Social Darwinism: Why?

[ShadowsofHope]

The only solution is to take everyone who seriously believes in social Darwinism as an excuse, put them on a desert island, and watch nature do what it does best. The potential for irony is too great.

That would have very little to do with social or normal Darwinism though. Since "survival of the fittest" has nothing to do about small groups of people surviving in a place they are not meant to be. And unless the people on this Desert(ed) island were a large enough group they would probably all die.
But Darwinism is about evolution. And if you have a large enoug selection of people, that is allowed to procreate and therefore reproduce you will probably see that the people that have traits that let's them survive on a desert(ed) island live longer, and pass on their traits.

Social Darwinism is about taking what we know from Darwinism and applying it to society. Often though it has been used by elitist people, so it has a stigma to it.
But the idea is to let people with favorable traits procreate, while less favorable traits are not allowed to procreate, which theoretically should mean we will get a stronger gene-pool.
Problem is that historically "favorable traits" have not always been the traits that strengthens survivebility, but rather the traits the elite like. Look at the Nazis and their Atians...

But you could argue that modern medicine is screwing up with the evolution of humans. If a child was born with a terminal decease 100 years ago, that child would probably die young, never able to reproduce, and in turn not pass on the decease. But today we might be able to cure that decease, and let the child live a next to normal life, and the decease lives on.
A Social Darwinist would argue that the child not be allowed to have children, so that we could weed out the decease from the human gene-pool and become stronger.

However, a strong advocator of the process of adaptation in terms of Evolutionary theory would argue that attempting to control breeding in order to try and ensure that no one with any "negative" genetic traits/diseases survives past the womb or even initial fertilization could also make the human gene-pool weaker in the long term due to denying the body the opportunity to grow, interact and attempt to resist the deficiency in which the individual is born with, so that in the future we would be more naturally resistant to the deficiency when it occurs.

If we simply eliminate the disease wherever we see it, and never allow humanity to adapt to it's environment instead of completely forcing the environment to adapt to our comforts, that deficiency could most definitely become more potent as it evolves in the future and be an even greater threat for us, at a peak where our bodies have not had a chance to become familiar with the trait and develop resistances against it.

Not to say that eliminating diseases is not a noble venture to pursue, or even to attain in our lifetimes at some point, but sometimes it is better to actually deal with both of our positive and negative traits to the best of both worlds, rather than trying to ignore one or the other and placing too much comfort in the remaining trait. Not to mention that these diseases/deficiencies may act/react differently in non-Earth environments..

 

[Happy_Mutant]

Cooperation. Teamwork. Kindness. Peace. These things will allow a species a much greater chance at surviving than any brutal, dirty, or cowardly method.

In today's culture, anyone who tries to apply these ideals to society is called a communist. It's entirely inaccurate, of course, but powerful people have an interest in marginalizing everyone who questions radical capitalism. I know you're not talking politics, but that's where this cultural trend started. As people grew to accept the economic arguments for social darwinism, it just leaked out into all aspects of life. I don't see it changing anytime soon either.

 

[Kordie]

First off, there's the fact that "survival of the fittest" applies to entire species, NOT individuals. If one species of mouse is more able to hide from owls, that species is more likely to live and thrive than the others. That's it. That's the entire principle.

Firstly, I agree. 'Survival of the fittest' is survival of who 'fits' not 'who has been to the gym and gotten the most fit' as it is often misinterpreted. And, unlike many people, I have actually read The Origin of the Species from cover to cover. However, I would like to point out one thing - Individuals that survive because they act differently, and differently to others in their species, can sometimes survive; and their offspring, who may also act as they did, may eventually, many generations later, be classed as a different species. So while survival of the fittest applies to entire species - it is the individuals, (particularly those who are different from the others of their species), that eventually create new species. So in a round about way, survival of the fittest does actually apply to every living thing (though it is best thought of in general terms of species).

(you can tell I've read Origin of the Species by my long sentences with too many commas).

I could reinforce this point with your mouse and owl example again. You illustrate how an outside predator can make a trait less fitting for a species (i.e. fur colour standing out from the surroundings). The other side is developing traits that are more suitable to the surroundings. If through random chance a single mouse had the ability to see an owl coming from further away, it would give the mouse the ability to run before being eaten. This would make the fur colour moot as the mouse has a new survival method (evading instead of camoflauge). The individual mouse has a favourable trait that can be passed on and possibly create a new species of mice who favour evading their prey over blending in. This would continue up to the point that a new factor is introduced, in the same way that owls being introduced to the environment made camoflauge a favorable trait.

TL;DR Basically two aspects at work, evolving new traits which begins at an individual level, and selection of traits which affects a species.

 

[EclipseoftheDarkSun]

I dont buy the "real you" crap

what makes up all of a person is all kinds of different things, not just when they are at their nicest or meanest

although we all have good/bad tendencies you can;t presume to tell others how they really are, Only I know me

The irony is that our conscious mind may know us best, but still doesn't really know us completely, given that most of what we do is semi/subconscious at best.

 

[Yearlongjester]

I think it's more about making sure your genes are carried on. As Humans we are social creatures, and if we are more socially acceptable then we'll be able to "Pass on" our genetic code.

Doesn't excuse asshats, but there is some logic to the idea. That's ultimately what evolution is, mutating and adapting to different circumstances, so you have the greatest chance of survival. If this adaptation is optimal it will, over the course of a few generations, become a part of the entire species. Think Polar Bears.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Social Darwinists tend to forget that human beings are social creatures. I have also yet to see one produce anything of value without significant help from the rest of society.

 

[scw55]

Funny thing is. With humans, it's survival of the kindest. Humans are social animals and historically lived in settlements. This allowed humans to focus on one type of activity, but collectively everything got done.
Hunters hunted and gathered food. Cooks spent all day cooking. Farmers farmed. Tailors made clothing etc. This meant that it was their liability to keep everyone well for the benefit of all. Taking care of the sick, weak and old. It's why we have an in-built sense of family comes first. Humans who existed on their own had a harder life staying alive than those in communities.
It may explain why some humans would risk their life to save the life of their pets. The concept of family/community first has extended to family pets.

In my opinion, survival of the fittest is wrong when it comes to individual humans. It's true for the species, but not people. As a species we're "fit" because we have communities that look out for each other (examples in other animals are Meercats, Herd animals, Pack animals, Hives). Love and affection are key to the survival of a species.

Believing survival of the fittest applies to people is hypocrisy. The only way it applies to individuals are people who are sadly dead as a result of genetic inheritance or very idiotic people. However it's our duty as our species to find out ways to help people who are born terminally ill. It will always be our duty to help those who cannot help themselves (won't help themselves are something different).

 

[oktalist]

First off, there's the fact that "survival of the fittest" applies to entire species, NOT individuals. If one species of mouse is more able to hide from owls, that species is more likely to live and thrive than the others. That's it. That's the entire principle.

That is a misconception. Natural selection essentially applies to individuals. In a population of field mice, those individuals who are better able to evade predation will tend to survive longer and procreate more. If those field mice's improved evasion is derived from having longer legs, then the population of field mice will, over time, tend to have longer legs as a result of those individuals procreating more, but the species doesn't evolve as a single mass. (Technically, it goes even deeper, and it's neither species nor individuals that evolve, but the actual genes that compete against each other, but that's not essential to this discussion.)

Yet people use survival of the fittest quite often as an excuse to be an asshole.

Natural selection is a system used by nature, but that doesn't automatically make it a good system. It is an awful system, full of cruelty and futility. But nature doesn't have a choice about which systems it uses. We do. Given a choice, it's a terrible idea to use natural selection to steer any aspect of life.

EDIT:

(you can tell I've read Origin of the Species by my long sentences with too many commas).

And I can tell you weren't paying much attention when you read On the Origin of Species, because you got its name wrong.

Also that book is over 150 years old and we have learnt a hell of a lot more about evolution since then.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Social Darwinism is like Eugenics (one very flawed ideal complimenting the other most of the time). Attempting to be the "science" of "superiority" for delusional narcissists in the same way that white skinned and blond haired Germans were "scientifically superior" to everyone else in Nazi rationale.

..In other words, the concept of Social Darwinism as elitist douchebags like to consider it without ever listening in a science class makes actual Darwin roll in his grave.

...no. Eugenics is the idea that health people should have kids, and people with genetic illnesses shouldn't. I don't know where you got your info, but the Nazi's didn't come up with the idea.

 

[WeaponisedCookie]

Excuse me for my ignorance, but why isn't what 'assholes' do, considered 'survival of the fittest'? In that specific environment, when they can do much better than their peers, wouldn't that make them 'fitter'? (If the environment stays constant that is, if it were any different. Well, that's another issue.) It's not nice, to be sure, but it seems to make some sense to me.

 

[Kordie]

Natural selection is a system used by nature, but that doesn't automatically make it a good system. It is an awful system, full of cruelty and futility. But nature doesn't have a choice about which systems it uses. We do. Given a choice, it's a terrible idea to use natural selection to steer any aspect of life.

While I agree that it is a cruel system, that does not make it a bad system... Interesting video to watch here (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/tim_harford.html) that gives examples of how evolution and "trial and error" can be used to make complex systems work better. It gives a very specific example of a company designing a water nozzle through such a method and coming up with an incredibly efficient design, despite their best experts not knowing exactly how it works so well. The design basically went through 45 generations, with 10 variations made each generation. It is worth reinforcing that this is designing a tool for a specific purpose, and resulted in a 90% "unsuccesful" rate each generation. For making a water nozzle, great! When dealing with living things, not as great.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Social Darwinism is like Eugenics (one very flawed ideal complimenting the other most of the time). Attempting to be the "science" of "superiority" for delusional narcissists in the same way that white skinned and blond haired Germans were "scientifically superior" to everyone else in Nazi rationale.

..In other words, the concept of Social Darwinism as elitist douchebags like to consider it without ever listening in a science class makes actual Darwin roll in his grave.

...no. Eugenics is the idea that health people should have kids, and people with genetic illnesses shouldn't. I don't know where you got your info, but the Nazi's didn't come up with the idea.

That is not the definition of Eugenics, I'm not sure where you got your information from. And I didn't say the Nazis came up with Eugenics, but they certainly used it's principle ideals as justification for their racial supremacy theories.

Eugenics favors healthy individuals having kids, yes. And by definition, genetic illnesses do not contribute to a healthy biology, no. However, Eugenics takes this one stop further and is used by ideal to enforce a divide between people with varying genetic illnesses, and people without (or illnesses that have not surfaced for several generations of breeding in the family tree), and to enforce breeding restrictions on anyone whom might not be "perfect" enough to meet someone else's standards on human breeding. It is also used to sometimes force genetic manipulation in individuals in order to make them fit a certain genetic mold of the "ideal" individual. Which, once again, is an enforced standard defined by someone else based upon opinion and usually biased "Science".

It is an unspoken biological favorability that healthy individuals procreate for a healthy offspring, not the concept of Eugenics. Eugenics, as has been mentioned previously, tends moves to prohibit anyone not fitting the "standard" otherwise to be castrated, sterilized, or otherwise isolated from everyone else.

 

[Kordie]

Social Darwinism is like Eugenics (one very flawed ideal complimenting the other most of the time). Attempting to be the "science" of "superiority" for delusional narcissists in the same way that white skinned and blond haired Germans were "scientifically superior" to everyone else in Nazi rationale.

..In other words, the concept of Social Darwinism as elitist douchebags like to consider it without ever listening in a science class makes actual Darwin roll in his grave.

...no. Eugenics is the idea that health people should have kids, and people with genetic illnesses shouldn't. I don't know where you got your info, but the Nazi's didn't come up with the idea.

Hell, it used to be common practice to kill off babies with deformities (still is in some parts of the world). That is in principle the same thing. You may come up with other reasons (i.e. its a burden on the family, its likely to die anyways, or even its a hellspawn) but the end result is that people identified a trait they do not want and killed it before it had a chance to have kids of its own.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Snip

There are certain folk in this world I imagine the human genus would do better without, based solely on their actions and philosophies. General rule of thumb: If the person acts like or promotes the acts of ignorance and/or hatred, victimising individuals or communities in the process, that person is someone we can do without. This can be expanded I'm sure, but it doesn't matter because:

I am not one to judge. I don't believe any one person has a right to take liberties in this regard (like killing them as an extreme example), without fair minded justification (which I'm not sure exists within the individual). Ergo, not a thing we can do but toughen up and move on. Which is fundamentally what Darwinism dictates on an evolutionary level.

Sort of hard to get mad when everyone does this. All people who accomplish something want others to see it. Like when a friend gets a new job and then has to post it on Facebook. Everyone on the planet never see's it from the other persons point of view. So people make up excuses that sound good to them when they are an asshole. Most of the people that are rude on the internet are just showing you a little bit of their real side. All people are petty and will fuck over a stranger on a moments notice. Nothing more funny to me than someone who says that they don't, bullshit.

I'm confused. What has someone exclaiming their most recent accomplishment got to do with what the OP is discussing? Generally those things are only aimed at people who care for the person (friends and family)...

Also, did you just imply that, because people are capable of being assholes (which I agree with), means it's okay to be an asshole (or at the very least, okay to do asshole things)?

So you don't police yourself then? Check to make sure your next move doesn't unduly offend/deprive another? We are all capable of slipping up and giving into the moment, but we can program ourselves to be more considerate towards others... even strangers.

Where it's possible to be a dick and relish in it, it's also possible to go 100% the opposite direction and feel better for it. The question is what do you feel is more rewarding (that defines the asshole from the non-asshole).

Capcha wants to impart some knowledge: "do unto others"...

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Social Darwinism is like Eugenics (one very flawed ideal complimenting the other most of the time). Attempting to be the "science" of "superiority" for delusional narcissists in the same way that white skinned and blond haired Germans were "scientifically superior" to everyone else in Nazi rationale.

..In other words, the concept of Social Darwinism as elitist douchebags like to consider it without ever listening in a science class makes actual Darwin roll in his grave.

...no. Eugenics is the idea that health people should have kids, and people with genetic illnesses shouldn't. I don't know where you got your info, but the Nazi's didn't come up with the idea.

Hell, it used to be common practice to kill off babies with deformities (still is in some parts of the world). That is in principle the same thing. You may come up with other reasons (i.e. its a burden on the family, its likely to die anyways, or even its a hellspawn) but the end result is that people identified a trait they do not want and killed it before it had a chance to have kids of its own.

Social Darwinism is like Eugenics (one very flawed ideal complimenting the other most of the time). Attempting to be the "science" of "superiority" for delusional narcissists in the same way that white skinned and blond haired Germans were "scientifically superior" to everyone else in Nazi rationale.

..In other words, the concept of Social Darwinism as elitist douchebags like to consider it without ever listening in a science class makes actual Darwin roll in his grave.

...no. Eugenics is the idea that health people should have kids, and people with genetic illnesses shouldn't. I don't know where you got your info, but the Nazi's didn't come up with the idea.

That is not the definition of Eugenics, I'm not sure where you got your information from. And I didn't say the Nazis came up with Eugenics, but they certainly used it's principle ideals as justification for their racial supremacy theories.

Eugenics favors healthy individuals having kids, yes. And by definition, genetic illnesses do not contribute to a healthy biology, no. However, Eugenics takes this one stop further and is used by ideal to enforce a divide between people with varying genetic illnesses, and people without (or illnesses that have not surfaced for several generations of breeding in the family tree), and to enforce breeding restrictions on anyone whom might not be "perfect" enough to meet someone else's standards on human breeding. It is also used to sometimes force genetic manipulation in individuals in order to make them fit a certain genetic mold of the "ideal" individual. Which, once again, is an enforced standard defined by someone else based upon opinion and usually biased "Science".

It is an unspoken biological favorability that healthy individuals procreate for a healthy offspring, not the concept of Eugenics. Eugenics, as has been mentioned previously, tends moves to prohibit anyone not fitting the "standard" otherwise to be castrated, sterilized, or otherwise isolated from everyone else.

That may be part of it, but a hard-on for blue eyes and blonde hair isn't part of it, the Nazis included that.

 

[Aurgelmir]

The only solution is to take everyone who seriously believes in social Darwinism as an excuse, put them on a desert island, and watch nature do what it does best. The potential for irony is too great.

That would have very little to do with social or normal Darwinism though. Since "survival of the fittest" has nothing to do about small groups of people surviving in a place they are not meant to be. And unless the people on this Desert(ed) island were a large enough group they would probably all die.
But Darwinism is about evolution. And if you have a large enoug selection of people, that is allowed to procreate and therefore reproduce you will probably see that the people that have traits that let's them survive on a desert(ed) island live longer, and pass on their traits.

Social Darwinism is about taking what we know from Darwinism and applying it to society. Often though it has been used by elitist people, so it has a stigma to it.
But the idea is to let people with favorable traits procreate, while less favorable traits are not allowed to procreate, which theoretically should mean we will get a stronger gene-pool.
Problem is that historically "favorable traits" have not always been the traits that strengthens survivebility, but rather the traits the elite like. Look at the Nazis and their Atians...

But you could argue that modern medicine is screwing up with the evolution of humans. If a child was born with a terminal decease 100 years ago, that child would probably die young, never able to reproduce, and in turn not pass on the decease. But today we might be able to cure that decease, and let the child live a next to normal life, and the decease lives on.
A Social Darwinist would argue that the child not be allowed to have children, so that we could weed out the decease from the human gene-pool and become stronger.

However, a strong advocator of the process of adaptation in terms of Evolutionary theory would argue that attempting to control breeding in order to try and ensure that no one with any "negative" genetic traits/diseases survives past the womb or even initial fertilization could also make the human gene-pool weaker in the long term due to denying the body the opportunity to grow, interact and attempt to resist the deficiency in which the individual is born with, so that in the future we would be more naturally resistant to the deficiency when it occurs.

If we simply eliminate the disease wherever we see it, and never allow humanity to adapt to it's environment instead of completely forcing the environment to adapt to our comforts, that deficiency could most definitely become more potent as it evolves in the future and be an even greater threat for us, at a peak where our bodies have not had a chance to become familiar with the trait and develop resistances against it.

Not to say that eliminating diseases is not a noble venture to pursue, or even to attain in our lifetimes at some point, but sometimes it is better to actually deal with both of our positive and negative traits to the best of both worlds, rather than trying to ignore one or the other and placing too much comfort in the remaining trait. Not to mention that these diseases/deficiencies may act/react differently in non-Earth environments..

Thats true, and I agree, the "problem" is that modern medicine might let a lot of traits that would other wise be evolved out of the gene-pool to survive. Which could be viewed as a bad thing I think.
But yeah selective breeding is not a good thing for a population... just look at some dog breeds...

 

[RatRace123]

It's mostly used by assholes as a justification for their behavior, and it helps them think that they're the big dogs rather than the selfish bullies they really are.
I'll admit that it makes sense, I don't necessarily agree with it, but the general philosophy makes sense, allowing only the strongest, the smartest, the most beautiful people, people with the most favorable traits to pass on their genes ensures a better breed of humanity.
The problem is, who do you let decide what traits are "favorable"? And what do you do with everyone who doesn't match up to that ideal, do you create a class of "sub humans"? Do you simply kill them because they don't fit the mold of perfection anymore, and are therefore a blight on a perfect society?

However valid the idea might seem, in the end people would end up using it as a tool for selfishness rather than actively using to help humanity.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I got quoted WAYYYY to many times over night to bother requoting all of you who quoted me, so I'll just summarize some points I think you are mistaken on.

1. No, I was not bullied that much in my youth. I mean yea, sometimes I got picked on, but that's childhood, everyone gets picked on at some point. I never got shoved in my locker, nor did anyone ever use the survival of the fittest argument against me specifically. This topic arose as a response to observations I've made over the course of my life.

2. I should clarify this point to the NUMEROUS folks who pointed at that yes, SotF applies on the individual level. It does, in that traits beneficial to the individual become beneficial to the species over time. The point I was trying to make, unsuccessfully it seems (I never was very good at explaining things), was that individuals who are assholes will assume it means "Individual fitness at the detriment of other members of my species" ie, hurting a bunch of other people for your own gain. THAT is not beneficial to survival at all.

3. To the guy who said kindness and peace are not usually good for survival and used Mother Theresa as an example, indeed she had no children and her kindness was not passed along genetically, but that is a far too narrow way to look at it. The numerous people she helped benefited in their "fitness" level a great deal. She sacrificed her individual self to improve the chances of many other individuals, which is the very definition of kindness. Peace, while arguably able to cause stagnation, is still preferable to war (at least how we run it).