Total Darwin Rewrite in progress: “Survival of the fittest” now means “sympathy”
The Darwinians must have considered the possibility that they aren’t popular for a reason:
Yet Darwin’s use of the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ was hardly meant to suggest that existence was a knockdown, drag-out fight – he was very clear that generosity, sympathy and all those other traits that give us warm feelings are central to human survival.
“Don’t misread Darwin: for humans, ‘survival of the fittest’ means being sympathetic” at Aeon
Funny how so many people, whether they agreed with Darwin or not, got it so wrong all these years … How did it get to be called “social Darwinism” anyway, as opposed to, say, “social Florence Nightingale-ism”?
You know, it’s almost like Darwin didn’t really think what some now need to portray him as thinking …

Note: Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was an important figure in the development of hospital nursing.
See also: Do racial assumptions prevent recognizing Homo erectus as fully human?
Was Neanderthal man fully human? The role racism played in assessing the evidence
and
Teilhard De Chardin: The “Evolution” Priest’s Legacy Included Racism and Social Darwinism, Says Theologian
Follow UD News at Twitter!
Copyright © 2019 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana
Michael J. Behe's Blog
- Michael J. Behe's profile
- 219 followers
