# Darwinism and Social Darwinism

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873>\
**Category:** Side Conversation\
**Created:** [July 3, 2019, 4:28am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873 "2019-07-03T04:28:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 17\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![John\_Dalton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_dalton/32/1263_2.png) [@John\_Dalton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Dalton)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 4:40pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/41 "2019-07-08T16:40:00Z")

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> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> Now, was Hitler’s antisemitism rooted in Social Darwinism? I doubt it. His justifications are post hoc. I think his antisemitism was non-rational, finding a scapegoat for Germany’s problems in a traditionally despised group. That tradition is at bottom religious, but Hitler’s connection to the religious basis are indirect enough that we can ignore the connection. He merely absorbed it from his society, intensified it, and reflected it back.

I don’t think the question is if Hitler’s anti-Semitism was rooted in Social Darwinism, but if his view of Jews as an inferior race ultimately deserving of extermination were, or at least to what extent.

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**Author:** ![dga471](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dga471/32/5233_2.png) [@dga471](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/dga471)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 1:37am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/42 "2019-07-09T01:37:08Z")

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6 posts were split to a new topic: [Greg and Darwin](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/greg-and-darwin/6912)

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**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Burke](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/jonathan_burke/32/21_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Burke](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Jonathan_Burke)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 5:02pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/44 "2019-07-08T17:02:28Z")

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> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> Yes, that’s the quote most often used to show that Darwin was a racist.

So he wasn’t actually a racist?

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> But one must, in order to do that, suppose that “civilized” is some sort of heritable character intrinsic to “the civilized races” rather than a cultural descriptor. It’s at best ambiguous.

Darwin says explicitly that natural selection can make races superior. He speaks of how the people in the US are remarkably superior to other people because they consisted of the best British stock moving to the US, and then being refined by natural selection.

> [@John\_Dalton](#):
>
> I don’t think the question is if Hitler’s anti-Semitism was rooted in Social Darwinism, but if his view of Jews as an inferior race ultimately deserving of extermination were, or at least to what extent.

Yes. His anti-Semitism was inherited from his culture, but his justification for his treatment of the Jews was not religious, nor cultural, but explicitly Social Darwinism.

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**Author:** ![John\_Harshman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_harshman/32/1121_2.png) [@John\_Harshman](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Harshman)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 5:09pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/45 "2019-07-08T17:09:55Z")

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> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> He speaks of how the people in the US are remarkably superior to other people because they consisted of the best British stock moving to the US, and then being refined by natural selection.

No, that isn’t what he said. You have garbled the quote, which you should reread. Your claim is not completely wrong, but it’s a serious distortion.

> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> his justification for his treatment of the Jews was not religious, nor cultural, but explicitly Social Darwinism.

His post hoc justification. But does it really borrow from Social Darwinism? Explicitly similar notions of Jewish (and Negro, and other group) inferiority long predate both Darwin and Social Darwinism. Consider Louis Agassiz, for example. Perhaps you mean that he dressed his ideas up in Social Darwinist language?

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**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Burke](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/jonathan_burke/32/21_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Burke](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Jonathan_Burke)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 5:17pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/46 "2019-07-08T17:17:51Z")

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> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> No, that isn’t what he said. You have garbled the quote, which you should reread. Your claim is not completely wrong, but it’s a serious distortion.

Oh yes, I said the “best of British stock”, when he actually said “more energetic, restless, and courageous men from all parts of Europe”, and “superior to other people”, when he actually said “have there succeeded best”, thanks for the correction.

Here’s the quotation. Note he does not attribute anything to natural selection.

> There is apparently much truth in the belief that **the wonderful progress** of the United States, as well as the **character** of the people, **are the results of natural selection** ; for the **more energetic, restless, and courageous men from all parts of Europe** have emigrated during the last ten or twelve generations to that great country, and have there **succeeded best**.

Oh wait, he did.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> His post hoc justification.

I don’t think it was post hoc. I don’t think he said “Wow I hate Jews and I want to exterminate them, so I’ll do that first, and after I’ve done it then I’ll explain it away using Social Darwinism”. His writings before he was even in power indicate he was motivated to destroy the Jews on the grounds of Social Darwinism. My own sect contacted the British government and warned them of what Hitler was going to do to the Jews, on the basis of his writings. No one listened back then.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> But does it really borrow from Social Darwinism?

Yes. That’s what motivated his eugenics program, from which he did not spare his own people.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> Explicitly similar notions of Jewish (and Negro, and other group) inferiority long predate both Darwin and Social Darwinism. Consider Louis Agassiz, for example.

I said that previously, and quoted a paper saying Darwin shared that idea. You responded by saying the paper didn’t provide any evidence. Regardless, the concept of Social Darwinism is not merely generic “inferiority”.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> Perhaps you mean that he dressed his ideas up in Social Darwinist language?

He pretended to be a Social Darwinist? Did he also pretend to be a racist? I thought there was a lot of work going on in this thread trying to exculpate Darwin from racism, now there seems to be a lot of work going on trying to exculpate Hitler.

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**Author:** ![John\_Harshman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_harshman/32/1121_2.png) [@John\_Harshman](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Harshman)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 5:19pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/47 "2019-07-08T17:19:44Z")

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> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> Oh wait, he did.

Yes, that’s the part that was not completely wrong. I’m afraid I find the rest of the post, added later, as not entirely coherent and so difficult to respond to.

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**Author:** ![Roy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/roy/32/3799_2.png) [@Roy](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Roy)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 1:10pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/48 "2019-07-09T13:10:58Z")

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> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > Anti-Semitism has a long history in Germany, from the Crusades…
> 
> I am talking about the fact that he said his **expressed reasons** for treating them in a particular way. His **expressed reasons** included the fact that he considered them sub-human. In order to identify people as untermenschen and other people as ubermenschen, you need some concept of a racial hierarchy, just as in order to consider them figuratively as bacteria, you need a concept of bacteria.
> 
> A concept of racial hierarchy explains why he said explicitly that he was a member of a superior race overcoming an inferior race. A concept of bacteria is insufficient to explain this. A concept of anti-Semitism is insufficient to explain this.

The concept of a racial hierarchy existed [prior to Darwin’s writings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Inequality_of_the_Human_Races). Social Darwinism is not necessary for Hitler to identify Jews as an inferior race.

> [@](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > Social Darwinism was neither a necessary cause (since other events did not need it) nor a sufficient cause (because it doesn’t relate to religion)
> 
> I am not saying it was a **necessary cause** for the Holocaust, nor that it was a **sufficient cause** for the Holocaust. I am saying it was a contributing factor to the Holocaust, and I am saying that it is a sufficient cause for the language of racial hierarchy used by Hitler and the Nazis.

Social Darwinism is not a sufficient cause for the language of racial hierarchy, because that language was used (albeit not by Hitler) _before_ the idea of Social Darwinism ever existed.  
Social Darwinism and a time machine might be sufficient, but there isn’t a time machine.

> [@](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > His expressed reasons were racial purity and the struggle of the superior races over the inferior races
> 
> Racial purity and the struggle of the superior races over the inferior races, is explicitly the doctrine of Social Darwinism. It is not the concept of anti-bacterial cleansing.
> 
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > If anti-Semitism was a sufficient cause, then the “bacilli” argument wouldn’t be needed either.
> 
> Exactly.

Those are your words, not mine. You are inadvertently agreeing with yourself.

> [@](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > > [@](#):
> > >
> > > Similarly, you cite statements about bacilli even if they don’t mention Pasteur or Koch, …
> > 
> > No, I haven’t done that.
> 
> You linked directly to [this](https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/newsletter/posts/2018/2018-12-11-immunology.html) page, containing quotations from Hitler which use the bacterial imagery without citing either Pasteur or Koch.

Yes, I did link to that page. That’s not the same as citing statements within that page.

> [@](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > Which anti-bacterial language in reference to the Holocaust suggests it didn’t result from eugenics of social Darwinism.
> 
> This is a _non sequitur_. Just because Hitler used anti-bacterial language in reference to the Holocaust, does not mean it did not result from the eugenics of Social Darwinism. His use language of the eugenics of Social Darwinism with reference to the Holocaust, indicates it did indeed result from the eugenics of Social Darwinism.
> 
> After all, which of these references did he mean literally, and which did he mean figuratively? Did he mean Jews were literal bacteria, or was he using the word figuratively? Figuratively. Did he mean the Jews were literally _untermenschen_, or was he using the word figuratively? Literally.

So what? The idea of inferior races predated Darwin. He isn’t necessarily using the language of eugenics or social Darwinism, since that language could instead come from Gobineau et al.

> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > > [@](#):
> > >
> > > So do I. As I’ve said, I just don’t think it’s accurate to say “They weren’t motivated by evolution, and therefore they weren’t motivated by social Darwinism”.
> > 
> > Again, I haven’t done that.
> 
> So you agree they were motivated by Social Darwinism? Or you don’t agree? Which is it? I can’t tell now.

I haven’t said what you ‘quoted’. I have not said, nor implied, that not being motivated by evolution means not being motivated by social Darwinism.

I do not think that the Holocaust was wholly or partly a result of social Darwinism. I think the Nazis’ eugenics experiments and programs were partly based on social Darwinism, but the Holocaust had its origin in pre-existing racism and anti-Semitism and every concept you have mentioned that might link social Darwinism to the holocaust - racial hierarchies, Jewish inequality, struggle for survival, racial purity and anti-miscegenation - existed in the writings of Gobineau, Luther, Malthus and others before Darwin wrote anything about evolution.

> [@](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > > [@](#):
> > >
> > > Yes. But I wouldn’t then turn around and say “The Nazis weren’t Christadelphians, therefore Christadelphians can’t be racist”.
> > 
> > I haven’t done anything like that, either.
> 
> I think you have, because you claimed that since Hitler used anti-bacterial language to describe the Holocaust, it could not have been motivated by Social Darwinism.

That’s a completely different form of argument from the fallacy you invoked.

> [@](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > Which anti-bacterial language in reference to the Holocaust suggests it didn’t result from eugenics of social Darwinism.
> 
> I don’t think that’s valid.

That’s your problem.

> [@](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > Most of those sources don’t even quote Darwin’s words, so can’t possibly be quote-mining.
> 
> So do you believe they’re anti-evolutionists?

I have no idea, and it’s not relevant to whether you quote-mined Darwin.

Since you don’t seem capable of understanding let alone addressing my points, or even of remembering what you yourself wrote, I can’t see any point continuing. I’ll just finish by noting that this:

> [@](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > None of the ones that do quote Darwin chopped off the first part of his reference to Caucasians so that he appears to be referring to current Caucasian societies rather than future societies of unspecified race.
> 
> I didn’t cut it off. I started well before the reference to the Caucasian. I quoted this.
> 
> > **At some future period** , not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.

is misleading to the point of being deliberately false. Anyone who cares to look can easily see that in the same post you also separately quoted a subset of that passage, where you _did_ cut off the first part of his reference to Caucasians:

_This particular quotation, in which Darwin speaks of a great difference between “the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon”, …_

It was very helpful of you to include the full passage so that everyone could see that you were quote-mining. It’s even more helpful of you to now pretend you didn’t do what anyone can trivially verify that you did.

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**Author:** ![John\_Dalton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_dalton/32/1263_2.png) [@John\_Dalton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Dalton)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/49 "2019-07-09T13:29:07Z")

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This is an interesting Wiki article; Hitler was influenced greatly by Chamberlain.

> **[Houston Stewart Chamberlain | Die Grundlagen (The Foundations)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Stewart_Chamberlain#Die_Grundlagen_%28The_Foundations%29)**
>
> In February 1896, the Munich publisher Hugo Bruckmann, a leading völkisch activist who was later to publish Mein Kampf commissioned Chamberlain to write a book that was intended to summarize all of the achievements of the 19th century. In October 1899 Chamberlain published his most famous work, Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, in German. The Foundations are a pseudo-scientific "racial history" of humanity from the emergence of the first civilizations in the ancient Near East to t Eve...

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**Author:** ![Roy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/roy/32/3799_2.png) [@Roy](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Roy)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 1:32pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/50 "2019-07-09T13:32:04Z")

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Highlighting a couple of obvious errors:

> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> Darwin says explicitly that natural selection can make races superior. He speaks of how the people in the US are remarkably superior to other people because they consisted of the best British stock moving to the US, and then being refined by natural selection.

Apart from Darwin not saying anything at all about natural selection _after_ moving to the US, only the selection between those that emigrated vs those that didn’t, there’s an obvious problem here because the emigrants and non-emigrants were **the same race**

> [@](#):
>
> Yes. His anti-Semitism was inherited from his culture, but his justification for his treatment of the Jews was not religious, nor cultural, but explicitly Social Darwinism.

It would only be “ **explicitly** Social Darwinism” if Hitler used that term - and there’s no indication that he ever did.

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**Author:** ![John\_Harshman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_harshman/32/1121_2.png) [@John\_Harshman](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Harshman)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 1:32pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/51 "2019-07-09T13:32:56Z")

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Chamberlain explained that “Jesus\_Christ could not possibly be a Jew, and very strongly implied that Christ was an Aryan.” This would explain all those medieval paintings of Jesus.

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**Author:** ![Roy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/roy/32/3799_2.png) [@Roy](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Roy)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 1:38pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/52 "2019-07-09T13:38:34Z")

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I hope you mean Chamberlain’s proposal rather than his explanation, otherwise I’m going to have to re-invoke a time machine…

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**Author:** ![John\_Harshman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_harshman/32/1121_2.png) [@John\_Harshman](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Harshman)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 1:39pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/53 "2019-07-09T13:39:12Z")

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There seem to be a lot of time machines around here.

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**Author:** ![Rumraket](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/rumraket/32/9328_2.png) [@Rumraket](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rumraket)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/54 "2019-07-09T14:41:45Z")

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Just dropping in to point out the appeal to consequences and naturalistic fallacies at work with the “Darwinism inspired Hitler/racism/eugenics”.

If knowledge of the principles of natural selection has inspired use of similar principles in eugenics and racist ideologies, that doesn’t make the it untrue that extant biodiversity evolved in part through natural selection. Even if “Darwinism” did actually inspire some very bad ideologies, that doesn’t make it false.

The correct response to the “Darwinism has inspired racism and eugenics” trope is twofold:

1. Naturalistic fallacy - It does not follow that because species including Homo sapiens _have_ evolved by natural selection, that we _should_ therefore structure our societies, culturally, economically, politically or otherwise, on Darwinian principles. Just because that is what happens in nature doesn’t make it right or good.

2. Selective breeding and the concept of good vs bad blood, good vs bad “stocks” of humans, or livestock, or plants, traces to antiquity. Tossing away all the world’s books on evolutionary biology wouldn’t prevent people from making the straightforward inference they’ve been making for millenia, that people’s characteristics are heritable, and by pairing certain individuals, whether people or plants, you are inexorably breeding for and against certain traits.

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**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Burke](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/jonathan_burke/32/21_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Burke](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Jonathan_Burke)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 4:06pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/55 "2019-07-09T16:06:54Z")

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> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> Just dropping in to point out the appeal to consequences and naturalistic fallacies at work with the “Darwinism inspired Hitler/racism/eugenics”.

I don’t think anyone has said this. I haven’t said this.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Rumraket](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/rumraket/32/9328_2.png) [@Rumraket](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rumraket)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 4:12pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/56 "2019-07-09T16:12:40Z")

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> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> I don’t think anyone has said this. I haven’t said this.

I know.

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**Author:** ![John\_Dalton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_dalton/32/1263_2.png) [@John\_Dalton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Dalton)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 8:45am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/57 "2019-07-10T08:45:09Z")

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I chanced across this paragraph here

> **[Romani genocide | Emergence of scientific racism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_genocide#Emergence_of_scientific_racism)**
>
> In the late 19th century, the emergence of scientific racism and Social Darwinism, linking social differences with racial differences, provided the German public with justifications for prejudices against Jews and Roma. During this period, "the concept of race was systematically employed in order to explain social phenomena." This approach validated the belief that races were not variations of a single species of man but had distinctly different biological origins. It established a purportedly sc...

A preview of the book footnoted is up here including a relevant chapter, going to take a look. It’s actually a collection entitled “From “Race Science” to the Camps”

[https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=5U\_Auv-u0PIC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5](https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=5U_Auv-u0PIC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5)

I wasn’t aware of this institution, which isn’t mentioned in the book

> **[German Society for Racial Hygiene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Society_for_Racial_Hygiene)**
>
> The German Society for Racial Hygiene (German: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene) was a German eugenic organization founded on 22 June 1905 by the physician Alfred Ploetz in Berlin. Its goal was "for society to return to a healthy and blooming, strong and beautiful life" as Ploetz put it. The Nordic race was supposed to regain its "purity" through selective reproduction and sterilization. The society became defunct after World War II.
> Soon after the society was founded, it received generou...

I found it when searching for the “Race Hygiene Research Center”, an organ of the Nazi government. Pretty disturbing stuff, not least, to put it mildly, the fact that its director Robert Ritter survived the war unpunished.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![John\_Harshman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_harshman/32/1121_2.png) [@John\_Harshman](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Harshman)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 1:35pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/darwinism-and-social-darwinism/6873/58 "2019-07-10T13:35:11Z")

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This would seem to be akin to the way, for example, that Deepak Chopra latches on to quantum theory. Sciency trappings make your crazy beliefs seem more credible.

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