Has Darwin damaged history?

[sonic]

Hi all.

 

Just an idea that's been rattling around in my mind for a while now. I thought that members of the forum could help me?

 

When Darwin published 'The Origin of Species' he declared that life was always evolving and that, apart from in isolated circumstances, life was the 'Survival of the Fittest'. Obviously, this was then adopted by historians who saw the whole of prehistory and history as a dynamic growth to the point where we are now.

 

However, I'm coming to the conclusion that this has distorted our image of the past, as some historians and the majority of the public cannot believe that ancient civilizations could accomplish what they did and we don't know how to replicate it etc.

 

Therefore, I think that Darwin's 'Theory of Evolution' has warped our beliefs about the past.

 

Am I right in this or going completely mad?

[Ingsoc]

I don't think it's necessarily had anything to Darwin, people just like to think themselves as better advance and morally superior to the ancient barbaric civilizations of the past.

[sonic]

I don't think it's necessarily had anything to Darwin, people just like to think themselves as better advance and morally superior to the ancient barbaric civilizations of the past.

 

I'm not too sure about that. I think that until Darwin's time people in the West liked to think of themselves as inheritors of the Roman Empire, and stood in awe of its achievements. However, with Darwinism taking hold, it's hard to believe that the Romans - or anybody else - could have achieved things we do not understand, simply because we are the 'survivors' in an obviously superior age. Therefore, although a minority understand that we actually don't know as much as we think, a large proportion can't really believe that, for example, the Romans could have a highly-developed medical service for the army, or that they could put an awning over the Colosseum, and it's obvious that everybody thought that the Earth was flat until Columbus proved it wasn't! The 'Antykthera' (please don't correct my spelling!! ) mechanism couldn't have been built by ancient people without the use of modern technology - it's obvious!!

 

Reading the very old histories (eg Gibbon and before) makes me think that they thought that the Romans and possibly the Egyptians and Greeks could surpass the modern world. Now, thanks to Darwin, modern people are convinced that prior to the Renaissance the world was a very backward one.

 

Even now Terry Jones (ex-Python and neo-historian) can make a series of programs about the 'Middle Ages' and attempt to correct our distorted view. Again, I'd suggest that at least some of the blame lies with Darwin, as 'everybody knows' how backwards they were even as late as the Middle Ages with regards to disease etc.

 

Although the Greeks are seen as advanced 'politically' in some respects, and the Romans as advanced beyond their time, they still are seen as pale shadows of what we are now. Darwinism lives!!

Edited June 27, 2008 by sonic

[Kosmo]

"Social Darwinism", the idea of evolution based on natural selection applied to human society, does not belong to Charles Darwin (being created mainly by Herbert Spencer), and does not have many supporters.

[docoflove1974]

I don't think it's necessarily had anything to Darwin, people just like to think themselves as better advance and morally superior to the ancient barbaric civilizations of the past.

 

I'm not too sure about that. I think that until Darwin's time people in the West liked to think of themselves as inheritors of the Roman Empire, and stood in awe of its achievements. However, with Darwinism taking hold, it's hard to believe that the Romans - or anybody else - could have achieved things we do not understand, simply because we are the 'survivors' in an obviously superior age. Therefore, although a minority understand that we actually don't know as much as we think, a large proportion can't really believe that, for example, the Romans could have a highly-developed medical service for the army, or that they could put an awning over the Colosseum, and it's obvious that everybody thought that the Earth was flat until Columbus proved it wasn't! The 'Antykthera' (please don't correct my spelling!! ) mechanism couldn't have been built by ancient people without the use of modern technology - it's obvious!!

 

Eh, while it is true that it is a common viewpoint in the published works of the 19th and 20th century, it was used before then, too. Early linguists and philologists of the 19th century used similar arguments of 'primitive languages' of 'early primitive cultures'; even earlier in the 16th-18th century philologists used similar arguments (Wikipedia's site on philology isn't half bad at this). Even when the Europeans conquered much of the new world, describing the peoples and their languages as primitive. It's not accurate, but it was still a common practice.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Therefore, I think that Darwin's 'Theory of Evolution' has warped our beliefs about the past.

Am I right in this or going completely mad?

Salve, S.

You're surely not mad. From where I am, Charles Darwin actually helped to clarify our beliefs about the past.

[Ursus]

I rather agree with Kosmo's assessment.

 

And furthermore, when I was in college a few years ago, the intellectual prism through which the majority of professional academics viewed history and social sciences was at the opposite end from social darwinism.

[ASCLEPIADES]

"Social Darwinism", the idea of evolution based on natural selection applied to human society, does not belong to Charles Darwin (being created mainly by Herbert Spencer), and does not have many supporters.

Salve, K.

You're right, of course. But we must remember Charles Darwin himself was largely inspired by Thomas Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) for his own theories.

 

It can be argued Malthus was a "pre-Darwinian social darwinist". Both authors had a huge impact on countless social studies and scholars, some of them as influential as Nietzsche, Marx, Lenin ... and Hitler.

 

I think it's undeniable natural selection, however you interpret it, is a capital factor on human social evolution; it just can't be other way. But most authors tend to grossly distort the facts for their own agendas.

 

In ancient Rome's terms, a good example can be made from Polybius of Megalopolis and Dionysius of Halicarnassus; both romanized Greeks presented Roman Republic as what we might nowadays call the acme of political evolution and natural selection of their known world.

 

The way they saw it, the Roman constitution had not any defect like those they found on Athenian democracy, Spartan oligarchy or Macedonian autocracy; Roman constitution had exclusively gotten the virtues of them all.

[sonic]

I think it's undeniable natural selection, however you interpret it, is a capital factor on human social evolution; it just can't be other way. But most authors tend to grossly distort the facts for their own agendas.

 

I agree that authors can grossly distort the facts to suit their own agendas - albeit mainly without knowing it.

 

However, it's your acceptance of 'natural selection' as a 'capital factor on human social evolution' that was the point of my post. Although I think it safe to assume that you don't fall into the pitfalls of this belief, individuals who are less knowledgeable about the past simply assume that ancient societies were backwards and nowhere near our level socially, politically and scientifically.

 

 

And furthermore, when I was in college a few years ago, the intellectual prism through which the majority of professional academics viewed history and social sciences was at the opposite end from social darwinism.

 

I think this highlights my point: if Social Darwinism hadn't had an impact, there wouldn't be an opposite end of the spectrum for professional academics to be at.

 

However, my question wasn't really concerned with academic interpretations, but with a possible underlying acceptance among a large number of people that the ancients couldn't possibly know what we know today, because we are the end result of 'evolution' and they were obviously backwards.

[Northern Neil]

However, my question wasn't really concerned with academic interpretations, but with a possible underlying acceptance among a large number of people that the ancients couldn't possibly know what we know today, because we are the end result of 'evolution' and they were obviously backwards.

I think it is a common belief amongst most humans in developed societies. As a child I held the belief that the further back in time one went, people were les and less intelligent or advanced. Bronze age people were less advanced or intelligent than Iron age people but more advanced and intelligent than stone age people, for example. Most people who do not read history books make this assumption, and I dont believe it is anything to do with Darwinism. This has always been the case even when society has taken retrograde steps: In the middle ages the church looked back at the pagans of the classical world and considered theirs a more enlightened and developed society, forgetting that their religion started out as a populist cult which impeded learning and philosophy once it gained ground. Likewise modern totalitarian revolutionaries who burn books and ban some art and literature because it is degenerate.

Edited June 28, 2008 by Northern Neil

[M. Porcius Cato]

I think Doc already provided the definitive answer to Sonic's question: the notion of inevitable progress over time predates Darwin quite a bit. Indeed, the clearest expression of the idea that history marches through progressive stages comes, not from Darwin, but from Hegel, whose ideas on the topic were inspired by the German Christian mystic [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_B

[sonic]

I think Doc already provided the definitive answer to Sonic's question: the notion of inevitable progress over time predates Darwin quite a bit. Indeed, the clearest expression of the idea that history marches through progressive stages comes, not from Darwin, but from Hegel, whose ideas on the topic were inspired by the German Christian mystic [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_B

[M. Porcius Cato]

In this way the oversimplification of Darwin's theories has helped to reinforce already-held prejudices about the past being inevitably poorer than the present?

 

Nicely put.

[Kosmo]

The ideas of Malthus were great for biology but not good for the study of humans. An animal population with lots of food will increase until they run out of food while, today we see the richest human populations with lots of access to food are dropping in numbers.

 

"The coming population bust" a nice article about Malthus and world demographic trends on IHT:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/23/opinion/edjacoby.php

 

Natural selection does not apply to humans as it does to animals. Weak, unfit people can have offspring while strong and healthy might die childless.

To use it for populations it's also wrong. European conquests brought colonialism and a numeric bust of the conquered populations. While some more vulnerable populations decreased in numbers (like those in America) most rapidly increased (in Asia and Africa)

Another example it's in Transilvania. Here, for a 1000 years, Hungarians and Germans were more successful then Romanians as they ruled the country, owned the land, lived in cities and had better education. Usually more affluent populations have a lower rate of increase then illiterate peasants. This applied in Transilvania meant that romanians gradually became the absolute majority and finally reached political and economic power. Who was the successful group? I say that natural selection works the other way around to humans: a more successful population has greater chances of extinction by demographic decline. And this is maybe the roman story.

[docoflove1974]

In this way the oversimplification of Darwin's theories has helped to reinforce already-held prejudices about the past being inevitably poorer than the present?

 

Nicely put.

 

Indeed...and I recommend a book for everyone about Darwinian theory in general...and how to put it to use:

 

Hull, David L. 1988. Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

 

This is a great book to understand what "Darwinian theory of evolution" really is, and what it's been turned into. Additionally, Hull takes what he believes to be true Darwinian theory (aka Darwin's exact thinking) and applies it to a sociological and historical analysis of two groups of 'evolutionary' biologists. Really, the entire book is a blueprint for how one can take Darwin's ideas (not versions of his theories) and apply them to various areas of academia--history, linguistics, biology, etc. Hull argues vociferously against 'social Darwinism', and so one of his goals is to show us all how to really use Darwin's theories to analyze diachronic change (in whatever field). Indeed, the linguistic theory that I am investigating and testing out (that of William Croft) is based on Hull's (and, really, Darwin's) concepts. I heartily recommend it...Hull is a philosopher and historian of Darwinian and biological science, so his book is a good read, and I guarantee you will learn quite a bit.