How can you believe in evolution but no social darwinism

[Verbose]

No, I am not. My first post suggested that its foolish to think all people are born with equal value -- because they are not.

No that's not it. I think you're after how presumably all people are not born with equal potential. At birth all human babies are pretty much rubbish at everything and a drain on resources for rather a long time, so their actual initial value would rather seem to be negative. Potentially though...

How to get from potential to realised actuality of any potential however involves a lot more than genes. And at that, it's a quite a gamble how they might turn out after all.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

You're right it was oversimplified. The quality of food also plays a big part.

But I didn't feel I needed to go into detail to respond to the silly OP question.

 

[BasketCase]

Do you really think that evolution just stopped with humans or is it because your social agenda will not allow you to believe in this seemingly cruel concept?

When humans came along and started to build farms (and then steel swords and then muskets and then skyscrapers and then rocket ships), evolution didn't actually stop--it simply took a back seat to the unlimited power of two human traits: superior Intelligence, and opposed thumbs.

<-- thumb

There's no need to assume social Darwinism; no need to treat one ethnic group as superior to another. Because Evolution doesn't give a crap. Darwinism will continue to operate, no matter what anybody believes. The ethnic groups we see right now, inhabiting the Earth today, are the ones best-suited to survive, after thousands of years of genetic pruning.

 

[Dachs]

However, religion has stagnated tecnological advancement. Without it we would be exploriong the stars by now.

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

Where have we heard this argument before?

(Hint: I'm amazed that this thread hasn't been Godwined already)

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh, it's very easy. You cannot derive an ought from an is. Just because natural selection exists does not mean that it ought to be what is considered ethical.

This seems to answer the question nicely.

Additionally, traits that we consider 'good' are not necessarily selected for in reproductive success. And mitigating or reducing suffering can cause beneficial feedback loops, too.

Finally, evolution selects for success within an environment or allows improved colonisation of a new environment. In the modern world, the 'environment' is constantly shifting, because we earn a living through trade. Unlike with squirrels, there're literally a gazillion different options to earn enough calories to raise offspring.

Humans aren't equal, obviously. But the desire to help improve other people's lives, or to create a society that's mutually beneficial is a desire born of teamwork. Keep in mind that one thing that separates humans from apes is our ability to care for our non-offspring. That shift is a major reason for our acceleration of progress.

The problem with trying to mold a society towards sociopathy is that the sociopaths end up being in charge. The idea that things would be 'better' if things 'took their natural course' is ... unfounded.

 

[Yeekim]

Keep in mind that one thing that separates humans from apes is our ability to care for our non-offspring.

Stop slandering apes!
http://www.greenfudge.org/2010/01/29/chimpanzees-and-other-animals-display-altruistic-behavior/
http://www.gorillas-world.com/gorilla-reproduction.html

 

[Cutlass]

People neither rise to the top nor fall to the bottom based on ability alone. Too many other factors intervene, and many of them not controllable by the individual.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Where have we heard this argument before?

(Hint: I'm amazed that this thread hasn't been Godwined already)

Indeed. When people start claiming again that social Darwinism is a scientific fact instead of the result of misapplying science to social issues, before long the eugenicists start to come out of the woodwork:

In the name of Darwin

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Karl Marx

Of course, the continual use of the the term "Darwin Awards" to denote particularly boneheaded behavior doesn't help any.

I think the most telling aspect is that people would be getting more intelligent over time, and that most people would be trying to breed with highly intelligent people instead physically attractive people no matter how intelligent. I certainly haven't seen any indication of this happening.

 

[Bill3000]

When has science ever been ethical?

It's not. That's exactly the point. Ethics really has nothing to do with what is scientifically true, and you certainty can't derive an ethical system from scientific facts.

Besides, humanity has the ability to triumph over natural selection pretty trivially. We have the ability to preserve people who would otherwise be killed off in non-civilized non-human societies, such as pretty much all humans with disabilities.

 

[duckstab]

So I got a question for everyone who believes in the first but not the second?

Do you really think that evolution just stopped with humans or is it because your social agenda will not allow you to believe in this seemingly cruel concept? Scientifically, human are no different from any other species. Some members of the species are simply superior to others -- there's little argument that can be made against that.

It is actually quite hypocritical to believe in the theory of evolution and believe that all men are born equal -- because according to evolution, they are not.

This is a straw man argument.

Of course people have different capacities and of course there's a genetic component to that. Egalitarianism only holds that those differences are not so great as to justify treating people differently in terms of the basic rights accorded them.

Social Darwinism used flimsy quasi-scientific reasoning to justify an entrenched and corrupt social order. It was rightly thrown on the dumpster of history a century ago.

 

[Imrahil91]

Yes, evolution has always happened in humans, but social research in that field is way too political for anything useful to come from it, and it has a bad history. We will have to wait for some real science from genetics, neuroscience on the brain etc. before we can say anything certain, but the brain is still extremely complicated.
Meanwhile we should strive for a society where everyone have equal opportunities, but not force everyone to be equal.

 

[Newbunkle]

I absolutely support making fans of social darwinism fight each other to the death. Survival of the fittest!

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

So I got a question for everyone who believes in the first but not the second?

Do you really think that evolution just stopped with humans or is it because your social agenda will not allow you to believe in this seemingly cruel concept? Scientifically, human are no different from any other species. Some members of the species are simply superior to others -- there's little argument that can be made against that.

It is actually quite hypocritical to believe in the theory of evolution and believe that all men are born equal -- because according to evolution, they are not.

Scientific theories have no connection to social policy.

 

[Orange Seeds]

As has been rightly pointed out : Hume's Is-Ought Fallacy is at play here.

Evolution is a theory about factual bits of the universe. In particular, (theoretical) facts about how biological organisms are the way they are.

Social Darwinism is a theory about how human beings ought to behave. You ought not to help people because they are weak is the maxim involved. Why? Because as per evolution the weak need to die off or something like that.

Two problems here: You cannot derive what you ought to do from what is done. Otherwise you can have no decision making rubric (ie. 'is it good to do x?' can't be answered until you've already conducted the action. Accordingly, no action is ever bad or worse than any other which is absurd). So facts about how human beings ought to behave are not possibly begotten from facts about why we are the way we are. In philosophy we call these kinds of things category errors. Ought and Is are different categories.

Secondly, Social darwinism presumes that competitive traits are somehow free-standing separate entities when they are not. Desirable traits for human beings currently are very different from those of our primitive ancestors. You wouldn't leave Stephen Hawking starving on the street because he was not 'fit.' Fitness is a social construct of which particular human beings have apparent control over. This entails that value assignments are not something that a theory like social darwinism even helps us with.

 

[Tacitusitis]

It's not. That's exactly the point. Ethics really has nothing to do with what is scientifically true, and you certainty can't derive an ethical system from scientific facts.

Yes, and until FAL groks that there's little point in continuing.

However it should additionally be pointed out that science can help us understand our instinctive ethics, because as evolved beings, we only have a certain set of ethics because it is evolutionarily advantageous. Our instinctive ethics (which mostly value kin and tribal social structures) are completely anterior to any socially-imposed language-mediated system of ethics.

So the theory of evolution does have ethical overtones and implications in that it proposes that our ethics are evolutionary, rather than say God-given.

However that's a pretty subtle point for a thread like this that's based on a funny misunderstanding of science in the first place

 

[negZero]

Evolution is science

Social Darwinism is an ideology

FACT: I can pick and chose the ideologies I believe in.

 

[ParkCungHee]

In nature success is worth.

So you believe an E. Coli cell has more worth than you?

 

[GhostWriter16]

Evolution is science

In your opinion. I don't agree with that statement.

 

[Murky]

It's mostly because of political correctness. Nobody in their right mind wants to be shunned as a bigot. Of course different races are going to have different strengths/weaknesses. Different doesn't necessarily mean deficient overall though. One race may have some evolutionary advantage at sports like being able to grow taller and jump higher. Another might have more of an inclination towards math and science.