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Darwin's View Of Evolution On Society

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Evolution on Society

The biggest problem with the Darwinian Theory that people had was how it clashed with Creationism. This religion believes highly in God’s intervention and that he was the one to create the universe, life and all of the different animals and plants on Earth. Many people in the West accepted this view before Darwin came up with his theory. Darwin’s evidence for evolution did not agree with the views of the Creationists. One of the main goals by writing The Origin of Species was to replace the current theories of creation because Darwin was a little of an atheist himself. He wanted his theory of evolution and natural selection to be the prevailing one. This created a lot of commotion within the Christian church and caused …show more content…

Thomas Huxley is one of those individuals. Thomas took up much of his book “Evolution and Ethics” to debunk it. Huxley attempts to disprove the science behind Social Darwinism in this book. To examine social Darwinism, picture a garden. If it was not in constant upkeep, it would most likely return to a state of nature. The walls surrounding it also crumbling in time as well, but with the constant trimming done by a gardener, it may be maintained in a state of art. This state of art is not everlasting but instead the removing of natural selection and the placement of artificial selection through the human work that is going on to maintain it. This form of artificial selection is part of natural selection because it is the action upon species by us as humans by how we expend our energy through intelligence on its choice of selection. It is no less natural than a predator using energy through instinct that has evolved on preferentially hunting a specific prey species. The presence of us may change it in a perfectly natural way. Huxley continues to describe this garden by saying that the “cosmic process of evolution is amoral” and that “there is no guarantee that good will win out over evil that human society will thrive rather than fail.” There is only a constant struggle for the poor gardener. Huxley then terms the phrase “the ethical process.” Men share many qualities with the ape and the tiger including “his exceptional physical organization, his cunning, his sociability, his curiosity and his imitativeness.” His main concern is the heart of social Darwinism. The problem with this philosophy is the notion that there is unceasing growth. Evolution is a process in which these species achieve never-ending, blissful, and happy dominance. Men as compared to animals are ethical beings and must look at perfection as animals do through adaptations. What is

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