion: "New discoveries show that life as we know it began in an amazing biological frenzy that changed the planet almost overnight" (13).

Similar discontinuities can be seen on a finer scale in the individual histories of species. In fact, the sudden appearance of new kinds of creatures, without evidence of intermediate kinds, is more the rule than the exception. Examples of intermediate kinds, such as the dog-sized Mesohippus that preceded the horse are actually quite rare. Stephen Jay Gould calls this discrepancy between the theory (gradualism) and the evidence (big steps) the paleontologists' "trade secret."

Today there is still considerable discord over punctuated equilibrium. How real is stasis (the period without appreciable change), how gradual is punctuation, and how can neo-Darwinists account for them? One proposal is "species sorting" or "species selection." In general, the new idea is that big evolutionary steps occur gradually in small, isolated populations. When the evolutionary steps are complete, the small population with its new advantage quickly expands and replaces the bigger population. Thus, in the geological record the change looks instantaneous. This solution has some appeal, but it offers little more by way of explanation than that gradual evolution always takes place somewhere out of sight. In 1931, J.B.S. Haldane foresaw this problem. "The paleontologist can always postulate a slow evolution in some area hitherto unexplored geologically, followed by migration into known areas" (14). Perhaps punctuated equilibrium is a clue that the genetic mechanism underlying evolutionary progress is altogether different from the one currently in favor.

(Punctuated Equilibrium) Can Population Genetics Adapt to Rapid Evolution? by Philipp W. Messer, Stephen P. Ellner and Nelson G. Hairston Jr., doi:10.1016/j.tig.2016.04.005, Trends in Genetics, online 13 May 2016. The time-rate scaling of phenotypic evolution suggests that selection on phenotypes is often fluctuting in direction, allowing phenotypes to respond rapidly to environmental fluctuations while remaining within relatively constant bounds over longer periods. What sparked the Cambrian explosion? by Douglas Fox, doi:10.1038/530268a, Nature, 18 Feb 2016. J. William Schopf et al., "Sulfur-cycling fossil bacteria from the 1.8-Ga Duck Creek Formation provide promising evidence of evolution's null hypothesis" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1419241112, PNAS, online 2 Feb 2015; and commentary: Scientists discover organism that hasnt evolved in more than 2 billion years, by Stuart Wolpert, UCLA Newsroom, 2 Feb 2015. M. Paul Smith and David A. T. Harper, "Causes of the Cambrian Explosion" [summary], doi:10.1126/science.1239450, p 355-1356 v 341, Science, 20 Sep 2013. Erik A. Sperling et al., "Oxygen, ecology, and the Cambrian radiation of animals" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1312778110, p13446-13451 v110, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 13 Aug 2013. "...Providing an integrated explanation for both the pattern and timing of Cambrian animal radiation." Josef C. Uyeda et al., "The million-year wait for macroevolutionary bursts" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1014503108, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 23 Aug 2011. "The best-fitting model to explain this pattern is a model that combines rare but substantial bursts of phenotypic change with bounded fluctuations on shorter timescales." 18 Apr 2011: There is no gradualism in the fossil record Lynn Margulis 7 Jan 2009: Latent evolutionary potential was realized soon after environmental limitations were removed. 15 Jan 2008: Did meteors cause the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event? 4 Jan 2008: A sudden diversification of life..., if confirmed,... reinforces the idea that major evolutionary innovations occurred in bursts. Gene Hunt, "The relative importance of directional change, random walks, and stasis in the evolution of fossil lineages" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0704088104, p18404-18408 v104, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 20 Nov (online 14 Nov) 2007. "The rarity with which directional evolution was observed in this study corroborates a key claim of punctuated equilibria...." Antonis Rokas et al., "Animal Evolution and the Molecular Signature of Radiations Compressed in Time" [abstract], 10.1126/science.1116759, p 1933-1938 v 310, Science, 23 Dec 2006. "The differences ...suggest that the early history of metazoans was a radiation compressed in time, a finding that is in agreement with paleontological inferences." Ancient crustacean raises new questions, by Ivan Noble, BBC News Online, 19 July 2001: 511 million-year-old fossil supports Cambrian expolsion. Carol Kaesuk Yoon, "Fossil Findings May Force Revisions in the History of Life" [text], The New York Times, 22 May 2001. "The real peak of life's diversity may have come and gone more than 400 million years ago." 1999, November 3: Fossils of primitive fish have been found in the Lower Cambrian.

Richard Dawkins writes that the eye could evolve easily, by chance, in tiny steps. In an article entitled "The Eye in a Twinkling," he discusses how improvements of only one percent each could lead, in only some 400,000 generations, to the eye of a fish (15). He says eyes could have evolved many times, as they must have, because there are about 40 different kinds of eyes.

If eyes have evolved as Dawkins describes, by chance, then the genetic program to coordinate all the embryological steps in the growth of an eye (of each type) would evolve only after the genes for the steps themselves had evolved. Yet recently, scientists learned that the same gene coordinating the embryological steps in eye-making works in wasps and mice! The coordinating gene must have come first. "The observation that mammals and insects, which have evolved
separately for more than 500 million years, share the same master control gene for eye morphogenesis indicates that the genetic control mechanisms for development are much more universal than anticipated" (16). In March, 1997, a group of scientists at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and the University of Basel in Switzerland reported that a gene controlling eye development is shared by fruitflies, mice, and squid (17). These startling developments have made theorists reconsider how eyes evolved (18).

A coordinating gene that works the same way in very different animals is not confined to the eye. Homeotic genes in Drosophila (the fruitflies often used to study genetics) are known to control the expression of at least twenty of the fly's genes. Homeotic genes can be identified by the presence in them of a sequence 180 nucleotides long called a homeobox. "The big surprise concerning homeoboxes came in 1984 with the discovery of a homeobox, very similar to the Drosophila ones in a vertebrate, the toad Xenopus laevis. Soon afterwards the first mammalian homeoboxes were located..." (19). Coordinating genes appear to be standardized across a broad range of multicelled animals. And in March, 1997, biologists from the John Innes Centre for Plant Science Research in Norwich, England and Caltech found impressive similarities between homeotic genes in the fruitfly and a flowering plant (20).

It is difficult for neo-Darwinism to explain the appearance of embryological coordinating genes before the appearance of the embryological steps they coordinate. It's as if the blueprints for assembly-line manufacturing plants were on hand before the invention of assembly-line manufacturing.

(Coordinating Genes) 26 Aug 2009: "The Origin of Life on Earth" in a Scientific American Special Issue: "Understanding Origins". Wayne L. Davies et al., "Into the blue: Gene duplication and loss underlie color vision adaptations in a deep-sea chimaera, the elephant shark Callorhinchus milii" [abstract], doi:10.1101/gr.084509.108, p 415-426 v 19, Genome Research, Mar (online 4 Feb) 2009. 25 Jun 2008: Vertebrate and jellyfish eyes use similar genes. 21 May 2005: The key to early eye evolution? A highly conserved mechanism ...points to a common evolutionary origin of animal eyes. "The mechanisms used to control nerve cell formation in the zebrafish and fruitfly eyes thus appear to be exact copies of each other." Carl Neumann, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tuebingen, 22 September 2000.

"Convergent evolution" has been observed since the time of Darwin. It is the name given to apparent coincidences in evolution, such as the physical similarity between sharks (fish) and dolphins (mammals), or the parallelism in the cochlea of birds and mammals. A striking example is the resemblance between the Tasmanian wolf, which is an Australian marsupial "dog," and mammalian dogs common on other continents. Although the two would be very far apart on a phylogenetic tree, it takes a skilled zoologist to distinguish them by anatomical features like the skeleton. And examples of convergence also appear at the molecular level, as in similar antibody proteins carried by camels and nurse sharks. As The New York Times observes, "The more scientists look, the more examples of convergence they find" (21).

Neo-Darwinism accounts for the phenomenon by supposing that evolutionary options are often severely restricted by circumstances. "Convergences keep happening because organisms keep wanting to do similar things, and there are only so many ways of doing them," says molecular biologist Rudolf A. Raff of Indiana University (22). So the phenomenon has been named "the principle of convergence" or "convergent evolution." But naming the problem doesn't mean it has been explained. The renowned Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould believes that slight differences in the course of evolution should lead to totally different outcomes. If so, convergence is baffling. A discerning witness is justified in wondering if neo-Darwinism adequately explains convergence, or if another theory might account for it better.

(Convergent Evolution) Sishuo Wang et al., "Long-Lasting Gene Conversion Shapes the Convergent Evolution of the Critical Methanogenesis Genes," doi:10.1534/g3.115.020180, G3, online 16 Sep 2015. M. Sabrina Pankey et al., "Predictable transcriptome evolution in the convergent and complex bioluminescent organs of squid" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1416574111, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 4 Nov 2014. "Unless there are strong constraints, the probability of complex organs originating multiple times through similar trajectories should be vanishingly small." 27 Jun 2014: The same genes were recruited within the different species to make evolutionarily new structures that function similarly. Sylvain Aubry, Steven Kelly et al., "Deep Evolutionary Comparison of Gene Expression Identifies Parallel Recruitment of Trans-Factors in Two Independent Origins of C4 Photosynthesis" [html], doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1004365, 10(6): e1004365, PLoS Genet, online 5 Jun 2014. Joe Parker et al., "Genome-wide signatures of convergent evolution in echolocating mammals" [html], doi:10.1038/nature12511, Nature, online 4 Sep 2013; and commentary: Queen Mary scientists uncover genetic similarities between bats and dolphins, Queen Mary University of London, 4 Sep 2013. Nicols Frankel et al., "Conserved regulatory architecture underlies parallel genetic changes and convergent phenotypic evolution" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1207715109, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 29 Nov 2012. Mario Ventura et al., "Gorilla genome structural variation reveals evolutionary parallelisms with chimpanzee" [abstract], doi:10.1101/gr.124461.111, p1640-1649 v21, Genome Research, Oct 2011. Flajnik MF, Deschacht N, Muyldermans S, "A Case Of Convergence: Why Did a Simple Alternative to Canonical Antibodies Arise in Sharks and Camels?" [html], doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001120, 9(8): e1001120, PLoS Biol, online 2 Aug 2011. S. Hollis Woodard, Brielle J. Fischman et al., "Genes involved in convergent evolution of eusociality in bees" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1103457108, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 11 Apr 2011. And commentary: The genes that make a bee sociable by Ewen Callaway, Nature.com, 11 Apr 2011. "Now, a genomic study of different bee species suggests that even when insects evolve eusociality independently, they often use the same genes and molecular pathways." Naomi J. Brown et al., "Independent and Parallel Recruitment of Preexisting Mechanisms Underlying C4 Photosynthesis" [abstract], doi:10.1126/science.1201248, p1436-1439 v331, Science, 18 Mar 2011. David B
. Wake et al., "Homoplasy: From Detecting Pattern to Determining Process and Mechanism of Evolution" [abstract], doi:10.1126/science.1188545, p1032-1035 v331, Science, 25 Feb 2011. "Common developmental genetic mechanisms have been shown to underlie features that long were considered classic examples of convergent evolution." Homoplasy: A Good Thread to Pull to Understand the Evolutionary Ball of Yarn, Press Release 11-041, National Science Foundation, 24 Feb 2011. "...The evolution of eyes, which evolved many times in different groups of organisms--from invertebrates to mammals--all of which share an identical genetic code for their eyes." John J. Wiens, "Re-evolution of lost mandibular teeth in frogs after more than 200 million years, and re-evaluating Dollo's law" [abstract], doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01221.x, Evolution, online 27 Jan 2011. ...Re-Evolution Of Lost Teeth In Frogs After More Than 200 Million Years, Stony Brook University, 7 Feb 2011. 18 Jan 2011: Many features appear to have originated more than once in the history of life on Earth. Julius Lukes et al., "Cascades of convergent evolution: The corresponding evolutionary histories of euglenozoans and dinoflagellates" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0901004106, p 9963-9970 v 106, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 16 Jun 2009. Todd A. Castoe et al., "Evidence for an ancient adaptive episode of convergent molecular evolution" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0900233106, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 28 Apr 2009. Bastien Boussau et al., "Parallel adaptations to high temperatures in the Archaean eon" [abstract], doi:10.1038/nature07393, p 942-946 v 456, Nature, 18-25 Dec 2008. Juan C. Opazo et al., "Genomic evidence for independent origins of -like globin genes in monotremes and therian mammals" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0710531105, p 1590-1595 v 105, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 23 Jan 2008. 28 Jan 2006: Important aspects of the history of life are replicable and predictable. 16 Mar 2005: Life's Solution, by Simon Conway Morris. Spider webs untangle evolution "...The concept that chance reigns supreme may ring less true when it comes to complex behaviours." Roxanne Khamsi, News@Nature.com, 1 Nov 2004. Juan Carlos Santos et al., "Multiple, recurring origins of aposematism and diet specialization in poison frogs" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.2133521100, p 12792-12797 v 100, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 28 Oct 2003. Moya Meredith Smith and Zerina Johanson, "Separate Evolutionary Origins of Teeth from Evidence in Fossil Jawed Vertebrates" [abstract], doi:10.1126/science.1079623, p 1235-1236 v 299, Science, 21 Feb 2003. 23 Jan 2003: Wingless stick insects have re-evolved wings, perhaps many times. Poles apart, molars together "The teeth that might have allowed mammals to develop ...into today's relative giants arose twice on different continents." Juliette Shackleton, Nature Science Update, 4 January 2001.

Ernst Mayr's 1988 classic, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology, asks the question, "Does Microevolution Explain Macroevolution?" (24). The issue came into sharper focus after Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould introduced the concept of "punctuated equilibrium" into the discussion of evolution. Microevolution would occur during stasis, and macroevolution at the punctuation points. This scenario is inconsistent with neo-Darwinian gradualism, according to which macroevolution is simply cumulative microevolution over long periods of time. The question challenges standard neo-Darwinism at its heart.

In our opinion, neo-Darwinism adequately accounts for microevolution. Changes in existing allele frequencies are already known to cause microevolution such as the darkening of the English moth's wings. A single nucleotide substitution can alter a virus's protein coat into one that the host's immune system doesn't recognize. The insertion or deletion of a single nucleotide causes a nonsense mutation that would disable, for example, a promoter or repressor sequence, thereby switching other whole genetic programs off or on.

Macroevolutionary progress such as the evolution of photosynthesis, on the other hand, requires wholly new genes with lengthy new instruction sequences. Whereas a new gene can be activated by a single point mutation, as mentioned above, there is scant evidence that new genes can be composed by Darwinian random point mutations and recombination events. Examples supporting this composition method are very few and weak.

Notice the term "progress" in the preceding paragraph. Any significant advance in evolution requires new genes. But loss of function, of course, can occur without new genes. So, macroevolutionary loss of function is not hard to explain. The real question is, "Does microevolutionary progress explain macroevolutionary progress?"

An excellent example of microevolutionary progress was discovered in 1999, by geneticists and ophthalmologists at University College London. From sequences of opsin genes they have deduced a plausible way for trichromatic vision in the howler monkey to have evolved from dichromatic vision by neo-Darwinian gene duplication followed by nucleotide substitutions in one copy. Their analysis of the control regions of the genes, which are upstream of the coding regions, confirms the duplication. Interestingly, of the approximately 80 nucleotides from the coding region of the two genes that were compared, only one nucleotide was not identical. This plausible mutation causes a single amino acid substitution in the second howler opsin that changes its color sensitivity. The changed gene makes 3-color vision possible (25). In a recently discovered closely related example only two amino acid substitutions account for the blue-shifted vision of coelacanths (26).

The howler monkeys' acquisition of trichromatic vision represents evolutionary progress, unquestionably. But the same neo-Darwinian microevolutionary mechanism has not been shown to be capable of manufacturing the wholly new genes necessary for macroevolutionary progress. We believe that another source for these new genes is necessary.

(Microevolution & Macroevolution) Chris M Rands et al., "Insights into the evolution of Darwin's finches from comparative analysis of the Geospiza magnirostris genome sequence" [html], doi:10.1186/1471-2164-14-95, n95 v14, BMC Genomics, 12 Feb 2013. Hiroshi Akashi et al., "Weak Selection and Protein Evolution" [abstract], doi:10.1534/genetics.112.140178, p15-31 v192, Genetics, 1 Sep 2012. 23 Feb 2012: Experimenters with a virus and its bacterial host in a quarantined system report a breakthrough. Tomohide Hiwatashi et al., "Gene conversion and purifying selection shape nucleotide
variation in gibbon L/M opsin genes" [abstract], doi:10.1186/1471-2148-11-312, v11 n312, BMC Evolutionary Biology, 22 Oct 2011. Takashi Tada et al., "Evolutionary replacement of UV vision by violet vision in fish" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0903839106, p17457-17462 v106, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 13 Oct 2009. "Mutagenesis experiments and ...computations show that the violet-sensitivity was achieved by the deletion of Phe-86...." 20 Sep 2008: Woodstock of evolution? Gerald H. Jacobs et al., "Emergence of Novel Color Vision in Mice Engineered to Express a Human Cone Photopigment" [abstract], 10.1126/science.1138838, p 1723-1725 v 315, Science, 23 Mar 2007. And commentary by Patrick Goymer, "Evolution: Colour vision for mice" [abstract], 10.1038/nrg2106, p 324-325 v 8, Nature Reviews Genetics, May 2007. 12 Nov 2006: The Making of the Fittest, by geneticist Sean B. Carroll, W. W. Norton, 2006. 23 Sep 2005: Today's protein families have been fine-tuned from ancient templates. Shozo Yokoyama and Naomi Takenaka, "The Molecular Basis of Adaptive Evolution of Squirrelfish Rhodopsins" [abstract], p 2071-2078 v 21 n 11, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Nov 2004: well-documented microevolution. 15 Jan 2004: Are normal microevolutionary processes sufficient to account for human origins? Uwe Stolz et al., "Darwinian natural selection for orange bioluminescent color in a Jamaican click beetle" [abstract], Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 17 Nov 2003: typical example of microevolution. 2003, April 7: Stephen Jay Gould's account of macroevolution, in a new Encyclopedia of Evolution.... Macroevolutionary Progress Redefined..., a new webpage, posted 4 Sep 2002.

Artificial selection never produces wholly new characteristics. Without the input of new genes, there is no evidence that natural selection does either. The notion that mutation and recombination can compose new genes is implausible. There is scant evidence that mutation and recombination can compose functional new genes that differ from any known predecessor by more than, say, a dozen essential nucleotides. The evolution of antifreeze glycoproteins in Antarctic cod presents problems for both Darwinism and Cosmic Ancestry. Evolution does not appear to be gradual, contrary to Darwin's firm prediction. The standard theory cannot explain why the coordinating genes that control the development of embryos and major features are often very similar across totally different species. Convergent evolution is a surprise not well-explained by neo-Darwinism. Macroevolutionary progress is not accounted for by neo-Darwinian microevolution.

Does the "Extended Synthesis" Replace or not Replace Neo-Darwinism?... by Suzan Mazur, Huffington Post, 30 Apr 2016. Evolution of stickleback in 50 years on earthquake-uplifted islands by Emily A. Lescak et al., doi:10.1073/pnas.1512020112, PNAS, 14 Dec 2015. If the findings from stickleback are generalizable to other systems, then rapid evolution in the wild may be more common than previously documented. When Fruit Flies Get Sick, Their Offspring Become More Diverse, North Carolina State University, (+Newswise), 13 Aug 2015. Kevin N. Laland et al., "The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions" [html | pdf], doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.1019, Proc. R. Soc. B, 22 Aug 2015. "...It is vital that the conceptual frameworks themselves evolve in response to new data, theories and methodologies. This is not always straightforward, as habits of thought and practice are often deeply entrenched." We wish the new conceptual framework included this question: Is open-ended evolutionary innovation possible in a quarantined system? Aashiq H. Kachroo et al., "Systematic humanization of yeast genes reveals conserved functions and genetic modularity" [abstract], doi:10.1126/science.aaa0769, p 921-925 v 348, Science, 22 May 2015. 16 Jul 2015: ...Neo-Darwinism isn't falsifiable.... Peter Saunders 28 Apr 2015: Diversity-generating retroelements (DGRs) use mutagenic reverse transcription and retrohoming to generate myriad variants of a target gene. Beyond genetics: illuminating the epigenome by Merlin Crossley, The Conversation, 20 Feb 2015. Sindhuja Devanapally et al., "Double-stranded RNA made in C. elegans neurons can enter the germline and cause transgenerational gene silencing" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1423333112, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 2 Feb 2015. 15 Oct 2014: Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? New Genetic 'Operating System' Facilitated Evolution of 'Bilateral' Animals, UC San Diego News Center (+PhysOrg.com), 30 Sep 2014. "They found that TRF2 is present in bilateral animals, and is absent in animals that lack bilateral symmetry, such as jellyfish, sea anemones and sponges." Bolhuis JJ, Tattersall I, Chomsky N, Berwick RC, "How Could Language Have Evolved?" [html], doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001934, 12(8): e1001934, PLoS Biol., 26 Aug 2014. "...The relatively sudden origin of language poses difficulties that may be called 'Darwin's problem.'" Anton S. Petrov et al., "Evolution of the ribosome at atomic resolution" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1407205111, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 30 Jun 2014. Evolution depends on rare chance events, "molecular time travel" experiments show, The University of Chicago Medicine (+Newswise), 19 Jun 2014. 7 Mar 2014: "Traditional evolutionary biology began in the 1930s...." Woltering JM, Noordermeer D, Leleu M, Duboule D, "Conservation and Divergence of Regulatory Strategies at Hox Loci and the Origin of Tetrapod Digits" [html], doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001773, 12(1): e1001773, PLoS Biol, 21 Jan 2014; and commentary: Mary Hoff, "A Footnote to the Evolution of Digits" [html], doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001774, 12(1): e1001774, PLoS Biol, 21 Jan 2014. "...Biologists should consider thinking in terms of regulatory circuitries rather than expression patterns when considering whether traits have arisen from a common ancestral characteristic." 20 Dec 2013: Eugene V. Koonin's book, The Logic of Chance Joana Projecto-Garcia, Chandrasekhar Natarajan et al., "Repeated elevational transitions in hemoglobin function during the evolution of Andean hummingbirds" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1315456110, p 20669-20674 v 110, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 17 Dec (online 2 Dec ) 2013. "These results demonstrate that repeated changes in biochemical phenotype involve parallelism at the molecular level...." Marc Kirschner, "Interview: Beyond Darwin: evolvability and the generation of novelty
" [html], doi:1186/1741-7007-11-110, n 110 v 11, BMC Biology, 7 Nov 2013. Darwinian evolution is clearly a good mechanism for improving things - but it is not necessarily a good mechanism for generating novelty. ...If you have processes that are already present but under suppression, then under stress you might see some of them emerge, and if you have fortuitous selection at the same time you can very quickly evolve. Evolution of new species requires few genetic changes, The University of Chicago Medicine (+Newswise), 31 Oct 2013. 2 Sep 2013: Metabolic systems ...contain a latent potential for evolutionary innovations with non-adaptive origins. 11 May 2013: ...TEs, and in particular ERVs, have contributed hundreds of thousands of novel regulatory elements to the primate lineage.... 30 Apr 2013: We don't fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level. Philip Ball Daniel W. McShea and Wim Hordijk, "Complexity by Subtraction" [abstract], doi:10.1007/s11692-013-9227-6, Evolutionary Biology, Apr 2013; and commentary: Study proposes alternative way to explain life's complexity, PhysOrg.com, 12 Apr 2013. Do plants 'veto' bad genes? by Heidi Ledford, Nature News, 8 Feb 2013. 20 Dec 2012: Evolution: A View from the 21st Century by James A. Shapiro Michael Lynch, "Evolutionary layering and the limits to cellular perfection" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.1216130109, p18851-18856 v109 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 13 Nov (online 30 Oct) 2012. A New Theory of Early Animal Evolution, Astrobiology Magazine, 14 Oct 2012. Bruce Stillman, David Stewart and Jan Witkowski, eds., Evolution: The Molecular Landscape (Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology LXXIV), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2009. Science Study Shows 'Promiscuous' Enzymes Still Prevalent in Metabolism, UC San Diego (also Newswise), 30 Aug 2012. Giving Ancient Life Another Chance to Evolve, Georgia Institute of Technology, 11 Jul 2012. ...Hypothesis May be Game Changer for Evolutionary Theory by Whitney Heins, The University of Tennessee, 4 Apr 2012. Evolution: This View of Life, "an online general interest magazine in which all of the content is from an evolutionary perspective. It includes content aggregated from the internet, following the example set by the Huffington Post, as well as new content generated by our staff of editors and contributing authors in eleven subject areas: biology, culture, health, arts, technology, religion, politics, mind, economy, environment, and education," Binghamton University, NY, launched Feb 2012. Ed Yong, "Yeast suggests speedy start for multicellular life" [html], doi:10.1038/nature.2012.9810, Nature, 16 Jan 2012. 10 Jan 2012: The mechanisms for this increase in complexity are incredibly simple, common occurrences Geneticist Joe Thornton Acquired Traits Can Be Inherited Via Small RNAs, Newswise, 5 Dec 2011. Cells may stray from 'central dogma' by Erika Check Hayden, doi:10.1038/news.2011.304, NatureNews, online 19 May 2011. Eric J. Hayden et al., "Cryptic genetic variation promotes rapid evolutionary adaptation in an RNA enzyme" [abstract], doi:10.1038/nature10083, p92-95 v474, Nature, 2 Jun 2011. Jeremy A. Draghi and Joshua B. Plotkin, "Molecular evolution: Hidden diversity sparks adaptation" [html], doi:10.1038/474045a, p45-46 v474, Nature, 2 Jun 2011. 18 Apr 2011: Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create Lynn Margulis 11 Jan 2011: Anomalies in mainstream evolutionary theory have prompted a major amendment to darwinism. Michael W. Gray et al., "Irremediable Complexity?" [summary], doi:10.1126/science.1198594, p920-921 v330, Science, 12 Nov 2010. "Much of the bewildering intricacy of cells could consist of originally fortuitous molecular interactions that have become more or less fixed by constructive neutral evolution." 13 Jun 2010: What Darwin Got Wrong by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini [book review]. 12 Apr 2010: Stan Franklin forwards Michael Ruse's book review and we reply. Bob Grant, "Should Evolutionary Theory Evolve?" [link: registration required], p24 v24, TheScientist, 01 Jan 2010. Hubertus J. E. Beaumont et al., "Experimental evolution of bet hedging" [abstract], doi:10.1038/nature08504, p90-93 v462, Nature, 5 Nov 2009. Ratchet-like genetic mutations make evolution irreversible, University of Oregon, 23 Sep 2009. 14 Sep 2009: If we didn't know about life we wouldn't believe it Richard Dawkins. After dinosaurs, mammals rise but their genomes get smaller, Indiana University News Room, 27 Jul 2009. 25 Jul 2009: Spermatozoa of all species can take up exogenous DNA or RNA molecules and internalize them into nuclei. 23 Jul 2009: Primate-specific genes were inserted de novo, not generated by gradual divergence from non-primate genes. The Deep Metazoan Phylogeny Project Joram Piatigorsky, Gene Sharing and Evolution: The Diversity of Protein Functions, Harvard University Press, 2007. 16 Mar 2009: ...gene transfers of various types... and other forms of acquisition of 'foreign genomes' ...are more important.... Lynn Margulis Henry Gee, Rory Howlett and Philip Campbell, "15 Evolutionary Gems" [17-page PDF], doi:10.1038/nature07740, Nature.com, online Jan 2009. Sergey Kryazhimskiy and Joshua B. Plotkin, "The Population Genetics of dN/dS" [article], doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000304, 4(12): e1000304, PLoS Genetics, online 12 Dec 2008. Daniel G. Gibson et al., "One-step assembly in yeast of 25 overlapping DNA fragments to form a complete synthetic Mycoplasma genitalium genome" [Open Access abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0811011106, p 20404-20409 v 105, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 23 Dec (online 10 Dec) 2008. 27 Nov 2008: The discovery answers an age-old question that has puzzled biologists since the time of Darwin.... Andrew L. Hufton et al., "Early vertebrate whole genome duplications were predated by a period of intense genome rearrangement" [abstract], doi:10.1101/gr.080119.108, p 1582-1591 v 18, Genome Research, online 17 Sep 2008. Elizabeth Pennisi, "Deciphering the Genetics of Evolution" [link], doi:10.1126/science.321.5890.760, p 760-763 v 321, Science, 8 Aug 2008. "Powerful personalities lock horns over how the genome changes to set the stage for evolution." Ben-Yang Liao and Jianzhi Zhang, "Null mutations in human and mouse orthologs frequently result in different phenotypes" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0800387105, p 6987-6992 v 105, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 13 May (online 5 May) 2008. "...We find that >20% of human essential genes have nonessenti
al mouse orthologs." Todd A. Sangster et al., "HSP90-buffered genetic variation is common in Arabidopsis thaliana" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0712210105, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 19 Feb 2008. "...HSP90 is likely to occupy a central position in the translation of genotypic variation into phenotypic differences." Todd A. Sangster et al., "HSP90 affects the expression of genetic variation and developmental stability in quantitative traits" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0712200105, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 19 Feb 2008. Shocking Evolution Into Action, by Nicole Giese, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, 18 Feb 2008 | also on Newswise.com. "The abundance of naturally occurring genetic variation that is affected by Hsp90 was remarkable." Inheritance via RNA is the subject of a Reply from Stan Franklin, 4 Jan 2008. Committee on Revising Science and Creationism, Science, Evolution, and Creationism [link], ISBN: 0-309-10587-0, National Academies Press, 2008. 19 Dec 2007: The ancestor of earthly life was molecularly complex. Anthony Poole and David Penny, "Eukaryote evolution: Engulfed by speculation" [text], 10.1038/447913a, p 913 v 447, Nature, 21 Jun 2007. "The onus is on proponents, not sceptics, to find evidence for their theories." Exploring the Dark Matter of the Genome, Physorg.com, 15 Jun 2007. Rajkumar Sasidharan and Cyrus Chothia, "The selection of acceptable protein mutations" [abstract], 10.1073/pnas.0703737104, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 31 May 2007. "This work implies that commonly allowed mutations are selected by a set of general constraints that are well defined and whose nature varies with divergence." Jicheng Wang et al., "Evidence for mutation showers" [abstract], 10.1073/pnas.0610902104, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 7 May 2007. Suzanne Estes and Stevan J. Arnold, "Resolving the Paradox of Stasis: Models with Stabilizing Selection Explain Evolutionary Divergence on All Timescales" [abstract | 18-page PDF], doi:10.1086/510633, p 227-244 v 169, The American Naturalist, Feb (online 4 Jan) 2007. Also see commentary: Andrew Hendry, "The Elvis paradox" [PDF], doi:10.1038/446147a, p 147-149 v 446, Nature, 8 Mar 2007. Jun Gojobori et al., "Adaptive evolution in humans revealed by the negative correlation between the polymorphism and fixation phases of evolution" [abstract], 10.1073/pnas.0605565104, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 26 Feb 2007. No Missing Link? Evolutionary Changes Occur Suddenly, Professor Says, ScienceDaily.com, 12 Feb 2007. Scientists Discover Parallel Codes In Genes, ScienceDaily.com, 9 Feb 2007. Genetic information: Codes and enigmas, doi:10.1038/444259a, by Helen Pearson, News@Nature.com, online 15 Nov 2006. Christopher D Herring, Anu Raghunathan, Christiane Honisch et al., "Comparative genome sequencing of Escherichia coli allows observation of bacterial evolution on a laboratory timescale" [abstract], 10.1038/ng1906, Nature Genetics, online 5 Nov 2006. "We obtained proof that the observed spontaneous mutations were responsible for improved fitness by creating single, double and triple site-directed mutants...." Orkun S. Soyer and Sebastian Bonhoeffer, "Evolution of complexity in signaling pathways" [abstract], 10.1073/pnas.0604449103, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 23 Oct 2006. "...Pathways could be driven toward complexity via simple evolutionary mechanisms...." 3 Oct 2006: Can plants overwrite unhealthy genes? P M Brakefield and V French, "Evo-devo focus issue: Editorial" [text], 10.1038/sj.hdy.6800878, p 137-138 v 97, Heredity, Sep 2006. "...The basic mechanisms of embryonic development are extremely ancient and have been highly conserved.... Evo-devo... should continue to reveal how genetic change in the processes of development can lead to the abundant diversity in form that we observe in nature." 7 Jun 2006: Blowflies were preadapted for the rapid evolution of insecticide resistance. Daniel M. Weinreich et al., "Darwinian Evolution Can Follow Only Very Few Mutational Paths to Fitter Proteins" [abstract], p 111-114 v 312, Science, 7 Apr 2006. About optimization: 5 certain a-a substitutions could theoretically be reached 5!=120 ways, but only 10 of them are likely to be permitted by natural selection. T. Martin Embley1 and William Martin, "Eukaryotic evolution, changes and challenges" [abstract], p 623-630 v 440, Nature, 30 Mar 2006. 19 Feb 2006: Why has there has been so little change in major body plans since the Early Cambrian? 14 Feb 2006: Researchers evolve a complex genetic trait in the laboratory? 5 Jan 2006: "Evolution in Action" was the number one "Breakthrough of the Year" according to Science. 31 Oct 2005: The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma, by Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart, Yale University Press, 2005. 30 Sep 2005: The chimp genome has been sequenced. At least seventeen human genes contain exons missing in chimps. Could evo-devo account for genetic novelty? Stan Franklin wonders, 25 Jul 2005. 14 Jul 2005: The World Summit on Evolution in the Galapagos Islands, 8-12 June 2005. University of Chicago study overturns conventional theory in evolution, by Catherine Gianaro, EurekAlert!, 7 Jun 2005. Alarm pheromone causes aphids to sprout wings, by Lynne Miller, EurekAlert!, 18 May 2005. Tohru Sugawara et al., "Parallelism of amino acid changes at the RH1 affecting spectral sensitivity among deep-water cichlids from Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi" [abstract], p 5448-5453 v 102, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 12 Apr 2005. "...The number of genetic changes underlying the appearance of similar traits in cichlid diversification may be fewer than previously expected." 24 Mar 2005: Plants can overwrite unhealthy genes. 15 Mar 2005: "Biology today is no more fully understood in principle than physics was a century or so ago." Andrew P. Hendry, "The power of natural selection," p 694-695 v 433, Nature, 17 Feb 2005. "We are only deluding ourselves that we have a good handle on the typical power of selection in nature." 16 Feb 2005: Fitness Landscapes. I King Jordan et al., "A universal trend of amino acid gain and loss in protein evolution" [abstract], doi:10.1038/nature03306, p 633-638 v 433, Nature, 10 Feb 2005. 4 Feb 2005: Ernst Mayr died yesterday at 100 years of age. H. Allen Orr, "The Genetic Theory of Adaptation: A Brief History" [open access], doi:10.1038/nrg1523, p 119-127 v 6, Nature Reviews Genetics, Feb 2005. Our comment adaptation has a very short reach. Rachel B. Brem and Leonid Kruglyak, "The landscape of genetic complexity across 5,700 gene expression traits in yeast" [abstract], 10.1073/pnas.040870910
2, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 19 Jan 2005. "Most detected QTLs (quantitative trait loci) have weak effects." Kenneth M. Weiss and Anne V. Buchanan, Genetics and the Logic of Evolution, ISBN: 0471238058, Wiley-Liss (John Wiley and Sons, Inc.), 9 Jan 2004. 21 Nov 2004: Vertebrate photoreceptor cells in a primitive invertebrate. 14 Nov 2004: The birth of a new gene unique to apes and humans.... Sinad Collins and Graham Bell, "Phenotypic consequences of 1,000 generations of selection at elevated CO2 in a green alga," p 566 - 569 v 431 Nature, 30 Sep 2004. "...Selection lines of the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas failed to evolve specific adaptation to a CO2 concentration of 1,050 parts per million." Emma Marris, "Tibetans show 'evolution in action'" [story], 10.1038/news040913-20, News@nature.com, 16 Sep 2004. "A gene for well oxygenated blood is spreading in the Himalayas." (Once a gene is available, natural selection works on it.) Flies with inner ears? by David Secko, The Scientist, 13 Sep 2004. "...The gene could direct the development of an organ it does not even possess." 25 Jul 2004: 100 years old, Ernst Mayr reviews the development evolutionary thought in Science. David J. Amor et al., "Human centromere repositioning 'in progress'" [abstract], p 6542-6547 v 101, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 27 Apr 2004. The Most Natural Selection, by Steven Kotler, LA Weekly, 18 Apr 2004. If evolution rewards only reproductive success, why does homosexuality persist? 16 Apr 2004: The rat genome has been sequenced. 14 Apr 2004: "Can we ever hope to pin down the genetic changes that underlie the big steps in evolution?" 24 Feb 2004: Evolution caught in the act? Erik R. Zinser et al., "Bacterial Evolution Through the Selective Loss of Beneficial Genes: Trade-Offs in Expression Involving Two Loci" [abstract], p 1271-1277 v 164, Genetics, August 2003. Adaptation by gene loss can happen a third way. 2003, August 29: "...We must conclude that there are no detailed Darwinian accounts..." (Franklin M. Harold, 2001). Redundant Evolution, by Leslie Mullen, Astrobiology Magazine, 28 Apr 2003. 2003, April 16: Point mutations are less important than rearrangements of longer DNA strands in evolution.... A new branch on the tree of life, by Lynn Yarris, ScienceBeat, 4 Apr 2003. "Nature, it seems, found two different ways to evolve six legs." 2003, March 25: Here Be Dragons, by David W. Koerner and Simon Levay. 2003, March 3: What Evolution Is, by Ernst Mayr. Testing Darwinism versus Cosmic Ancestry a new CA webpage, 24 Nov 2002. Steve Olson, "Seeking the Signs of Selection" [summary], p 1324-1325 v 298, Science, 15 Nov 2002. Fossil protein breakthrough will probe evolution, by Fred Pearce, NewScientist.com, 13 Nov 2002. "...Osteocalcin can survive ...long enough to look back ...to the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees." Paul Raeburn, "'Of Moths and Men': The Moth That Failed" (book review) [text], The New York Times, 25 Aug 2001. Fossils Help Determine When Humans, Apes Diverged, nationalgeographic.com, 23 Aug 2002. "The gene,... was mutated (knocked out) in humans in comparison with the normal, intact gene in apes." 2002, July 14: Mouse vs Human 2002, Jul 7: Acquiring Genomes. Science Mimicking, Perhaps Even Predicting, Evolution about basic research that supports Darwinism, by Jonathan Sherwood, UniSci.com, 21 Mar 2002. 2002, Mar 2: Correction. 2002, Feb 8: Biologists demonstrate macroevolution and thus answer a major challenge to darwinism by creationists. 2001, December 21: A gene needed for multcellularity is present in a single-celled organism. Squirrels 'genetically altered' by forest. Actually they were altered by genes acquired from other squirrels. BBCNews, 21 Sep 2001. Donald R. Forsdyke, The Origin of Species, Revisited [contents, publisher's promo], McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001. 2001, May 28: Eukaryote-to-prokaryote evolution in 15 days?! 2000, December 26: An email to Massimo Pigliucci recaps the argument against Darwinism. 2000, December 15: Mutation appears to double lifespan of flies. 2000, November 23: Monad to Man, by Michael Ruse, about evolutionary progress. 2000, September 27: Prions can turn on genetic programs. 1999, July 15: A recent issue of Science features evolution. 1999, June 3: Example of microevolution. 1998, August 25: We owe the repertoire of our immune system to one transposon insertion, which occurred 450 million years ago in the ancestor of the jawed fishes. Was Darwin Wrong? The critics of evolution. Links to even-handed book reviews by Gert Korthof. The reviews have further links. The Tree of Life: an excellent growing illustrated resource on the classifications of life. Enter Evolution: Theory and History. Evolutionary scientists before Darwin, from UC Berkeley. Evolution, Science, and Society: a "white paper" on behalf of the field of evolutionary biology [Executive Summary] by Douglas J. Futuyma et al., revised Mar 1997.

1. Francisco J. Ayala and Theodosius Dobzhansky, eds. Studies in the Philosophy of Biology: Reduction and Related Problems. University of California Press 1974. p 364. 2. Lynn Margulis, [interviewed in] The Third Culture by John Brockman, Simon and Schuster, 1995. p 133. 3. Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden, BasicBooks, 1995. p 70. 3.5. Michael T. Madigan, John M. Martinko and Jack Parker, Brock Biology of Microorganisms, eighth edition, Prentice Hall, 1997. p 332. 4. Renato Dulbecco, The Design of Life, Yale University Press, 1987. p 122. 4.5. Walter M. Fitch, Robin M. Bush, Catherine A. Bender and Nancy J. Cox, "Long term trends in the evolution of H(3) HA1 human influenza type A," p 7712-7718 v 94, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, July 1997. 5. Manfred Eigen, "New Concepts for Dealing with the Evolution of Nucleic Acids," p 307-320, Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, Volume LII: Evolution of Catalytic Function, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1987. 6. Liangbiao Chen, Arthur L. DeVries and Chi-Hing C. Cheng. "Evolution of antifreeze protein from a trypsinogen gene in Antarctic notothenioid fish" [abstract], p 3811-3816 v 94, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, April 1997. 7. John M. Logsdon, Jr., and W. Ford Doolittle. "Origin of antifreeze protein genes: A cool tale in molecular evolution" [text], p 3485-3487 v 94, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, April 1997. 8. Liangbiao Chen, Arthur L. DeVries and Chi-Hing C. Cheng, "Convergent evolution of antifreeze glysoproteins in Anta
rctic notothenioid fish and Arctic Cod" [abstract], p 3817-3822 v 94, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, April 1997. 9. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. London: Verso Publishing, 1978. p 60. 10. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 6th edition, 1872; Down, England: Senate, 1994. p 146. The text of the first edition is available on the Internet: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1859. 11. Samuel A. Bowring, John P. Grotzinger, Clark E. Isachsen, Andrew H. Knoll, Shane M. Pelechaty and Peter Kolosov, "Calibrating Rates of Early Cambrian Evolution," p 1293-1298 v 261, Science, 3 September 1993. 12. Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, W.W. Norton and Company, 1989. 13. Madeleine J. Nash, "When Life Exploded," p 66-74, Time, 4 December 1995. 14. J.B.S. Haldane, On Being the Right Size and other essays, John Maynard Smith, ed., Oxford University Press, 1987. Includes the essay, "The Origin of Life," 1928. p 12. 15. Richard Dawkins, "The eye in a twinkling" p 690-691 v 368, Nature, 21 April 1994. 16. Georg Halder, Patrick Callaerts and Walter J. Gehring, "Induction of Ectopic Eyes by Targeted Expression of the eyeless Gene in Drosophila" [abstract], p 1788-1792 v 267, Science, 24 March 1995. 17. Constance Holden, "On the Path of the Primordial Eye" [html], p 1885 v 275, Science, 28 March 1997. 18. John Travis, "Eye-opening Gene: How many times did eyes arise?" in ScienceNewsOnline. 10 May 1997. 19. T.A. Brown, Genetics: A Molecular Approach, 2nd edition, Chapman and Hall, 1992. p 171. 20. Justin Goodrich, Preeya Puangsomlee, Marta Martin, Deborah Long, Elliot M. Meyerowitz and George Coupland, "A Polycomb-group gene regulates homeotic gene expression in Arabidosis," p 44-51 v 386, Nature, 6 March 1997. 20.5. Robert Macchiarelli "The whole tooth" [interview], p 349 v 425, Nature, 25 Sep 2003. 21. Natalie Angie, "When Evolution Creates the Same Design Again and Again," The New York Times, December 15, 1998. 22. Natalie Angie, "When Evolution Creates the Same Design Again and Again," The New York Times, December 15, 1998. 23. Neil A. Campbell, Biology, 3rd Edition, The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc., 1993. p G17-G18. 24. Ernst Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist, Harvard University Press, 1988. p 402. 25. KS Dulai, M von Dornum, JD Mollon and DM Hunt, "The evolution of trichromatic color vision by opsin gene duplication in New World and Old World primates," p 629-638 v 9 n 7, Genome Research, July 1999. 26. Shozo Yokoyama, Huan Zhang, F. Bernhard Radlwimmer and Nathan S. Blow, "Adaptive evolution of color vision of the Comoran coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae)" [abstract], p 6279-6284 v 96, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 25 May 1999. Also duscussed in "What'sNEW," 3 June 1999. 27. Karl R. Popper, "Two Faces of Common Sense..." p 32-105, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Oxford University Press, 1972. p 69. 28. Robert Rosen, Life Itself: A Comprehensive Inquiry Into the Nature, Origin and Fabrication of Life, Columbia University Press, 1991. p 255. 29. Steve Fuller, Science, ISBN: 0-8166-3125-5, University of Minnesota Press, 1997. p 18.

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Neo-Darwinism : The Current Paradigm. by Brig Klyce

Social Darwinism is a name given to various theories of society which emerged in the United Kingdom, North America, and Western Europe in the 1870s, and which claim to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics.[1][2] According to their critics, at least, social Darwinists argue that the strong should see their wealth and power increase while the weak should see their wealth and power decrease. Different social-Darwinist groups have differing views about which groups of people are considered to be the strong and which groups of people are considered to be the weak, and they also hold different opinions about the precise mechanisms that should be used to reward strength and punish weakness. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism, while others are claimed[by whom?] to have motivated ideas of authoritarianism, eugenics, racism, imperialism,[3]fascism, Nazism, and struggle between national or racial groups.[4][5]

The term Social Darwinism gained widespread currency when used after 1944 by opponents of these earlier concepts. The majority of those who have been categorised as social Darwinists did not identify themselves by such a label.[6]

Creationists have often maintained that social Darwinismleading to policies designed to reward the most competitiveis a logical consequence of "Darwinism" (the theory of natural selection in biology).[7] Biologists and historians have stated that this is a fallacy of appeal to nature, since the theory of natural selection is merely intended as a description of a biological phenomenon and should not be taken to imply that this phenomenon is good or that it ought to be used as a moral guide in human society.[citation needed] While most scholars recognize some historical links between the popularisation of Darwin's theory and forms of social Darwinism, they also maintain that social Darwinism is not a necessary consequence of the principles of biological evolution.

Scholars debate the extent to which the various social Darwinist ideologies reflect Charles Darwin's own views on human social and economic issues. His writings have passages that can be interpreted as opposing aggressive individualism, while other passages appear to promote it.[8] Some scholars argue that Darwin's view gradually changed and came to incorporate views from other theorists such as Herbert Spencer.[9] Spencer published[10] his Lamarckian evolutionary ideas about society before Darwin first published his theory in 1859, and both Spencer and Darwin promoted their own conceptions of moral values. Spencer supported laissez-faire capitalism on the basis of his Lamarckian belief that struggle for survival spurred self-improvement which could be inherited.[11]

The term first appeared in Europe in 1877,[12] and around this time it was used by sociologists opposed to the concept.[13] The term was popularized in the United States in 1944 by the American historian Richard Hofstadter who used it in the ideological war effort against fascism to denote a reactionary creed which promoted competitive strife, racism and chauvinism. Hofstadter later also recognized (what he saw as) the influence of Darwinist and other evolutionary ideas upon those with collectivist views, enough to devise a term for the phenomenon, "Darwinist collectivism".[3] Before Hofstadter's work the use of the term "social Darwinism" in English academic journals was quite rare.[14] In fact,

... there is considerable evidence that the entire concept of "social Darwinism" as we know it today was virtually invented by Richard Hofstadter. Eric Foner, in an introduction to a then-new edition of Hofstadter's book published in the early 1990s, declines to go quite that far. "Hofstadter did not invent the term Social Darwinism", Foner writes, "which originated in Europe in the 1860s and crossed the Atlantic in the early twentieth century. But before he wrote, it was used only on rare occasions; he made it a standard shorthand for a complex of late-nineteenth-century ideas, a familiar part of the lexicon of social thought."

The term "social Darwinism" has rarely been used by advocates of the supposed ideologies or ideas; instead it has almost always been used pejoratively by its opponents.[6] The term draws upon the common use of the term Darwinism, which has been used to describe a range of evolutionary views, but in the late 19th century was applied more specifically to natural selection as first advanced by Charles Darwin to explain speciation in populations of organisms. The process includes competition between individuals for limited resources, popularly but inaccurately described by the phrase "survival of the fittest", a term coined by sociologist Herbert Spencer.

While the term has been applied to the claim that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection can be used to understand the social endurance of a nation or country, social Darwinism commonly refers to ideas that predate Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species. Others whose ideas are given the label include the 18th century clergyman Thomas Malthus, and Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who founded eugenics towards the end of the 19th century.

The term Darwinism had been coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in his April 1860 review of "On the Origin of Species",[15] and by the 1870s it was used to describe a range of concepts of evolutionism or development, without any specific commitment to Charles Darwin's own theory.[16]

The first use of the phrase "social Darwinism" was in Joseph Fisher's 1877 article on The History of Landholding in Ireland which was published in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.[12] Fisher was commenting on how a system for borrowing livestock which had been called "tenure" had led to the false impression that the early Irish had already evolved or developed land tenure;[17]

These arrangements did not in any way affect that which we understand by the word " tenure", that is, a man's farm, but they related solely to cattle, which we consider a chattel. It has appeared necessary to devote some space to this subject, inasmuch as that usually acute writer Sir Henry Maine has accepted the word " tenure " in its modern interpretation, and has built up a theory under which the Irish chief " developed " into a feudal baron. I can find nothing in the Brehon laws to warrant this theory of social Darwinism, and believe further study will show that the Cain Saerrath and the Cain Aigillue relate solely to what we now call chattels, and did not in any way affect what we now call the freehold, the possession of the land.

Despite the fact that social Darwinism bears Charles Darwin's name, it is also linked today with others, notably Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics. In fact, Spencer was not described as a social Darwinist until the 1930s, long after his death.[18]

Darwin himself gave serious consideration to Galton's work, but considered the ideas of "hereditary improvement" impractical. Aware of weaknesses in his own family, Darwin was sure that families would naturally refuse such selection and wreck the scheme. He thought that even if compulsory registration was the only way to improve the human race, this illiberal idea would be unacceptable, and it would be better to publicize the "principle of inheritance" and let people decide for themselves.[19]

In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex of 1882 Darwin described ho
w medical advances meant that the weaker were able to survive and have families, and as he commented on the effects of this, he cautioned that hard reason should not override sympathy and considered how other factors might reduce the effect:

Thus the weak members of civilized 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. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. ... We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.[20]

Herbert Spencer's ideas, like those of evolutionary progressivism, stemmed from his reading of Thomas Malthus, and his later theories were influenced by those of Darwin. However, Spencer's major work, Progress: Its Law and Cause (1857), was released two years before the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and First Principles was printed in 1860.

In The Social Organism (1860), Spencer compares society to a living organism and argues that, just as biological organisms evolve through natural selection, society evolves and increases in complexity through analogous processes.[21]

In many ways, Spencer's theory of cosmic evolution has much more in common with the works of Lamarck and Auguste Comte's positivism than with Darwin's.

Jeff Riggenbach argues that Spencer's view was that culture and education made a sort of Lamarckism possible[1] and notes that Herbert Spencer was a proponent of private charity.[1]

Spencer's work also served to renew interest in the work of Malthus. While Malthus's work does not itself qualify as social Darwinism, his 1798 work An Essay on the Principle of Population, was incredibly popular and widely read by social Darwinists. In that book, for example, the author argued that as an increasing population would normally outgrow its food supply, this would result in the starvation of the weakest and a Malthusian catastrophe.

According to Michael Ruse, Darwin read Malthus' famous Essay on a Principle of Population in 1838, four years after Malthus' death. Malthus himself anticipated the social Darwinists in suggesting that charity could exacerbate social problems.

Another of these social interpretations of Darwin's biological views, later known as eugenics, was put forth by Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, in 1865 and 1869. Galton argued that just as physical traits were clearly inherited among generations of people, the same could be said for mental qualities (genius and talent). Galton argued that social morals needed to change so that heredity was a conscious decision in order to avoid both the over-breeding by less fit members of society and the under-breeding of the more fit ones.

In Galton's view, social institutions such as welfare and insane asylums were allowing inferior humans to survive and reproduce at levels faster than the more "superior" humans in respectable society, and if corrections were not soon taken, society would be awash with "inferiors". Darwin read his cousin's work with interest, and devoted sections of Descent of Man to discussion of Galton's theories. Neither Galton nor Darwin, though, advocated any eugenic policies restricting reproduction, due to their Whiggish distrust of government.[22]

Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy addressed the question of artificial selection, yet Nietzsche's principles did not concur with Darwinian theories of natural selection. Nietzsche's point of view on sickness and health, in particular, opposed him to the concept of biological adaptation as forged by Spencer's "fitness". Nietzsche criticized Haeckel, Spencer, and Darwin, sometimes under the same banner by maintaining that in specific cases, sickness was necessary and even helpful.[23] Thus, he wrote:

Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it. Something similar also happens in the individual. There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation, or even a vice or any physical or moral loss without an advantage somewhere else. In a warlike and restless clan, for example, the sicklier man may have occasion to be alone, and may therefore become quieter and wiser; the one-eyed man will have one eye the stronger; the blind man will see deeper inwardly, and certainly hear better. To this extent, the famous theory of the survival of the fittest does not seem to me to be the only viewpoint from which to explain the progress of strengthening of a man or of a race.[24]

Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory was not Darwinism, but rather attempted to combine the ideas of Goethe, Lamarck and Darwin. It was adopted by emerging social sciences to support the concept that non-European societies were "primitive" in an early stage of development towards the European ideal, but since then it has been heavily refuted on many fronts[25] Haeckel's works led to the formation of the Monist League in 1904 with many prominent citizens among its members, including the Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Ostwald.

The simpler aspects of social Darwinism followed the earlier Malthusian ideas that humans, especially males, require competition in their lives in order to survive in the future. Further, the poor should have to provide for themselves and not be given any aid. However, amidst this climate, most social Darwinists of the early twentieth century actually supported better working conditions and salaries. Such measures would grant the poor a better chance to provide for themselves yet still distinguish those who are capable of succeeding from those who are poor out of laziness, weakness, or inferiority.

"Social Darwinism" was first described by Oscar Schmidt of the University of Strasbourg, reporting at a scientific and medical conference held in Munich in 1877. He noted how socialists, although opponents of Darwin's theory, used it to add force to their political arguments. Schmidt's essay first appeared in English in Popular Science in March 1879.[26] There followed an anarchist tract published in Paris in 1880 entitled "Le darwinisme social" by mile Gautier. However, the use of the term was very rareat least in the English-speaking world (Hodgson, 2004)[27]until the American historian Richard Hofstadter published his influentia
l Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944) during World War II.

Hypotheses of social evolution and cultural evolution were common in Europe. The Enlightenment thinkers who preceded Darwin, such as Hegel, often argued that societies progressed through stages of increasing development. Earlier thinkers also emphasized conflict as an inherent feature of social life. Thomas Hobbes's 17th century portrayal of the state of nature seems analogous to the competition for natural resources described by Darwin. Social Darwinism is distinct from other theories of social change because of the way it draws Darwin's distinctive ideas from the field of biology into social studies.

Darwin, unlike Hobbes, believed that this struggle for natural resources allowed individuals with certain physical and mental traits to succeed more frequently than others, and that these traits accumulated in the population over time, which under certain conditions could lead to the descendants being so different that they would be defined as a new species.

However, Darwin felt that "social instincts" such as "sympathy" and "moral sentiments" also evolved through natural selection, and that these resulted in the strengthening of societies in which they occurred, so much so that he wrote about it in Descent of Man:

The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probablenamely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them.[28]

Spencer proved to be a popular figure in the 1880s primarily because his application of evolution to areas of human endeavor promoted an optimistic view of the future as inevitably becoming better. In the United States, writers and thinkers of the gilded age such as Edward L. Youmans, William Graham Sumner, John Fiske, John W. Burgess, and others developed theories of social evolution as a result of their exposure to the works of Darwin and Spencer.

In 1883, Sumner published a highly influential pamphlet entitled "What Social Classes Owe to Each Other", in which he insisted that the social classes owe each other nothing, synthesizing Darwin's findings with free enterprise Capitalism for his justification.[citation needed] According to Sumner, those who feel an obligation to provide assistance to those unequipped or under-equipped to compete for resources, will lead to a country in which the weak and inferior are encouraged to breed more like them, eventually dragging the country down. Sumner also believed that the best equipped to win the struggle for existence was the American businessman, and concluded that taxes and regulations serve as dangers to his survival. This pamphlet makes no mention of Darwinism, and only refers to Darwin in a statement on the meaning of liberty, that "There never has been any man, from the primitive barbarian up to a Humboldt or a Darwin, who could do as he had a mind to."[29]

Sumner never fully embraced Darwinian ideas, and some contemporary historians do not believe that Sumner ever actually believed in social Darwinism.[30] The great majority of American businessmen rejected the anti-philanthropic implications of the theory. Instead they gave millions to build schools, colleges, hospitals, art institutes, parks and many other institutions. Andrew Carnegie, who admired Spencer, was the leading philanthropist in the world (18901920), and a major leader against imperialism and warfare.[31]

H. G. Wells was heavily influenced by Darwinist thoughts, and novelist Jack London wrote stories of survival that incorporated his views on social Darwinism.[32]Film director Stanley Kubrick has been quoted to have held social Darwinist opinions.[33]

Social Darwinism has influenced political, public health and social movements in Japan since the late 19th and early 20th century. Social Darwinism was originally brought to Japan through the works of Francis Galton and Ernst Haeckel as well as United States, British and French Lamarkian eugenic written studies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[34] Eugenism as a science was hotly debated at the beginning of the 20th century, in Jinsei-Der Mensch, the first eugenics journal in the empire. As Japan sought to close ranks with the west, this practice was adopted wholesale along with colonialism and its justifications.

Social Darwinism was formally introduced to China through the translation by Yan Fu of Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, in the course of an extensive series of translations of influential Western thought.[35] Yan's translation strongly impacted Chinese scholars because he added national elements not found in the original. He understood Spencer's sociology as "not merely analytical and descriptive, but prescriptive as well", and saw Spencer building on Darwin, whom Yan summarized thus:

By the 1920s, social Darwinism found expression in the promotion of eugenics by the Chinese sociologist Pan Guangdan. When Chiang Kai-shek started the New Life movement in 1934, he

Nazi Germany's justification for its aggression was regularly promoted in Nazi propaganda films depicting scenes such as beetles fighting in a lab setting to demonstrate the principles of "survival of the fittest" as depicted in Alles Leben ist Kampf (English translation: All Life is Struggle). Hitler often refused to intervene in the promotion of officers and staff members, preferring instead to have them fight amongst themselves to force the "stronger" person to prevail"strength" referring to those social forces void of virtue or principle.[38] Key proponents were Alfred Rosenberg, who was hanged later at Nuremberg. Such ideas also helped to advance euthanasia in Germany, especially Action T4, which led to the murder of mentally ill and disabled people in Germany.

The argument that Nazi ideology was strongly influenced by social Darwinist ideas is often found in historical and social science literature.[39] For example, the philosopher and historian Hannah Arendt analysed the historical development from a politically indifferent scientific Darwinism via social Darwinist ethics to racist ideology.[40]

By 1985, creationists were taking up the argument that Nazi ideology was directly influenced by Darwinian evolutionary theory.[41] Such claims have been presented by creationists such as Jonathan Sarfati.[42][43][undue weight? discuss]Intelligent design creationism supporters have promoted this position as well. For example, it is a theme in the work of Richard Weikart, who is a historian at California State University, Stanislaus, and a senior fellow for the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute.[44] It is also a main argument in the 2008 intelligent-design/creationist movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. These claims are widely criticized.[45][46][47][48][49][50] The Anti-Defamation League has rejected such attempts to link Darwin's ideas with Nazi atrocities, and has stated that "Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry."[51]

Similar criticisms are sometimes applied (or misapplied) to other political or scientific theories that resemble social Darwinism, for ex
ample criticisms leveled at evolutionary psychology. For example, a critical reviewer of Weikart's book writes that "(h)is historicization of the moral framework of evolutionary theory poses key issues for those in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, not to mention bioethicists, who have recycled many of the suppositions that Weikart has traced."[48]

Another example is recent scholarship that portrays Ernst Haeckel's Monist League as a mystical progenitor of the Vlkisch movement and, ultimately, of the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler. Scholars opposed to this interpretation, however, have pointed out that the Monists were freethinkers who opposed all forms of mysticism, and that their organizations were immediately banned following the Nazi takeover in 1933 because of their association with a wide variety of causes including feminism, pacifism, human rights, and early gay rights movements.[52]

Social Darwinism has many definitions, and some of them are incompatible with each other. As such, social Darwinism has been criticized for being an inconsistent philosophy, which does not lead to any clear political conclusions. For example, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics states:

Part of the difficulty in establishing sensible and consistent usage is that commitment to the biology of natural selection and to 'survival of the fittest' entailed nothing uniform either for sociological method or for political doctrine. A 'social Darwinist' could just as well be a defender of laissez-faire as a defender of state socialism, just as much an imperialist as a domestic eugenist.[53]

Social Darwinism was predominantly found in laissez-faire societies where the prevailing view was that of an individualist order to society. As such, social Darwinism supposed that human progress would generally favor the most individualistic races, which were those perceived as stronger. A different form of social Darwinism was part of the ideological foundations of Nazism and other fascist movements. This form did not envision survival of the fittest within an individualist order of society, but rather advocated a type of racial and national struggle where the state directed human breeding through eugenics.[54] Names such as "Darwinian collectivism" or "Reform Darwinism" have been suggested to describe these views, in order to differentiate them from the individualist type of social Darwinism.[3]

Some pre-twentieth century doctrines subsequently described as social Darwinism appear to anticipate state imposed eugenics[3] and the race doctrines of Nazism. Critics have frequently linked evolution, Charles Darwin and social Darwinism with racialism, nationalism, imperialism and eugenics, contending that social Darwinism became one of the pillars of fascism and Nazi ideology, and that the consequences of the application of policies of "survival of the fittest" by Nazi Germany eventually created a very strong backlash against the theory.[51][44]

As mentioned above, social Darwinism has often been linked to nationalism and imperialism.[55] During the age of New Imperialism, the concepts of evolution justified the exploitation of "lesser breeds without the law" by "superior races".[55] To elitists, strong nations were composed of white people who were successful at expanding their empires, and as such, these strong nations would survive in the struggle for dominance.[55] With this attitude, Europeans, except for Christian missionaries, seldom adopted the customs and languages of local people under their empires.[55]

Peter Kropotkin argued in his 1902 book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution that Darwin did not define the fittest as the strongest, or most clever, but recognized that the fittest could be those who cooperated with each other. In many animal societies, "struggle is replaced by co-operation".

It may be that at the outset Darwin himself was not fully aware of the generality of the factor which he first invoked for explaining one series only of facts relative to the accumulation of individual variations in incipient species. But he foresaw that the term [evolution] which he was introducing into science would lose its philosophical and its only true meaning if it were to be used in its narrow sense onlythat of a struggle between separate individuals for the sheer means of existence. And at the very beginning of his memorable work he insisted upon the term being taken in its "large and metaphorical sense including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny." [Quoting Origin of Species, chap. iii, p. 62 of first edition.]

While he himself was chiefly using the term in its narrow sense for his own special purpose, he warned his followers against committing the error (which he seems once to have committed himself) of overrating its narrow meaning. In The Descent of Man he gave some powerful pages to illustrate its proper, wide sense. He pointed out how, in numberless animal societies, the struggle between separate individuals for the means of existence disappears, how struggle is replaced by co-operation, and how that substitution results in the development of intellectual and moral faculties which secure to the species the best conditions for survival. He intimated that in such cases the fittest are not the physically strongest, nor the cunningest, but those who learn to combine so as mutually to support each other, strong and weak alike, for the welfare of the community. "Those communities", he wrote, "which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring" (2nd edit., p. 163). The term, which originated from the narrow Malthusian conception of competition between each and all, thus lost its narrowness in the mind of one who knew Nature.[56]

Noam Chomsky discussed briefly Kropotkin's views in a July 8, 2011 YouTube video from Renegade Economist, in which he said Kropotkin argued

... the exact opposite [of Social Darwinism]. He argued that on Darwinian grounds, you would expect cooperation and mutual aid to develop leading towards community, workers' control and so on. Well, you know, he didn't prove his point. It's at least as well argued as Herbert Spencer is ...[57]

Continued here:

Social Darwinism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

QUESTION: What is Social Darwinism?

ANSWER:

Herbert Spencer, a 19th century philosopher, promoted the idea of Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is an application of the theory of natural selection to social, political, and economic issues. In its simplest form, Social Darwinism follows the mantra of "the strong survive," including human issues. This theory was used to promote the idea that the white European race was superior to others, and therefore, destined to rule over them.

At the time that Spencer began to promote Social Darwinism, the technology, economy, and government of the "White European" was advanced in comparison to that of other cultures. Looking at this apparent advantage, as well as the economic and military structures, some argued that natural selection was playing out, and that the race more suited to survival was winning. Some even extended this philosophy into a micro-economic issue, claiming that social welfare programs that helped the poor and disadvantaged were contrary to nature itself. Those who reject any and all forms of charity or governmental welfare often use arguments rooted in Social Darwinism.

At its worst, the implications of Social Darwinism were used as scientific justification for the Holocaust. The Nazis claimed that the murder of Jews in World War II was an example of cleaning out the inferior genetics. Many philosophers noted evolutionary echoes in Hitler's march to exterminate an entire race of people. Various other dictators and criminals have claimed the cause of Social Darwinism in carrying out their acts. Even without such actions, Social Darwinism has proven to be a false and dangerous philosophy.

Scientists and evolutionists maintain that this interpretation is only loosely based on Darwin's theory of natural selection. They will admit to an obvious parallel between Darwin's theory of Natural Selection and Spencer's beliefs. In nature, the strong survive and those best suited to survival will out-live the weak. According to Social Darwinism, those with strength (economic, physical, technological) flourish and those without are destined for extinction.

It is important to note that Darwin did not extend his theories to a social or economic level, nor are any credible evolutionists subscribing to the theories of Social Darwinism. Herbert Spencer's philosophy is only loosely based on the premises of Darwin's work.

However, according to evolutionary theory, nature is a "kill-or-be-killed" system. Those that cannot keep up are either left behind or cut off. If evolution, through chance, is solely responsible for life as we now know it, why should that process be countered? If "survival of the fittest" or "kill or be killed" cannot apply in what we define as "decent society," then, which is wrong, society or evolution? If neither, then how do we explain morality, charity, and compassion? Why drain resources from the strong to support the weak? Certainly, we should be charitable and help those in need.

Though Darwin did not promote Social Darwinism, basic evolutionary theory raises some nagging questions.

What is your response?

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Social media, mobile, wearables, Internet of Things, real-time these are just some of the technologies that are disrupting markets. Changes in how people communicate, connect, and discover are carrying incredible implications for businesses and just about anything where people are involved. Its not so much that technology is part of our everyday life or that technology is relentless in its barrage on humanity.

The real threat and opportunity in technologys disruption lies in the evolution of customer and employee behavior, values, and expectations. Companies are faced with a quandary as they invest resources and budgets in current technology and business strategies (business as usual) versus that of the unknown in how those investments align, or dont, with market and behavior shifts.

This is a time of digital Darwinism an era where technology and society are evolving faster than businesses can naturally adapt. This sets the stage for a new era of leadership, a new generation of business models, charging behind a mantra of adapt or die.

Rather than react to change or be disrupted by it, some forward-looking companies are investing in digital transformation to adapt and outperform peers.In November 2012, research-based consultancy Capgemini published a report studying the digital maturity of companies pursuing digital transformation. In its report, The Digital Advantage: How digital leaders outperform their peers in every industry, Capgemini found that those companies that are highly vested in both digital intensity and transformation management intensity, aka The Digirati, derive more revenue from their physical assets, theyre more profitable, and they also possess high market valuations.

Why is That?

It comes down to one word, relevance. If consumer behavior is evolving as a result of technology, businesses either compete to get ahead of it, they perpetually react to it, or they belittle it. One of the most problematic aspects around digital maturity is that technology is both part of the solution and also part of the problem.

Enter digital transformation.

Digital transformation may sound like its something youd hear in buzzword bingo, but it is one of the most important movements facing businesses today. It is forcing businesses to look beyond the world as they know it, observe how things are changing on the outside, to change transform philosophies, models, and systems on the inside. Ask 10 different experts in digital transformation for their definition of it though and you may just get 10 different answers. Before strategists can consider digital transformation, they at least have to know what it is, why its important, and what they need to do.

In 2013, I set out to better understand the catalyst and challenges around digital transformation and also the people driving it forward. It is indeed a deep and complex topic. I had to focus my research. Capgemini among others have already made tremendous headway in their work around technology and process models defining the evolution of digital maturity. One of the things I heard over and over was the need to know whos responsible for it and how do companies take steps in the right direction. Specifically, strategists wanted to know how to make the case in the absence of executive leadership pointing in new directions and leading teams to adapt or die! As a result, I explored digital transformation from a more human perspective. After a year of interviewing 20 leading digital strategists at some of the biggest brands around the world, I released my latest report, Digital Transformation: Why and How Companies are Investing in New Business Models to Lead Digital Customer Experiences.

What is Digital Transformation?

Again, it is a sweeping topic. Simply defined, digital transformation the intentional effots to adapt to this onslaught of disruptive technologies and how its affecting customer and employee behavior. As technology becomes a permanent fixture in everyday life, organizations are forced to update legacy technology strategies and supporting methodologies to better reflect how the real world is evolving. And, the need to do so is becoming increasingly obligatory.

In my research, I concentrated on how businesses are pursuing digital transformation in their quest to specifically understand how disruptive technology affects the customer experience. In turn, I learned how companies are reverse engineering investments, processes, and systems to better align with how markets are changing.

Because its focusing on customer behavior, digital transformation is actually in its own way making businesses more human. As such, digital transformation is not a specifically about technology, its empowered by it. Without an end in mind, digital transformation continually seeks out how to use technology in ways that improve customer experiences and relationships. It also represents an effort that introduces new models for business and, equally, creates a way of staying in business as customers become increasingly digital.

Some key findings from my research include:

While early in its evolution, digital transformation represents the next big thing in customer experience and, ultimately, how business is done. Those companies that get it and invest more in learning about their digital customers behaviors, preferences, and expectations will carry a significant competitive advantage over those that figure it out later (if at all). What separates typical new technology investments from those pursued by companies in my report is the ongoing search to find answers to problems and opportunities presented by the nuances of digital customers.

For example:

In the end, digital transformation is not a fad or a trendy moniker. It represents the future of business through the re-alignment of, or new investment in, technology and business models to more effectively engage digital consumers at every touchpoint in the customer experience lifecycle. Its bigger than any one area of technology disruption though and thats the point. Social media, mobile, cloud, et al. are converging into a greater force to push businesses out of comfort zones and into areas where true innovation can manifest.

The Result?

The roles and objectives of everyday marketing, social media, web, mobile and customer service and loyalty, can evolve to meet the needs and expectations of a more connected and discerning digital customer. Additionally, the outcome of even the smallest investments in change brings together typically disparate groups to work in harmony across the entire customer journey. This allows teams to cooperate, or merge into new groups, in uniting the digital journey to improve engagement; deliver a holistic experience; and eliminate friction, gaps, and overlap.

Perhaps the most important takeaway from my research is the pure ambition to make businesses relevant in a digital era.

The road to digital transformation is far from easy, but it carries great rewards for businesses and customers alike. It takes a village to bring about change, and it also takes the spark and perseverance of one person to spot important trends and create a sense of urgency around new possibilities.

But make no mistake. Digital transformation efforts grow market opportunities and profits as well as scaling efficiently in the process.

#AdaptorDie

Brian Solis is a principal analyst at Altimeter Group. He is also an award-winning author, promine
nt blogger, and keynote speaker. @briansolis

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Digital Darwinism: How Disruptive Technology Is Changing ...

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