Social Darwinism

[Nie Trink Wasser]

what are your thoughts on Social Darwinism ?


what in your opinion will be the last surviving elements of our species for better or worse ?


examples :

will great liars prevail over devotedly honest people ?

will great numbers of vicious humans overcome great numbers of intelligent ones ?

[Marquis de Carabas]

Great numbers of intelligent people would beat a great number of vicious people, I believe. However, the two groups are not mutually exclusive.

Also, it should be noted that we haven't yet produced that great a number of the intelligent types.

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by Nie Trink Wasser
What are your thoughts on Social Darwinism?

Garbage.
Evolution selects for the gene. For groups survival depends upon individual
action and this permits selection between competing groups, if each group
has unique genes. Social Darwinism has nothing to select for. In this day
and age ideas, people, and other things move freely across all borders.
I suggest you look into
memes (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MEMIN.html).

[Nie Trink Wasser]

MEMES !

exactly............what memes would you consider to be a stronger force in our cultures ?

not exactly ones we'd like to see become stronger, but ones that actually are..

[neutrino_cannon]

Social Darwinism, or more precisely, social Spencerism is not so much a set of congruent and sensical socioeconomic ideals (like Communism or Capitalism) but a justification for oppressing the poor. The cooincidence that it came about at around the same time as the theory of evolution is unfortunate, as it has very little application to or from evolutionary theory.

Triangle shirtwiast company. Need I say more.

[chance]

Nie Trink Wasser One of the strongest Memes that has propagated is the rights of the common man, It wasn’t so long ago when the poor were considered property, but once the idea took it has been a strong influence on many cultures. It would take a global calamity to undermine that Meme.

As far as humans go it has been said the ‘Meme evolution’ has usurped biological evolution.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Synchronicity

Garbage.
Evolution selects for the gene. For groups survival depends upon individual
action and this permits selection between competing groups, if each group
has unique genes. Social Darwinism has nothing to select for. In this day
and age ideas, people, and other things move freely across all borders.
I suggest you look into
memes (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MEMIN.html).

In total agreement; Social Darwinism (along with sociobiology) seem more about justifying a particular state of affairs than explaining them.

I'd recommend Berger & Luckman's Social Constructivism, Gidden's structuration theory and Foucault's epistemes. Not quite as sexy as Dorkin's memes, but on the other hand sociologists have been dealing with this kind of stuff for blimmin' ages now...