Page 206 - The Evolution Impasse 2

204 Spontaneous Generation

of Social Darwinism, the so cial or der Had any ev o lu tion ac tu al ly tak en
was based on the prin ci ple of the place, then liv ing things would have
sur viv al of the fit test. Supporting the ap peared on Earth through grad u al
weak and keep ing them alive to chan ges and should have con tin ued
prop a gate was a vi o la tion of that to change. Yet the fos sil rec ords
prin ci ple. The rich were rich be cause dem on strate the ex act op po site.
they were more fit, and some na tions Different liv ing class es emerged
gov erned oth ers be cause they were sud den ly with no an ces tors even re -
su pe ri or. Some na tions had come mo te ly re sem bling them and re -
un der the yoke of oth ers be cause the mained in a state of sta sis, un der go -
lat ter were more in tel li gent. ing no change at all, for hun dreds of
Spencer strong ly ad vo cat ed the mil lions of years.
ad ap ta tion of this the sis to hu man
so ci e ties, sum ming up the Social
Darwinist view in these words: STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL,
THE
If they are suf fi cient ly com plete to live,
they do live, and it is well they should The fun da men tal as sump tion of
live. If they are not suf fi cient ly com - the the o ry of nat u ral se lec tion is that
plete to live, they die, and it is best they ev ery liv ing thing thinks on ly of it -
should die. 233
self in the strug gle to the death. In
pro pos ing this idea, Darwin was in -
flu enced by the the o ries of Thomas
SPONTANEOUS
Robert Malthus, a British econ o mist.
GENERATION
Malthus said that food re sour ces in -
—See Abiogenesis. creased ar ith met i cal ly, while the hu -
man pop u la tion in creased ge o met ri -
cal ly—for which rea son it was in ev i -
STASIS ta ble that hu mans should wage a

The fos sil record shows that liv - con stant fight for sur viv al. Darwin
ing spe cies emerged in a sin gle mo - ap plied this con cept to na ture and
ment with all their dif fer ent struc - claimed that the re sult of this strug -
tures ful ly formed, and that they re - gle was nat u ral se lec tion.
mained un changed over very long Subsequent re search, how e ver,
ge o log i cal pe ri ods of time. showed that there was no such
strug gle for sur viv al of the kind that

The Evolution Impasse II