Page 568 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Darwin, powerfully influenced by Malthus and Spencer's ruthless world views, proposed in The Origin

of Species the myth that species had evolved by means of natural selection. Darwin was no scientist, and
took only an amateur's interest in biology. Under the very primitive microscopes of Darwin's time, cells ap-
peared to be nothing more than blurry blots, and the biological laws of inheritance had not yet been dis-

covered. Darwin's theory, developed with very limited scientific knowledge and under inadequate scien-
tific conditions, claimed that nature always "selected" the fittest with the most advantages, and that life de-
veloped accordingly. According to this theory, built on totally erroneous foundations right from the outset,
life was the work of chance; Darwin thus rejected the fact that life was created by God (Surely God is be-
yond that!). After The Origin of Species, Darwin set about adapting his unscientific theory to human beings

in The Descent of Man. In that book, he referred to how the so-called backward races would be eliminat-
ed in the near future, and that the more advanced ones would develop and succeed. Darwin's adapting his
theory of evolution to human beings, in this book and certain other of his writings, shaped Social

Darwinism.
His determined followers then carried matters forward. The most prominent proponents and practi-
tioners of Social Darwinism's were Herbert Spencer and Darwin's cousin Francis Galton in Britain, certain
academics like William Graham Sumner in America, and Darwinists such as Ernst Haeckel, and later fas-
cist racists like Adolf Hitler in Germany.

Social Darwinism quickly became a means whereby racists, imperialists, proponents of unfair compe-
tition under the banner of capitalism, and administrators who failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect
the poor and needy attempted to defend themselves. Social Darwinists sought to portray as a natural law

the oppression of the weak, the poor and so-called "inferior" races, as well as the elimination of the hand-
icapped by the healthy, and small businesses by large companies, suggesting that this was the only way
humanity could progress. They sought to justify all the injustices perpetrated throughout history under a
scientific rationale. Social Darwinism's lack of conscience and compassion was depicted as a law of nature
and the most important road to so-called evolution.

In particular, various American capitalists justified the climate of unrestrained competition they estab-
lished, according to their own lights, with quotations from Darwin. In fact, however, this was nothing less
than a huge deception. Those who attempted to give ruthless competition a so-called scientific basis were

merely lying. For instance, Andrew Carnegie, one of the greatest capitalists and one of those caught up in
that falsehood, said the following in a speech he gave in 1889:

The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries,
is also great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still than its cost — for it is to this law that we owe
our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train. ... While the law may be

sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every
department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great
inequality of environment; the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few; and
the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential to the future progress of the
race. 3

According to Social Darwinism the sole objective of a race is its physical, economic and political de-

velopment. Individuals' happiness, well-being, peace and security appear unimportant. No compassion at
all is felt for those who suffer and cry out for help, for those unable to provide their children, families and
aged parents food, medicine or shelter, or for the poor and powerless. According to this twisted concept,
someone poor but morally upright is regarded as worthless, and that person's death will actually benefit

society. In addition, someone rich but morally corrupt is regarded as "most important" for the "progress of
the race" and, no matter what the conditions, that individual is seen as very valuable. This twisted logic
propels Social Darwinism's proponents towards moral and spiritual collapse. In 1879, another Social
Darwinist, William Graham Sumner, expressed this perverted trend's deceptions:

... we cannot go outside of this alternative: liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; non-liberty, equality, sur-

vival of the unfittest. The former carries society forward and favors all its best members; the latter carries soci-

566 Atlas of Creation Vol. 3