Talk:Social Darwinism

"Government intervention"

Computing and commuting and missed the edit summary: sorry. RV "socialism" as having the wrong-in fact nearly the opposite-meaning.--Old Moonraker (talk) 15:04, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

This article needs better clarification to differentiate between the individualist form of social Darwinism and the collectivist form of social Darwinism. Darwinian Collectivism or Reform Darwinism, rather than Social Darwinism or Darwinian Individualism, are more accurate terms for Hitler's Eugenics which is the planned state control of human breeding—a program that no proponent of laissez-faire could consistently endorse. I may tackle this later if nobody gets to it.Origins of the Myth of Social Darwinism: The Ambiguous Legacy of Richard Hofstadter’s Social Darwinism in American Thought (2009), p, 37-51 and Mistaking Eugenics for Social Darwinism: Why Eugenics is Missing from the History of American Economics (2005)--Trueliberal (talk) 17:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the links which look useful. As usual, "Darwinism" is misleading as it's a pejorative term for concepts that Darwin himself did not espouse or endorse. Planned state control of human breeding was taken up enthusiastically by people in several states of the U.S., and laws were passed accordingly, it's an interesting question as to whether these American Mendelian eugenicists were proponents of laissez-faire but clearly misleading to call them Darwinists. Not that we can expect them to have been consistent in their endorsements. . . dave souza, talk 10:53, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Idiot's Guide

The Idiot's Guide to world history was written by a high school teacher without a PhD (says Amazon.com) and does not meet minimal standards in WP:RS (rule is "we only publish the opinions of reliable authors") -- please use some of the powerful books that are listed in the article. Rjensen (talk) 18:53, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

The opening paragraph seems quite confusing, especially the first sentence. It seems to me that it should begin with a simple definition. Something like: Social Darwinism is a belief, popular in the late Victorian era in England, America, and elsewhere, which states that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die.

As it is currently worded it almost sounds like the opposite is true. "Coined by those opposed to survival of the fittest" - ?? I get what you're going for, but that shouldn't be in the opening paragraph.Jasonnewyork (talk) 15:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree completely. Buss is neither a neutral observer or a specialist in social darwinism - quite the contrary in fact.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:31, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Nazi atrocities

I have specified what "atrocities" are referred to in the lead since they were not so described before.Peterlewis (talk) 16:25, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

And I have removed it again - it doesn't need to specific in the lead but can be explained in detail below. Specifically you can't insert it into a sentence that is supported by a source that doesn't mention that particular issue. The source in fact states that even before WWII the term was generally pejorative, so you make it contradict itself when inserting it like that. Furthermore the Nazi atrocities are already mentioned in the first paragraph.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:28, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Referenc to 'naturalistic fallacy' is misleading

Just reading the last sentence in the introduction, I think that's poorly written. My understanding is:

- one *can* start with darwins theory and apply it to society to arrive at social darwinism, in a strictly technical, amoral context, but

- one *does not necessarily* have to arrive at social darwinism from this starting point (per the first reference), and quite distinctly:

- if one introduces the entire dimension of morality, then one cannot use darwinism as a moral justification for the consequences of social darwinism (hence the invocation of the naturalistic fallacy).

The problem is, a cursory reading of that might easily go like:

- scholars have said that social darwinism doesn't follow from darwin's theory, and - using darwin's theory to arrive at social darwinism is a naturalistic fallacy, and - (following the link to naturalistic fallacy) this is probably a 'formal fallacy', ergo, the link between social darwinism and darwin's theory has been formally shown to be false.

Now, that's a completely incorrect statement, but it's a bit too easy to misapprehend (I know, because that's exactly how I just read it, until I did a double take and read around it a bit). I think this needs to be much more clearly worded, either to make it clear that the reference to 'naturalistic fallacy' is only applicable if you introduce a 'moral' dimension to the equation, which is quite aside from a logical progression or commonality between the two concepts, or else and maybe better just to remove the reference to avoid muddying the waters for the casual reader.

thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.176.223.225 (talk) 21:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Vague terminology

The second paragraph is vague and misleading viz. -

In sociology it has been defined as a theory of social evolution which asserts that "There are underlying, and largely irresistible, forces acting in societies which are like the natural forces that operate in animal and plant communities. One can therefore formulate social laws similar to natural ones. These social forces are of such a kind as to produce evolutionary progress through the natural conflicts between social groups. The best-adapted and most successful social groups survive these conflicts, raising the evolutionary level of society generally (the 'survival of the fittest')."[5]

What is the "the evolutionary level of society" and can it be "raised"?

--Craigmac41 (talk) 21:06, 21 December 2011 (UTC)