Evolution and Society – 150 Years Later

Evolutionary theory has been shaped by society from initial rejection to partial acceptance depending on culture and religion.  The societal background that Darwin came from may have caused the theory to have been conceived differently if the beholder of the theory come from a lower-income neighborhood in London.

Another important societal ingredient was viewing of breeding as a way man affects natural selection with the speculation of if you can imagine, this process is left up to nature.  Society was interpreting evolution as the force   that can change the future path of society by turning famine into new food supplies.

Societal force pushed back through Gould to question gradualism proposed by Darwin.  This was another instance where the challengers were healthy in the development of the ever-changing body of theory.  Two other push backs were in the area of constraints and interactions.  The idea of constraints is basically not all variations are equally likely or even possible.   Interaction focuses on the fact that there are relationships among genetic, cellular and environmental factors that combined contribute to organism development.

Society received the concept of evolution in various ways.  The ways that different parts of society accepted evolution contributed to evolutionary theory.  Many individuals adapted the concept into their teachings.

The evolutionary theory was used to explain society.  It should be noted that there is no clean separation between biology and culture.  We are born premature and begin interacting with the environment immediately.  We continue learning throughout our life time by continued interaction with the environment.

Some examples of how evolution was applied to society follow.  The term survival of the fittest was used to interpret why some people did better than others.  Another interpretation was made by Andrew Carnegie to explain society in general.  The focus was on struggle, competition and progression.

The idea of evolution as applied to heredity traits was interpreted as good breeding.  This was carried to the extreme with the Nazi genocide.

In 1950 UNESCO made a declaration that emphasized that ethnic differences were what differentiated people of the human species and not race.  Two key insights of the insights of the evolution of human behavior was the idea of kin selection proposed by Hamilton and game theory proposed by John Maynard Smith.  Kin selection suggested the benefit of group was more important than the individual benefit.  Thus the altruistic acts for related parties were done in certain groups.  Also game theory helped explain other aspects of animal behavior.

Evolutionary theory is the foundation of biology.  Biology is an important research area related to illness and medicine.  This is an important relationship between evolution and society.  It appears that they go hand in hand, one thriving off the other.  “Evolution can not tell us how societies ought to behave”.

We need to embrace the 1950 UNESCO declaration which is one of three key points of my writings.   If you believe in evolution or creationism the underlying concept is that we all came from one set of parents.  We are all related and we are all brothers and sisters.  Let us look at similarities and not the differences.

Thoughts and comments.