Social and Biological Darwinism One?

[kyser_soze]

Yeah, I'm thinking about Conrad Black at this time

*falls around floor laughing about Black*

And I wasn't talking their names, it's just your first line left me a little confused as to whether you were saying to me 'You don't...' or someone else...

 

[ViolentPanda]

There was no "bargain." Why would I make a bargain with you? You accused me of having a "vested interest" in arguing for intelligent design, I asked you to explain your accusation, and you refused to do so. That makes you look like a liar. Are you a liar?

I'm not a liar, Phil. You on the other hand, appear to have a few problems with reality.

What you actually said (rather than what you fondly believe you said) was "Right Panda, you've been blathering on about this supposed "vested interest" of mine for months. Now its time for you to explain yourself.".
<snip>
So, you're claiming I have mentioned you having such an interest before. I asked you to provide proof that I'd done so, in those terms (rather than something you might believe hinted or insinuated a "vested interest" and you were unable and/or unwilling to do so.
You continued with; "What kind of "vested interest" could I possibly have in pointing out the manifest, widely accepted, flaws in orthodox Darwinism?"

Even besides your disingenuousness in implying that "intelligent design" is the same thing as "pointing out the manifest, widely accepted, flaws in orthodox Darwinism", your disingenuousness is still on a colossal scale, Isn't it?

You've interpreted a post which mentioned that you perhaps had a vested interest as an accusation that you do have one.
You've insinuated that I'm a liar on the strength of that interpretation.
You resort to petty insult and bullying to deflect criticism unless that criticism conforms with your pre-formed conclusion(s).
I could go on.

As for your possible "vested interest", look back over your own posts in the "rational proof" thread, you'll find the germ of your possible "vested interest" in a claim/boast you made there. That's all you'll get from me.

Now please toddle off back to your sandpit.

 

[Fruitloop]

I think that the accusation of a vested interest in the introduction of ID concepts is probably fair enough, since if all that bothered phildwyer about evolutionary theory was its misuse as a prescriptive model of social organisation, then he would have no trouble finding many (if not most) of the scientific establishment in perfect agreement - i.e. there would be no need to have recourse to the suspect cod-science of the ID crowd. However, in the past pd has stated explicitly that the problem with the current state of evolutionary theory is precisely the absence of an intelligent guiding hand in the account of how simple organisms change into ones of greater complexity.

The things is, although these two features might be socially related (in that some people who believe that 'nature red in tooth and claw' is some kind of a justification for capitalism as a naturally occurring economic system also believe that no creator is necessary in the progression from simple to complex life-forms) the two concepts aren't logically or scientifically entangled, so there's no sense in which opposition to the misapplication of evolutionary concepts to the social sciences etc requires one to also believe in an intelligent guiding hand. Thus there must be some other explanation for the introduction of ID-related notions over and beyond a dislike of the innapropriate scientific justification of what are ultimately social facts.

 

[gorski]

Posted in a wrong place... but corrected...

The bit that is relevant in this thread is this:

Marx to Engels, 18 June 1862 [from "Selected Writings", p. 526]

...Darwin, whom I have looked up again, amuses me when he says he is applying the 'Malthusian' theory also to plants and animals, as if with Mr. Malthus the whole point were not that he does not apply the theory to plants and animals but only to human beings - and with geometrical progression - as opposed to plants and animals. It is remarkable how Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society with its division of labour, competition, opening-up of new markets, `inventions', and the Malthusian `struggle for existence'. It is Hobbes's bellum omnium contra omnes, and one is reminded of Hegel's Phenomenology, where civil society is described as a `spiritual animal kingdom', while in Darwin the animal kingdom figures as civil society...

So, I must withdraw my earlier comment/guess he didn't know of Darwin's confession...

 

[Fruitloop]

answers moved as well...

or:

Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a natural scientific basis for the class struggle in history. One has to put up with the crude English method of development, of course. Despite all deficiencies, not only is the death-blow dealt here for the first time to ‘teleology’ in the natural sciences but its rational meaning is empirically explained. (16th January, 1861, Marx to Lassalle)

 

[Fruitloop]

It seems to me that what both Marx and Engels most dislike in the quote you posted above is the influence of Malthus on Darwin. Engels said:

However great the blunder made by Darwin in accepting the Malthusian theory so naively and uncritically, nevertheless anyone can see at the first glance that no Malthusian spectacles are required to perceive the struggle for existence in nature—the contradiction between the countless host of germs which nature so lavishly produces and the small number of those which ever reach maturity, a contradiction which in fact for the most part finds its solution in a struggle for existence—often of extreme cruelty.

 

[Fruitloop]

Engels draws a distinction between Darwin's work itself and the 'Social Darwinism' it engendered:

Hardly was Darwin recognised, before these same people saw everywhere nothing but struggle. Both views are justified within narrow limits, but both are equally one-sided and prejudiced…Hence, even in regard to nature, it is not permissible one-sidely to inscribe only ‘struggle’ on one’s banners. But it is absolutely childish to desire to sum up the whole manifold wealth of historical evolution and complexity in the meagre and one-sided phrase ‘struggle for life.’ That says less than nothing.

 

[gurrier]

In terms of Malthus' influence on Darwin, as far as I understand it Darwin took one key concept from Malthus 'on population' as an inspiration for his theories.

To paraphrase it:

"in the absence of predators, any species will increase in population until it exhausts the available resources, at which point the population will collapse"

This was important for Darwin as it contradicted the prevailing theocentric notions that there was at some stage in the past a 'garden of eden' where nature existed in harmony with man. To some extent this edenic notion has been re-adopted by sections of the green movement today - the concept of a 'natural balance' between man and nature seems to be fairly prevalent.

Darwin's other key influence was Charles Lyell's work on geology - from which Darwin extracted the notion of the importance of massively iterated processes - where seemingly irrelevant changes (ie fish dying and floating to the bottom of the sea to decay) lead to enormous changes given enough time - changes which appear to be qualatative rather than quantative when viewed without the temporal overview.

Combining the two concepts, he got a view of the past which is exactly what was required intellectually to understand the evolution of organisms. You have several billion years of biological life without a single moment of static equilibrium - therefore any inherited changes that tend to increase an organisms ability to survive will always be passed down in greater numbers than the alternatives. Repeating the process for a few billion years gives you dinasours, people and phil dwyer.

Does anybody know of any other concept apart from the (undeniably correct) one above that Darwin took from Malthus?

 

[Binkie]

Capitalism will go.

Anyway, the point is that we can accept the basic thrust of social darwinism. The capitalists have for a time been the fittest class, having replaced the feudal landlords, monarchs, clerics, aristocrats and other hangers-on as the ruling class. A time will come when the inherent weaknesses of the capitalists' system (destructiveness, cruelty, inhumanity, redundancy of effort, war, pollution, superstition, debased consumerist culture etc.) will have to be dealt with and a new 'fitter' class will emerge. Let's be optimistic. And imaginative. On this start to the new year.

 

[gorski]

Amen!!

 

[Fruitloop]

Does anybody know of any other concept apart from the (undeniably correct) one above that Darwin took from Malthus?

Not really. As I understand it, Darwin viewed the 'Malthusian' pressure of population on resources as the driving force of evolutionary change - it provided the 'thrust' where random mutation + selection provided the 'steering'. I don't find much meaning in Marx's criticism printed earlier - i.e. that Darwin applies to all species Malthusian principles that should rightly only be applied to man - unless by this he means that only mankind was in a position to actually exhibit the growth-behaviour that Malthus had identified. It's a pretty weak criticism anyway, IMHO.

 

[Binkie]

The basics of Darwinism

Darwin's key hypothesis was that new species emerge by a process of evolution. In competing for a mate and subsequent reproduction, the winners were those most adapted - the 'fittest' - to the current environment. They passed on their characteristics (their 'genes') more than the less-fit. These characteristics are subject to what he called natural variation - no two individuals (apart from identical twins) are born with identical genes, so lots of different combinations of characteristics emerge. Over time certain characteristics are better adapted to the current environment and prevail. Population pressure (Malthus) would be only one of a number of environmental factors.

The Theory of Evolution represented a convincing explanation of how the large number of past and present plant and animal species got here - certainly more convincing than the primitive religious explanations then pushed by the reactionary establishment.

As I understand it, Social Darwinism seeks to extend this theory of natural selection to groups in society. The originator of this thread deduced that this explained and justified the capitalist status quo, with its emphasis on selfishness and exploitation. That is a conservative right-wing position. Against this, it is clear that groups - of people or other animals - may in some circumstances survive better - be 'fittest' using co-operation. That is a socialist left-wing position. History will show, for example whether an organized working class will replace the current capitalist ruling class as Marxists think they will. If they, or some other group do, it will be entirely consistent with the Social Darwinist evolutionary theory. Some theorists say that evolutionary theory precludes revolution. This is clearly untrue. Revolution is just rapid evolution - the ending of the hegemony of a dinosaur species or class.

 

[kyser_soze]

Or simply another, craftier and more powerful ruling class group could emerge.

I think your dichotomy between left/right wing views of evolution and the competition/cooperation is false as well - there will be internal cooperation AND competition of ideas and methods in both the R/C and W/C (indeed, one of the biggest problems for the left as I see it is the vast array of different views of how to change the world for the better and the vicious internicine conflict between left wing political groups).

Other than that I pretty much agree with what you've said - especially the bit about revolution, which in biological terms could perhaps be equated with a cataclysmic environmental event that radically changes the world in a short period of time.

 

[Fruitloop]

The problem with social Darwinism in many of its forms is just that it confuses facts and values, and what is natural for what is desirable. Evolutionary biology has plenty of interesting things to say about why people are socialised along particular lines, but the social realm doesn't operate on Darwinist or evolutionary principles in any meaningful way.

To understand why a particular elite dominates in a society you have to understand how hegemony operates in the life-experience of that society's constituent members - to simply say that a particular group is 'fittest' and therefore dominates says nothing, since the nature of ideology is that whoever is ruling at a particular historical point will always appear to be the fittest to do so.

 

[Crispy]

To simply say that a particular group is 'fittest' and therefore dominates says nothing, since the nature of ideology is that whoever is ruling at a particular historical point will always appear to be the fittest to do so.

'Fittest' has no correlation with the concept of 'best' - This is a common misunderstanding about evolution. This is the mistake some evolutionary sociologists make, that 'fittest' is somehow 'best' - not so. All a species, or an ideology has to do is reproduce (more) succesfully (than its rivals) in the current environment.

 

[kyser_soze]

That's because 'best' is a subjective term, whereas 'fittest' can, arguably, be objective and testable.

On the subject of fittest when it comes to social evolution etc...humanity is the only species that alters it's physical environment in a planned fashion, and what a ruling class does is the same in society - it creates an environment where it can thrive and reproduce the best as opposed to having an environment forced upon it (and in doing so can also insulate itself from the effects of the most violent excesses of nature).

What this comes down to is whether or not you think that society and human behaviour can be analysed using evolutionary principles - I think it can, but then I think that evolution is a fractal system, and one that can be seen at all levels of biological existence, including human behaviour, but it's been clouded by people placing value judgements on a system of development that is blind.

 

[Binkie]

'Fittest' in this context means best adapted to conditions. And yes, man and some other living things can change their conditions. Currently in western society there are different classes with different objective interests which are periodically in opposition. The conditions set up by a mature ruling class - the 'state' - will successfully serve its interests. This is also how one class - the Marxists say the working class - can come into conflict with the state. It will compete with the ruling class - currently the capitalists and their drone apparatchiks in the state - for power. Recognition of this ability to change conditions is present in Marxist theory but not elsewhere.

 

[Jo/Joe]

Man can adapt his environment to an extent, but not completely, hence social environments created by ruling classes will contain the seeds of their destruction. At least they have so far.

 

[nino_savatte]

Where's phil?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Where's phil?

Is that a game like "Where's Waldo?"?

 

[kyser_soze]

Is that a game like "Where's Waldo?"?

Or 'Carmen Sandiego' mebbe?

 

[nino_savatte]

Is that a game like "Where's Waldo?"?

 

[gurrier]

Here's one for phil:

"Malthus was proud to include amongst the earliest converts to his population theory the leading creationist and natural theologist, Archdeacon William Paley whose Natural Theology was first published in 1802. Both men regarded Malthus' Principle of Population as additional proof of the existence of a deity."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthus