The Struggle Between Natural Selection And Social Darwinism

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Charles Darwin observed that all living organisms produce more offspring than can survive in a given environment, thus there is a struggle to survive. Offspring with features that are beneficial to survival for the environment tend to survive, while the offspring with non-beneficial features tend to die. For example, if there is a shortage of food in the environment of giraffes, only the giraffes with long necks will survive and reproduce. In other words, there is a survival of the fittest in which only the organisms with adaptive features will pass their genes on to the next generation. Darwin called this selection of adaptive characteristics occurring among offspring natural selection. Natural selection accounts for the slow evolution of …show more content…
Similar to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, Marx believed that the struggle between social classes eliminated imperfections that polluted society. In other words, society becomes more perfect as it evolves, thus present-day society is more perfect than past society. This is similar to how Darwin viewed animals becoming more evolved with the passage of time, thus humans are more evolved than the animals they came from but they are less evolved than the animals that will evolve from them. Herbert Spencer took the principles of Darwin and Marx and created Social Darwinism. Social Darwinists believed that the rich were better adapted to society than the poor and they opposed governmental interference. They viewed life as a competition that “weeded” out the weak thus leaving the strong to flourish. If the government interfered with this “natural selection” than the weak would be able to reproduce and pass their “weak” genes on to the next generation thus tarnishing society. The upperclass and the “robber-barons” liked Social Darwinism because they used it to justify laissez-faire
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