By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
The “judgement of history depends on who wrote the history” is a truism attributed to Winston Churchill.
I wonder how historians will rate President Trump. One thing I have discovered when I read about history that I have lived through, such as the Vietnam war, is much I thought I knew about the war is wrong.
More about that in another column. We now have insight that helps us realize where we went wrong and why.
The eminent Professor of History at Harvard University, Samuel Eliot Morison in his Oxford History of The American People, wrote that, in the late 1800s, “the three writers who had the most influence on the American mind were English—Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, and Herbert Spencer.”
Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer were all focused on spreading the wisdom of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to improve society. In short, Morison wrote that Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer raised laissez-faire, a policy of not interfering in business, “to a dogma among American businessmen… and taught that the functions of the state should be limited to internal police and foreign protection—no public education, no limitation of hours of labor, no welfare legislation.
To this he added in his Principles of Biology (presenting the theories of his friend Darwin) the phrase ‘survival of the fittest,’ which exactly suited the winners in the dog-eat-dog competition of that day.
So deep did Spencer’s theories penetrate American thought that Justice Holmes, in a dissenting opinion, felt obligated to remind his fellow jurists that Social Statics [applied Darwinism] were not embodied in the Constitution of the United States.”
We now realize that it is cruel to force seven-year-old’s to slave for 14 hours a day in a hot factory, and public education is not just for the rich, but for everyone. Furthermore, we cannot imagine a society that does not provide health care, social security, unemployment insurance, and the right to join a union to fight for worker rights.
Nor can we imagine a world without a health department to make our society, as far as possible, safe from disease. Yet the Darwinian worldview taught that, due to Darwin’s survival of the fittest law, the weak deserve to die and the superior to thrive. Furthermore, the fittest deserve to rule the rest of us.
The harm of Darwinism is not hidden in history books but openly discussed in many widely available popular sources. The Encyclopedia Britannica concluded in their section on Herbert Spencer, that he “played a significant role in American social policy by providing intellectual justification for laissez-faire capitalism and minimal government intervention through his theory of ‘Social Darwinism,’ which applied the concept of “survival of the fittest” to human society, essentially arguing that the wealthy and successful were naturally superior and government assistance would hinder social progress; this perspective was embraced by many industrialists to oppose social reforms and advocate for minimal government regulation.”
Furthermore, Spencer’s Darwinian teaching justified inequality by applying “survival of the fittest” to society as a whole.
Spencer’s ideas rationalized wealth disparity based on the Darwinian belief that the poor were poor because they were less-fit to succeed. And the rich were rich because they were more-fit to succeed in the world economic system.
Of course, Darwin did not openly condemn child labor laws, health departments, or universal education, but his philosophy clearly lead many of his prominent followers to oppose these innovations.
One man he influenced greatly was Adolph Hitler in his book Mein Kampf, the Bible of the Nazi movement. Parts of Mein Kampf read like they were plagiarized right out of Darwin’s writings.
The blame for the Holocaust and the eugenics horror that sterilized many thousands of poor American girls, largely falls on the shoulders of Darwin’s, and Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton’s, ideas. It took almost a half-century to overthrow the harm of Spencer’s Darwinian teaching.
The most deleterious effect of Darwin’s writing was its attack on God-directed faith. Before Darwin, most every naturalist, indeed most citizens of Western society, were creationists and theists.
After Darwin, 90 percent of leading scientists were evolutionists, and the majority of naturalists and academics were atheists.
Ironically, Darwin is still glorified by the media and the textbooks. An example is the best-selling works by Tufts University Professor Daniel Dennett who wrote that “Darwin’s idea of natural selection is the best idea anybody ever had, ahead of Newton, ahead of Einstein.”
Darwin is venerated in Western society today. A first edition of Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species sold for over a half a million dollars at a recent auction.
Less desirable original copies sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The deleterious effect of Darwin on society is well documented, but often ignored due to modern worship of Darwin.
For example, The Natural History Museum of London labeled Darwin as “History’s most famous biologist” and that “his theory of evolution by natural selection is widely recognized as a landmark scientific breakthrough that fundamentally changed our understanding of life on Earth.”
It certainly did that. One way of judging acceptance of someone is how often they are honored on postage stamps.
According to “Darwin Online,” Charles Darwin has been featured on postage stamps from at least sixty countries, and there exist over 100 different Darwin stamps.
Of note is the fact that Darwin has never been featured on a single American postage stamp. Too many American know about the enormous harm he has caused this country and the world.
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Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,800 publications in 12 languages and 60 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,500 college libraries in 27 countries. All 60 of Bergman’s books are on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other bookstores.
