"It is true that what Darwin said had very little impact, but that what people thought he said, that is, what they already believed and believed to have been confirmed by Darwin, had an enormous impact?" (Jones 268).
When I entered World History class and saw a lesson plan on Charles Darwin, I initially questioned why we were studying a scientist in a humanities course. Darwin studied tortoises and finches, I thought. Why is he important to world history? 72 minutes and three slideshows later, I was hooked on the concept of Social Darwinism and how Darwin's postulates of evolution have fueled inherently racist movements and institutions. Studying the impact of Darwin’s seemingly harmless theory of evolution can give us insight into the dangers of extrapolating scientific data and the potential for scientific extrapolation to justify intolerant rhetoric.
Through working with species on the Galapagos Islands, Darwin generated theories of evolution intended to be applied solely to animal populations, namely that inherited genetic alterations increase probability of survival and that more ‘favorable’ traits will have a greater likelihood of proliferating. Once Darwin published his theories of evolution in works such as On The Origin of Species, many scientists with preconceived notions of caucasian superiority began to twist Darwin’s ideas into the ideology known as Social Darwinism– the application of Darwin's experiments on animal populations to humans. Despite the widely accepted notion that Darwin never commented upon the application of his conclusions to humans, throughout his second book on evolutionary theory, The Descent of Man, he endorsed the principles of eugenics and confirmed his belief in inherited weakness, asserting that “general intelligence, courage, bad and good temper, are certainly transmitted in families, and on the other hand it is certain that insanity and deteriorated mental power tends to be inherited” (Darwin as cited in Galton et al. 101-102). Historically, Social Darwinism even became a cause and justification for ‘civilizing missions' and therefore the wide range of ramifications of colonialism. The general acceptance of Darwin’s postulates within Europe served to reinforce previously held notions that other races were less evolutionarily developed, driving the colonization of foreign countries in order to spread their religion and ways of life believed to be superior to all others. Although colonialism and imperialism have become events of the past for the majority of the world, the more modern societal consequences of the perpetuation of Social Darwinism include the institutionalization of the discriminatory intelligence tests, the weaponization of laissez-faire capitalism, and the inspiration for Nazi intolerance.
The ingraining of Social Darwinist mentality within postcolonial society served to institutionalize the damaging Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test which many scientists have used to advance ideas of eugenics or facilitate the racial division of society. The rise of such psychometric assessments was driven by proponents of Darwinian evolutionary theory such as James Catell. The institutionalization of the IQ test as a measure of hereditary intelligence is inherently discriminatory to those not born with privilege– disproportionately African Americans– for “using the national mean on a ‘scholastic aptitude’ test as a college admission cut-off will arbitrarily exclude 84% of the prospective African American applicant pool– compared to only 50 percent of their white applicant pool” (Hudson 4). Hence, the applicant pool selected by such tests will represent the products of privileged environments rather than identifying the group most likely to succeed in an academically rigorous environment or future endeavors.
Other such examples of exclusion based on psychometric exams presented themselves within the Army and United States immigration policies. When attempting to restrict manual labor to those with lower intelligence, officer training schools implemented testing that black soldiers performed significantly lower on than caucasian soldiers, ultimately declaring that only those from Nordic countries had the capabilities to score well and therefore move beyond such menial labor. Similarly, when Ellis Island immigrants were forced to take intelligence tests, it was declared that forty percent were “feebleminded,” driving the creation of the 1924 Immigration Restriction Act, which established a national origins quota and prohibited immigration from Asia (Jackson 116). This act was accompanied by President Coolidge’s proclamation that “America must remain American,” confirming that not only did intelligence tests feed into preconceived public misconceptions about other races, but the test results were used to suppress their ability to remain in the country (Leonard 199).
The introduction of the IQ test into modern day scientific practice also directly led to creation of limitations on human rights as pseudoscientific conclusions about race motivated the generation of repressive legislation. One such example is scientists Herrnstein and Murray’s interpretation of an experiment in which scientists tracked the IQ of African American children who grew up in affluent European American homes; once they left their European American households, there was an overall reported decrease in IQ. Rather than concluding this was a result of growing up with privilege and then later facing discrimination and less academic freedom, they claimed the phenomena to be a hereditary cognitive deficiency, and advocated for policies that create “a society in which individuals must know their place and not demand more than their (inherent) talents permit” (Myers 203). These ‘policies’ largely mimic the beliefs of earlier pioneers of eugenics such as Franis Galton, a proponent who expressed that everyone’s genealogical intelligence records should be stored by the government so that intermarriage can be restricted and extra privileges may be awarded to those of ‘pure’ birth (Galton et. al 100). Such intelligence tests are just further tools by which privilege is afforded to the already privileged, and so the institutionalization of IQ as a measure of intelligence threatens to provide success to the wealthy while limiting the opportunities of the oppressed.
As the Industrial Revolution flourished and the popularity of laissez-faire, or unrestrained, capitalism grew, Darwin’s evolutionary hypotheses began to be pushed into the spotlight, inspiring ties to be drawn between his scientific ideas and the economy. These connections allowed Social Darwinism to be employed to justify incorrect scientific ideas such as the heredity of traits such as frugality, promoting the financial suppression and creation or destruction of legislation that helped the ‘genetically weak’ lower class. Prominent scientists such as Herbert Spencer and William Graham laid the ground for economic Darwinism, arguing that the weak should be unprotected financially, since the competition for resources and status would cleanse society of the unfit (History). Since these ideas are rooted in the belief that certain groups are inherently genetically inferior to others, their ideology demonstrates that society is quick to jump to suppress the lower class, even going so far as to revoke natural rights such as minimum wage. Evidently, Darwin’s ideas were easily applicable to feeding the perpetual cycle of advantages being given to those at the top of the social hierarchy. Therefore, a paradox was created in which Darwin’s explorations to learn more about animal nature set society back to more primitive ideas of social order.
Especially in post-war eras, Darwinism took on a separate significance as the fight for jobs intensified, since due to its "rapid expansion, its exploitative methods, its desperate competition, and its peremptory rejection of failure,…post-bellum America was like a vast human caricature of the Darwinian struggle for existence and survival of the fittest” (Wyllie 629). Since it promoted the idea that certain individuals are more deserving of economic status than others, those in power were easily able to use Darwinism to promote the idea that they not only deserved their power and wealth, but they deserved greater amounts of it. How does one have a functional, egalitarian society in which the wealthy are fighting for the lower class to continue to stay impoverished? And how does society reconcile this growing wealth disparity when financial misfortune is blamed upon genetics?
While theories from racist scientists were largely conceptual when proposed, more modern eugenics movements such as Nazism have adapted these notions perpetuated by Social Darwinism. The widespread acceptance of evolutionary theories that verge on eugenics predated the Nazis, since “the Darwinian explanation for evolution was the most prominent theory taught in German schools” (Weikart 542). Consequently, “[the Nazi] handbook mandated teaching evolution, including the evolution of human races, which evolved through ‘selection and elimination,’” allowing for the early roots of the intolerance of the Nazi Party to take hold within the general population (Weikart 542). Through forcing every student to learn the German doctrine infused with Darwin's theories, Germans assisted Darwinism in becoming pervasive throughout the population, this early conditioning fueling support for World War II eugenics.
Although the Nazi party would have existed without the creation of Social Darwinism, Darwin's postulates truly were shields that deflected objections to the 'superiority' of the Aryan race. Instead of simply expressing their hatred for other races, they could propagate their belief that "the Nordic race had surpassed other races because harsh climatic conditions in north-central Europe during the Ice Ages had sharpened the struggle for existence, causing the weak to perish and leaving only the most vigorous” (Weikart 538). In turn, this inherent desire to procreate more than their ‘competitors’ only served to feed their ever-growing desire for greater amounts of lebensraum, or ‘living space,’ into which to expand. Darwinian rhetoric from charismatic leaders only caused the ideology to become more widespread; for instance, Mein Kampf is riddled with the Darwinian concepts of struggle for existence and selection, and the main chapter on evolution, ‘Nation and Race,’ was distributed as a separate pamphlet to boost the grip of the Nazi party (Weikart 541). Hitler’s power over his citizens facilitated his extrapolation of Darwinistic ideologies, rooting deeply ingrained racial biases across the world.
Even though the prevalence of the historical impacts of Social Darwinism have faded, the lasting impacts of the ideology extends to modern day society. The creation and institutionalization of the IQ test systematically oppressed minorities and other such disadvantaged groups. This oppression extended to economic policies and legislation, limiting the opportunities for them to emerge from the cycle of disadvantage. Further, the rise of new governments and political groups such as the Nazis was facilitated by their ability to demonstrate supposed scientific support for their theories. When reflecting upon the impacts of Darwin’s theories based solely on studying non-human beings, one must question if “what Darwin said had very little impact, but that what people thought he said, that is, what they already believed and believed to have been confirmed by Darwin, had an enormous impact?” (Peckham as cited in Jones 268).
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