Page 570 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Darwin Himself Was a Social Darwinist

No matter how much today's evolutionists try to separate Darwin's name from the sufferings that

Social Darwinism gave birth to, Darwin used unambiguous Social Darwinist expressions, especially in his
Descent of Man and other writings. As far back as 1869, in a letter to Hugo Thiel he stated that he saw no
objection to his theory being applied to society:

You will really believe how much interested I am in observing that you apply to moral and social questions
analogous views to those which I have used in regard to the modification of species. 6

Benjamin Wiker is a lecturer in theology and science at Franciscan University and author of Moral

Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists. In an interview, he stated that Darwin was the first Social Darwinist,
and continued:

Like it or not, it is quite clear when you read his Descent of Man that Darwin himself was the first Social
Darwinist and the father of the modern eugenics movement. Social Darwinism and eugenics are derived di-
rectly from his principle of natural selection.

I think the real reason for people objecting to someone making connections between Darwinism and things like
eugenics is that they don't want the theory to be tarnished by its moral implications. But the implications are

there, not only in the text, but as evidenced in the social and moral effects Darwinism has had in the century
and a half since it appeared. 7

As you'll see in the following chapters, many of Darwin's expressions and statements clearly reveal
him to have been the original source of Social Darwinism. Modern evolutionists hesitate to accept these
views on account of Social Darwinism's terrifying results in the 20th century. Yet competition, racism, and
discrimination—fundamental elements of Social Darwinism—also lie at the basis of the theory of evolu-

tion. Whether or not evolutionists accept the fact, these are the consequences of adopting Darwinism. Any
theory that views human beings as the product of chance, as a slightly more advanced form of animal; that
claims that some races are less developed than others and are therefore closer to animals; and that hu-
manity can progress by means of the strong oppressing the weak, will inevitably have tragic consequences.

Evolutionists' apparent rejection of Social Darwinism is no solution. Our hope is that those whom has the
theory deceived will finally come to accept that the theory of
evolution is scientifically bankrupt.

The Error of Applying Nature's Laws

to Human Beings

At the time when Darwin proposed his theory, science
was still rather backward in many respects. The electron

microscope had not yet been invented, for which rea-
son the minute details of living organisms were
unseen. The cell still resembled a simple blot, and

no one knew that it possessed a structure no less
complex than that of a city, made up of a great
many different organelles. There was no science
of genetics; the biological laws of inheritance re-
mained to be discovered. Many biologists and

scientists, including Darwin himself, were suffi-
ciently ignorant as to believe that "acquired"

Benjamin Wiker's book Moral Darwinism and Darwin's
book The Descent of Man

568 Atlas of Creation Vol. 3