Darwin, science and culture

If Darwin was right, and the fact that he wrote 150 years ago notwithstanding the available evidence would seem to prove him right on the broader concept of biological evolution, then what people have done in the name of his ideas has no bearing on the fact that he was right.

The truth of evolution is not dependant upon the actions of people. The eugenics argument is a smokescreen with no merit whatsoever.

"... what role did Darwin's work have in informing and shaping the ideology of Progress?"

Actually, Michael Ruse wrote an entire (large) book on this entitled "From Monad to Man" and the answer is, as long as we're talking about Darwin's theory instead of how other people put it to use, very little. While many people who were Progressives politically and/or scientifically also styled themselves as "Darwinians," his theory implies no progression in evolution.

In a review of recent books on Darwin, Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin recently wrote that

"While the nineteenth-century theory that some rose and some fell in society depending on their personal strengths and weaknesses is often referred to as "social Darwinism," we would be much more in agreement with historical causation were we to call Darwinism "Biological Competitive Capitalism." The perceived structure of the competitive economy provided the metaphors on which evolutionary theory was built."

Lots more relevant to your post at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22694

Rod: "It seems to me that we today are in such awe of science, and its authority, that we accept its pretensions to dispassion and objectivity with far too little skepticism."

Rod, you are right, but you have it completely ass-backwards. It's the Marxist influence on evolutionary science by Richard Lewontin and the late Stephen Jay Gould that is accepted with far too little skepticism (although that is changing for the better in recent years).

Rod, do you really want to be a useful idiot for the Marxists?

INTERESTING!!!
I studied in great length about social darwinism and how man was making a G-d out of this theory that was very culturally based. People tend to get so TOUCHY when you question darwinism and assume that you are some kind of redneck. Just to clarify, I DO believe in evolution and creation, that said, in my humble opinion, having read Darwin's work and many of the very racist works that came from it, I was able to easily see how this was very misused, and it's science supported a lot of racism. It is sad how so many things are used negatively in this world, in the areas of faith and science, the arts, etc.
Anyway, just chiming in out of interest sake. Thank you for sharing!

freelunch: :Whatever are you talking about, meh? Marxism is of zero interest to or impact on biology."

Biology may have no interest in Marxism, but Marxism is interested in biology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewontin's_Fallacy

freelunch: :Darwin did this in assuming that there were real differences among humans that were explained strongly by what is commonly called race."

meh,

Does anyone care what Marxists say any more?

freelunch, apparently you do.

MEH - I do not quite see the connection between Marxism and Lewtonian Fallacy - would you please explain?

I find it amazing how often we apply a theory about biology to everything else. And one can't blame Darwin for that. Sort of lazy thinking on our part.

Cultural biases affect more than science. They abound everywhere and I find it is important to consider the potential bias of a writer, scientist, whatever when evaluating their work. I find we tend to be impressed by ideas that suit what we think as opposed to being impressed by ideas that challenge what we think.

Here in the US we discount Marxism and often aren't even exposed to the theories in schools. In Europe it is a different story, and I do think that Marx has some worthwhile insights.

Cecilia,

I do think that Marx had a number of excellent insights, but we have gone beyond that in our understanding of society and economics. It is the modern-day Marxists who have become tedious and meaningless when they don't bother to bring other insights from other social scientists into their understanding.

Razib at Gene Expression:
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/003969.html
"Addendum: An acquaintance of mine mentioned offhand that he had a strong suspicion that the Manchester School of liberal economics had a strong influence on the individual-centric competitive perspective that colored early Darwinian evolutionary theory (Malthus was also a strong influence). Though my acquaintance abhors individualistic capitalism and the Manchester School's neoliberal descendents, he admitted that evolution seems to work on just those principles (this is most clear after the work of William D. Hamilton and George C. Williams in the 1960s that placed the individual, as opposed to the species or group, front and center in evolutionary theory). The moral of the story is that even if a social milieu has a powerful shaping influence on the models that science might produce: that does not necessarily imply that the model is flawed (most models are flawed after all). In contrast, deep into the 1980s the Japanese promoted theories about primate ethology (in particular macaques) that emphasized unselfish behaviors "for the good of the species" as opposed to intraspecies competition. In the end, such models had to cede ground to the data. In the end the data trumps culture."